From Appeasement to Conformity: Evolutionary and Cultural Perspectives on Shame, Competition, and Cooperation by Daniel Fessler
Humans are the only species that regularly cooperates with non-relatives. Other species certainly do this but, humans form enormous coalitions like no others. Other primates have a far more competitive social landscape. How, from an evolutionary perspective, can cooperation form out of competition? The article I review before called “Competence and the Evolutionary Origins of Status and Power in Humans” does a great deal in working towards an answer to this question, but the current article goes further into the dynamics of cooperation, status as prestige, and its maintenance.
“Whereas in dominance hierarchies a superordinate social position is obtained through force or the threat thereof, in prestige hierarchies select individuals are elevated to superordinate positions by observers — in short, a dominant position is taken from others, but a prestigious position is given by others.”
Although the article lays out a lot of the research on these group dynamics, the focus of Daniel Fessler remains on the emotion of shame.
What is Shame?
“Subordinance shame is evolutionarily ancient is bolstered by the fact that recognizing that one occupies an inferior position in a social hierarchy requires far less cognitive complexity than does recognizing that others know that one has failed. To achieve the latter, actors must be able to [see] themselves through observers’ eyes and understanding what observers do or do not know about their behavior”
Shame in the context of a dominance hierarchy makes sense as a tradeoff. A subordinate ape will forego status so as to not threaten the alpha because the alpha is usually more physically strong. Overt status displays would be a losing strategy for the subordinate. The display of shame, which is the opposite of a prideful display keeps up the appearance of not being a threat.
But in cooperative alliances where the group bestows status as prestige on someone by how they benefit the group. Shame seems to have lost its role, because there is no need in such a situation to announce subordinance, yet people still feel shame. Is shame a vestigial behavior when shown in cooperative groups or does it serve another function?
To understand how shame may be different in cooperative ventures, we need to understand what makes the dynamic between cooperation and dominance different.
Cooperation and Defection
“Cooperative interactions are those in which two or more individuals incur some cost, investing time, energy, or resources, or forgoing other opportunities, in order to behave in a fashion that will benefit all involved. When efforts, energy, and knowledge are pooled, the results are often not merely additive, but multiplicative.”
The structure in the cooperative strategy is that each individual sacrifices his or her freedom or resources to create greater freedoms and resources with the whole group. Cooperation has more potential for resources than mere competition. However, if everyone is chipping in for a more or less evenly distributed reward, it is inevitable that you will find people who take a free ride. These animals or people will fake cooperation if it is easier — such deception exists all over the animal kingdom. This creates a problem for those who are sacrificing, they need to make sure that not everyone does that, or else some will put in maximum work for little reward. And they need a way of seeing the tendency to cooperate despite attempts to hide the cheating.
Groups need to have an eye out for the signs that you will sacrifice and fit in. What signals willingness to cooperate, according to this article, is one’s efforts at conformity and someone’s ability to cohere or understand the needs of the group.
“Likewise, only individuals who are deeply motivated to conform will expend the mental resources needed to maintain conformity across domains, whether through overt attention or through automatization following extensive repetition. Observing that someone consistently behaves appropriately in a variety of activities thus provides an initial indication that the individual likely both a) possesses the cultural knowledge relevant to a given cooperative enterprise, and b) is motivated to adhere to cultural standards in a manner that facilitates coordination.”
What does detection of defection from cooperation have to do with shame?
Shame for Conformity
The article compared two groups of people one from Southern California and one from the Bengkulu people of Indonesia to see how they experience shame differently. The Bengkulu people had a far more shame-oriented culture, where those who did not make an effort to contribute were highly recognized as dangerous to them.
“Being ‘thick-eared’ is a form of higher-order norm violation, as it indicates both that one does not value cultural standards and that one does not care about others’ valuation of these standards.”
Herein lies the purpose of shame in the cooperative society. Defection from cooperation is bad enough, but to do it without an admission of feeling shame, is perceived as dangerous. Shaming someone serves as a function of seeing if the noncooperator will step back in line.
“In Bengkulu, the prominence of shame in personal experience and the frequency of shaming as a method of behavior regulation frequently lead individuals to focus not on achieving excellence, but rather on avoiding failure — people are often more concerned with avoiding punishments than with reaping the benefits of social action.”
My Conclusion
Groups that are highly embedded in the interpersonal stages of self evolution are very sensitive to those who are not contributing to the pot. Sometimes they are more committed to calling out those that do not display the right attitude, even if they are contributing. This is likely to be far better for the culture compared to the overly competitive, power and dominance hierarchical structures, but it comes with its own problems. The sustaining of this dynamic creates more incentives towards fitting in than achieving excellence. It creates the motivation to at least not be the worst and you are fine. The incentive becomes not cooperation, but fitting in.
“School children sit passively in class. They do not answer the teacher’s questions for fear of shame — if they are wrong, the teacher shames them, and if they are right, their peers shame them for being a know-it-all. This extends to the highest levels of academia — rather than spirited debate, or even open discussion, academic panels, policy meetings, and conferences are often characterized by a wooden reiteration of the least controversial position or perspective.”
One might say, “as long as the group is cohesive, why does that matter?” It matters because the group becomes stagnate and beau acratic, unable to respond to new problems, it does not move in the world, it cannot adapt to novelty. To call out a problem is to stand out and risk the appearance of being indifferent to the social rules.
It is important that we recognize these drawbacks to something that is almost always positive: cooperation. Hopefully we can do this without degenerating into pure competition and dominance and losing the benefits that are difficult to earn.
Read the original article here.
