University of Leiden
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| No....it's not. |
Fear
of being exploited
From winning a complex war to developing a life-saving drug:
there are so many things that can only be achieved if people work together in
harmony. They can then achieve impressive performances that also benefit the
individual.
So, why do colleagues or others so often make things difficult for
one another?
Empirical research carried out by De Dreu has shown that greed and
fear are the basic reasons underlying problems with teamwork. 'People are
afraid that their contribution will mainly benefit those people who themselves
contribute nothing.
That's why people hold back and invest in self-protection
rather than cooperation.'
De Dreu examined the strategies people use to maximise the
benefits for themselves and to reduce the risk of being exploited.
He conducts
experiments where the participants can invest in self-protection or attacks on
others, or they can choose to do nothing.
When motivated by greed, people seem
to invest mainly in self-protection and less in attacks on others. 'Fear is
almost always present as a brake on cooperation, but it's more difficult to
predict when greed will crop up.'
The paradox is that fear among rival groups
tends to result in people working better together. 'It seems to happen almost
automatically, often without it even being discussed.'
What
does our brain look like?
As Professor of Employment and Organisation Psychology at the
University of Amsterdam, De Dreu has conducted a lot of research on cooperation
within organisations.
In Leiden he intends to approach the subject at a higher
level of abstraction. 'We know a lot about what makes the best kind of leaders.
Now I want to examine what our brain looks like when we are working together.
I'm interested in that because cooperating with one another relies on very
basic systems that we also use for other tasks, such as child-rearing.'
Oxytocin,
the cuddle hormone
He intends to use brain scans to look at which neurohormones
play a role in cooperation, such as the 'cuddle hormone' oxytocin. Is more oxytocin
produced when people are working together successfully? And can you influence
cooperation by administering a dose of this hormone?
'This neurobiological
approach has only really been used by psychologists in the past five years, and
there are a lot of important research questions that have to be answered.'
The
effect of religion and rules
De Dreu draws attention to his multidisciplinary approach. He is
also interested in the effect of such 'institutions' as religion and
legislation because these have an obvious influence on our behaviour.
He will
be working together with fellow scientists from other disciplines:
sociologists, political scientists, legal specialists, religious experts and
also biologists who will be examining the behaviour of rats, for example.
Managers
in the scanner
De Dreu doesn't exclude the possibility that he will again be
conducting some of his research in organisations. Until then he would welcome
any managers would be willing to take part in his neurobiological research.
'I
would love it if a lot of managers were willing to have scans while making
decisions about their companies. But then they'd have to come in their masses,
and that's not to easy to achieve.'