The articles have an overarching message that human beings have very similar tendencies. They are caring towards each other and naturally want to share except when there is an increase in competition and a decrease in supply. This is when a more self centered mindset comes into play and people's actions reflect that. The innate reaction people have in a competitive environment is to protect themselves and make sure that they can benefit in some way or another. The articles were very enjoyable and they had such interesting examples of situations that display this mentality of sharing and altruism. Children are innocent and a good way of observing what natural reactions of humans can potentially be and seeing the different instances of whether the children split the marbles or take what they see, is a very tangible example of a larger perspective on behaviors.
The transfer of goods or gift exchange is technically considered a voluntary act but is natural in some situations. In the first situation of the article about sharing the marbles when both children assume the work is shared, the instinct is altruism because it seems natural to split the products of what the combined effort brings. The second situation when each child's efforts are individual, the results or the benefits are also taken by the child that gets them with no sharing involved. In college, we often have to a lot of group projects and it allows people's natural ability to share or exchange gifts to shine through. I have noticed it a lot personally when I have worked on group assignments especially those with feedback forms at the end of the project. If the project is having a positive outcome and seems to be going well, the team as a whole provides positive feedback on everyone else's work to share the success and positive outcomes. If a group project had a ranking system where each member of the team received a rank and points based on that rank. This would create a more competitive environment and people would be more honest in their feedbacks to assure that they can potentially receive a high rank and therefore the most points.
A more personal example is when splitting work in a team and making sure everyone is doing work that will be the best for the team and optimize their skill sets. Along the lines of group project work, I have had a lot of experience working in teams in more professional settings through consulting as well as through internships. In both situations, I have noticed that people share responsibility but also naturally share the praises. I also have seen the opposite in situations where there is competition and the result is that of something personally beneficial. Last summer, I interned at a marketing startup in the Bay Area. The work was incredible and being at a small company taught me so much about various skill sets. One of the biggest thing I have learned was how some people do not have the natural tendency to "give gifts" when it comes to work settings or a personal benefit. I learned how to work with people who might not have the natural tendency to share the praises. Me and the other new hire on my team were asked to conduct a marketing experiment during which each of us was to try two different methods on different marketing platforms. The gift or the prize for this was each customer or investor that came through our methods was going to add a bonus to our paycheck. A part of that customer or investors investment in the startup would be our prize for bringing them in.
As we began the process of testing out these platforms, my coworker working on this project with me noticed very quickly that the tool I was testing was bringing in more people. Although the natural tendency is to see that any traction into the company is a benefit as a whole for the team, she did not see it that way. She was looking at the end goal of receiving a higher pay and saw that as a reason to react in a more self centered way. I noticed this when in one of our meetings, she brought up having all my contacts and taking on my variation of the testing to give me other things to work on. She hinted at wanting to strategically change our responsibilities up so that she could get the benefits I was getting from my work. This is a good example of what a person can act like in a competitive environment when normally in these situations it is natural to share the wins and losses. In an industry setting, most teams work towards one goal no matter what the individual success entails.
The articles talk about the difference in mentalities when one knows how their individual efforts lead to their respective benefits. This was seen in my personal experiences working in many group situations good and bad. This one specific situation which was not the most positive experience taught me how gift exchanges works in teams and the natural altruistic instincts of human beings.
Here are a few general remarks about your piece. You gave a couple of different examples, one about group work in team projects for courses, the other about group work while doing your internship (though it really was individual work that was clustered into a group). Were these examples showing the same principles or illustrating different points that are each part of the puzzle? I was unclear on that. If the same principle was involved, it would have been better to stick with only one example and do it more in depth. If different points were being made, the contrast needed to be emphasized more.
ReplyDeleteI commented on another student's post, that giving high marks to a teammate in an evaluation, when the actual effort didn't really warrant those high marks, is fraudulent in a certain way and so shouldn't be considered gift giving. Instead it constitutes a kind of opportunism.
In the next Excel homework, the one on bargaining, you'll get some economic theory on what it takes for the mechanism itself to encourage people to be truthful in their responses and thus not be opportunistic this way. You might ask whether the teachers you design the evaluation system in their course or the companies, like the one where you did the internship, understand whether their structures encourage opportunism, even while they hope that those who operate under these structures behave earnestly. In your internship example, do you have any evidence about how the person supervising you and the person you were grouped with felt about her behavior and yours. If so, that would have been useful to put into the story. I can imagine the reward structure being imposed would be pure sharing the marbles, instead of what it actually was. Wouldn't that have worked better under the circumstances?