Understanding the Benefits of Cooperation CONTINUED

In Robert Axelrod’s book, The Evolution of Cooperation, the idea that cooperation can be a naturally occurring phenomenon in many biological systems is explored. In particular, the idea that cooperation occurs within species and between species is important. Mutually advantageous cooperative relationships are found in many biological systems. Trees that feed and house ants which in turn protect the trees is one example. Fig wasps and fig trees where wasps, which are parasites of fig flowers, serve as the tree’s sole means of pollination is another example (Axelrod 90). How do these cooperative relationships develop? Does each new generation of wasp have to learn to cooperate with the fig tree, is it part of the wasp’s natural ability to have this reciprocal relationship, or is it the circumstance that has developed over generations of learning that makes the selection of this behavior pattern successful for each new generation? Cooperation may be an accident in the evolution of a species, but if that accident works to promote the species’ survival in the long term, it would follow that the cooperative behavior has become an innate ability of which the species now has ownership. It may also follow that we as humans learned to cooperate in groups because we are stronger in groups than we are as individuals. Have we made use of this skill for long enough, and have those humans that know this skill innately survived at a better rate than those that don’t know the skill? Is that skill no longer learned but is in fact part of our genetic predisposition? The literature reviewed so far makes me believe that humans are in the midst of a cooperation evolution right now and that we as individuals and groups may be in a mixed state of higher and lower levels of cooperative ability.

Raviv relies on learning and teaching as the basis for cooperation in humans and groups of humans. Raviv writes, “Peace continues as long as nations cooperate effectively and manage their conflicts constructively. War results from the breakdown of cooperation and the destructive management of conflict. War ends when effective cooperation is reestablished among participants. Children and adolescents tend to gain an understanding of the nature of war and peace through their daily experiences with cooperation and conflict…It is through their daily participation in cooperative efforts that an implicit understanding of peace is developed” (Raviv 276). From a very early age, humans have had the ability to understand that cooperation can work to end conflicts and yet it would appear that we have the ability to also unlearn this idea and move more towards an individual-centered base of thinking. The overlap of what we are born with and what we develop through learning is exaggerated when we deal with cooperation. If our successes, especially in early childhood, come from cooperation with those around us, our natural abilities to cooperate are reinforced. If a higher success rate comes in the form of competition and individualistic behavior, our abilities to cooperate can be lost or at least forgotten. David Specht writes “An additional complexity around this is that cooperation is by definition a co-venture necessitating the involvement of multiple parties. So that it is possible that one group may be inclined to cooperate, but find themselves unable to address their conflict in that way because of an unwillingness of their counterpart to similarly engage, increasing the likelihood that they may, as a matter of survival perhaps, resort to either strategies of accommodating or competing. So we may know and even be inclined toward cooperation by virtue of nature and nurture both and still find ourselves resorting to other less desirable strategies” (Specht comments).