Chapter 13 Competition and Cooperation in Our Social Worlds

One of the most important themes of this book has been the extent to which the two human motives of self-concern and other-concern guide our everyday behavior. We have seen that although these two underlying goals are in many ways in direct opposition to each other, they nevertheless work together to create successful human outcomes. Particularly important is the fact that we cannot protect and enhance ourselves and those we care about without the help of the people around us. We cannot live alone—we must cooperate, work with, trust, and even provide help to other people in order to survive. The self-concern motive frequently leads us to desire to not do these things because they sometimes come at a cost to the self. And yet in the end, we must create an appropriate balance between self and other.

In this chapter, we revisit this basic topic one more time by considering the roles of self-concern and other-concern in social relationships between people and the social groups they belong to, and among social groups themselves. We will see, perhaps to a greater extent than ever before, how important our relationships with others are and how careful we must be to develop and use these connections. Most important, we will see again that helping others also helps us help ourselves.

Furthermore, in this chapter, we will investigate the broadest level of analysis that we have so far considered—focusing on the cultural and societal level of analysis. In so doing, we will consider how the goals of self-concern and other-concern apply even to large groups of individuals, such as nations, societies, and cultures, and influence how these large groups interact with each other.

Most generally, we can say that when individuals or groups interact they may take either cooperative or competitive positions (De Dreu, 2010; Komorita & Parks, 1994).De Dreu, C. K. W. (2010). Social conflict: The emergence and consequences of struggle and negotiation. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 983–1023). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; Komorita, S. S., & Parks, C. D. (1994). Social dilemmas. Dubuque, IA: Brown & Benchmark. When we cooperate, the parties involved act in ways that they perceive will benefit both themselves and others. CooperationBehavior that occurs when we trust the people or groups with whom we are interacting and when we expect to profit through interaction with them. is behavior that occurs when we trust the people or groups with whom we are interacting and are willing to communicate and share with the others, expecting to profit ourselves through the increased benefits that can be provided through joint behavior. On the other hand, when we engage in competitionThe attempts by each party to gain as many of the limited rewards as possible and to reduce the likelihood of success for the other parties. we attempt to gain as many of the limited rewards as possible for ourselves, and at the same time we may work to reduce the likelihood of success for the other parties. Although competition is not always harmful, in some cases one or more of the parties may feel that their self-interest has not been adequately met and may attribute the cause of this outcome to another party (Miller, 2001).Miller, D. T. (2001). Disrespect and the experience of injustice. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 527–553. In these cases of perceived inequity or unfairness, competition may lead to conflictA situation in which it is perceived by the parties involved that gains made by others decrease their own chances of gaining rewards and thus that the desires of the parties are incompatible., in which the parties involved engage in violence and hostility (De Dreu, 2010).De Dreu, C. K. W. (2010). Social conflict: The emergence and consequences of struggle and negotiation. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 983–1023). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Although competition is normal and will always be a part of human existence, cooperation and sharing are too. Although they may generally look out for their own interests, individuals do realize that there are both costs and benefits to always making selfish choices (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978).Kelley, H. H., & Thibaut, J. W. (1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Although we might prefer to use as much gasoline as we want, or to buy a couple of new mp3s rather than contribute to the local food bank, at the same time we realize that doing so may have negative consequences for the group as a whole. People have simultaneous goals of cooperating and competing, and the individual must coordinate these goals in making a choice (De Dreu, 2010; Schelling, 1960/1980).De Dreu, C. K. W. (2010). Social conflict: The emergence and consequences of struggle and negotiation. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 983–1023). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; Schelling, T. (1960/1980). The strategy of conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

We will also see that human beings, as members of cultures and societies, internalize social norms that promote other-concern, in the form of morality and social fairness norms, and that these norms guide the conduct that allows groups to effectively function and survive (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010).Haidt, J., & Kesebir, S. (2010). Morality. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 797–832). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. As human beings, we want to do the right thing, and this includes accepting, cooperating, and working with others. And we will do so when we can. However, as in so many other cases, we will also see that the social situation frequently creates a powerful force that makes it difficult to cooperate and easy to compete.

A social dilemmaA situation in which the goals of the individual conflict with the goals of the group. is a situation in which the goals of the individual conflict with the goals of the group (Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005; Suleiman, Budescu, Fischer, & Messick, 2004; Van Lange, De Cremer, Van Dijk, & Van Vugt, 2007).Penner, L. A., Dovidio, J. F., Piliavin, J. A., & Schroeder, D. A. (2005). Prosocial behavior: Multilevel perspectives. Annual Review of Psychology, 56, 365–392; Suleiman, R., Budescu, D. V., Fischer, I., & Messick, D. M. (Eds.). (2004). Contemporary psychological research on social dilemmas. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; Van Lange, P. A. M., De Cremer, D., Van Dijk, E., & Van Vugt, M. (Eds.). (2007). Self-interest and beyond: Basic principles of social interaction. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Social dilemmas impact a variety of important social problems because the dilemma creates a type of trap: Even though an individual or group may want to be cooperative, the situation leads to competitive behavior. For instance, the watermen we considered in the chapter opener find themselves in a social dilemma—they want to continue to harvest as many crabs as they can, and yet if they all do so, the supply will continue to fall, making the situation worse for everyone.

Although social dilemmas create the potential for conflict and even hostility, those outcomes are not inevitable. People usually think that situations of potential conflict are fixed-sum outcomesA situation in which a gain for one side in a conflict necessarily means a loss for the other side or sides., meaning that a gain for one side necessarily means a loss for the other side or sides (Halevy, Chou, & Murnighan, 2011).Halevy, N., Chou, E. Y., & Murnighan, J. K. (2011). Mind games: The mental representation of conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=psyh&AN=2011-20586-001&site=ehost-live But this is not always true. In some cases, the outcomes are instead integrative outcomesA potential solution that benefits all the parties involved in a conflict., meaning that a solution can be found that benefits all the parties. In the last section of this chapter, we will consider the ways that we can work to increase cooperation and to reduce competition, discussing some of the contributions that social psychologists have made to help solve some important social dilemmas (Oskamp, 2000a, 2000b).Oskamp, S. (2000a). Psychological contributions to achieving an ecologically sustainable future for humanity. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 373–390; Oskamp, S. (2000b). A sustainable future for humanity? How can psychology help? American Psychologist, 55(5), 496–508.