Collaboration and cooperation between colleagues or friends. Problem solving concept. Business ... [+]
Why is cooperation important? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Abbie Maroño, PhD, Director of Education at Social-Engineer, LLC, on Quora:
To answer this in short; with cooperation our social interactions thrive, without it they wilt.
It would be difficult to overemphasis the importance of cooperation, not only because it was fundamental to the success of our species through evolutionary, but because it is fundamental to the success of almost all modern social interactions and relationships.
Let’s start by defining what cooperation actually means. Although definitions vary, cooperation has been defined as working or acting together for mutual benefit. It requires two or more people to act in the best interest of their collective rather than acting for selfish benefit. During task-related communication, cooperation can be expressed in terms of proposing a fair distribution of resources or equal outcomes.
If we consider the dangerous environments that our ancestors grew up in, where around every corner was a potential predator, or every meal scavenged had the potential to poison, it’s no surprise that cooperation was encouraged. Having strong social relationships, particularly group relationships, provided allies in wartime, advanced warnings for threats, a helping hand when sick or injured, and help gathering food as well as warnings about what to avoid eating. As a result, modern humans are hard-wired to find cooperation rewarding. In fact, researchers have demonstrated that cooperating with others is associated with increased reward related activity in the brain compared to engaging in non-cooperative exchanges, even when the physical rewards obtained from such exchange remain the same. Even just thinking about cooperating with others shows this increased reward related activity. Evidently, it is in our nature to want to cooperate, and this is why our relationships thrive when we do.
When we consider the needs of others and put the goals of the collective above the desire for selfish gain during decision making, we lay the groundwork for a strong trusting relationship to be built. For example, I don’t think I need to cover why cooperation is important in keeping our significant other happy, that one is readily apparent, particularly for those of you who are married. But it’s not just in our personal lives that cooperation allows us to thrive, the same goes for our professional lives. In business, when we work collaboratively with others be it at an individual level (between employees) or an industry level (between organizations), the shared resources and shared ideas enable innovation to flourish. It is exactly this cooperative approach of “two heads are better than one” that is at the heart of project success throughout academia and the private sector.
Thus, to put it simply, the practical and interpersonal benefits of increased cooperation are abundant.
This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
