Many years ago I undertook study for a Certificate in Community Education.
One of the concepts that stuck in my mind from then was this: people may come
along to a community course to learn something, but what keeps them there is
often the connection they make with other participants. This simple observation
is not just true of education. It applies in many aspects of human
endeavour.We cooperate with others because we enjoy their company, because we want to share with them – we want to share good times, we want to share happiness, we want to share our humanity.
We may think that we cooperate in order to achieve something, or to accomplish goals; but if we dig further, we find something else going on in the human psyche. We cooperate because we want to cooperate – it’s as simple as that.
One of the reasons we want to cooperate is because it makes us happy. In research studies, neuroscientists have found that when participants cooperate, then the part of their brains that generate good feelings are activated.
We are also more inclined to remember people with whom we have shared pleasant, happy, and rewarding times, rather than those who have treated us badly.
Cooperation is also why we have survived. Although many contemporary ideologies tell us that progress is achieved through competition, it is our cooperative tendencies that have allowed us to survive and evolve. The diminutive saying that supposedly summarises Darwin’s theories – survival of the fittest – is a misunderstanding and misreading of Darwin. Not only did Darwin not utter that phrase, neither did he mean “fit” in the sense of fastest, toughest, strongest. He meant it in the same sense that a jigsaw piece “fits” into a total picture.1
Yes, it seems we cooperate for the fun of it.
Leaders and facilitators of groups do well to remember this. If groups, communities, or societies are coerced to focus on goals and accomplishments and admonished to cooperate to do so, then those groups, communities, and societies, will begin to lose their zest for life.
So, let us remember that by cooperating we find our happiness, and this is a greater motivator than are goals or targets.
Notes:
1. See an earlier blog for a more thorough discussion of “survival of the fittest.”
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