Cooperation and competition in peaceful societies.

Abstract

Most of the world's nonviolent societies base their peaceful worldviews on cooperation and an opposition to competition. Although they have nurturant, affiliative societies, many raise their children to be hesitant and fearful about the intentions of others so that they will internalize nonviolent values and never take their peacefulness, or that of others, for granted. The children in these societies lack competitive games; although they are loved as babies, by the time they are 2 or 3 years old, they are made to feel no more important than others. These societies devalue achievement because it leads to competition and aggressiveness, which leads to violence they feel. Their rituals reinforce their cooperative, harmonious beliefs and behaviors. They have internalized their peaceful, cooperative values so that their psychological structures accord with their beliefs in nonviolence.Most people in the United States, according to A. Kohn (1986), fervently believe in competition: It is a fundamental aspect of human nature; people live in a dog-eat-dog world; people need to compete to survive and prosper. Competition, it is argued, is necessary for the United States' economic prosperity, and it is essential for achievement in sports, science, arts, and music (Abra, 1993).However, many social scientists do not share this enthusiasm for competition. The investigations of some psychological researchers reflect an unease about the supposed competitive nature of humanity and its benefits to society. Whatever the views of the researchers may be, there is undeniably an extensive literature on the psychology of competition and cooperation.Most of the literature is limited, however, by its focus on the United States, and to some extent European, cooperation and competition; this limits the studies to issues that are appropriate to the competitive Western context. For instance, researchers have investigated many ramifications of whether a cooperative or competitive environment fosters higher levels of achievement. However, in their research, they did not appear to ask an even more fundamental question: Is an emphasis on achievement, whether produced by cooperation or competition, really essential to Western societies? To ask questions such as this, to really examine the essence of cooperation and competition as manifestations of human cultures, researchers need to step back from their U. S. and European participants and look at the ways these elements of human behavior are handled in societies that are not so competitive.Much as international exchange faculty gain fresh perspectives on their own societies by living abroad (Dudden, 1987), particularly in significantly different cultures, researchers interested in competition and cooperation can gain valuable reflections from the mirrors provided by very different, less competitive societies. The images are often quite unlike the originals:

Cooperation and Competition as Partners

“…From an explanatory viewpoint, observed impacts of cooperativeness and of competitiveness (for overviews, see Bonta, 1997;Carnevale & Probst, 1997;Johnson & Johnson, 1989;Tjosvold, 1998) share basically the same interpretation problems (Van de Vliert, 1997a). Does an effect of a cooperative motive result mainly from fairly high concern for one's own outcomes, for the other's outcomes, or both?…”

Myths about the State of Nature and the Reality of Stateless Societies

“…According to most estimates, observed stateless societies have signicantly more violence on average than most contemporary state societies, but none could be described as constant civil war. Some observed stateless societies (such as the Batek, the Paliyan, and others) that have virtually no violence (Bonta 1997;Kelly 1995Kelly , 2024. These societies disprove the hypothesis that statelessness is inherently violent.…”

Temperature, Cultural Masculinity, and Domestic Political Violence

“…Families tend to cooperate to maximize the joint probability of their survival (cf. Bonta, 1997;Van de Vliert, 1997). Hofstede (1980Hofstede ( , 1991 brought evidence that members of societies at higher (cooler) latitudes are collectively programmed to make cooperative rather than competitive choices.…”