In this blog post, we will look at the reasons why we should live selflessly and correctly while taking losses through group selection theory and the survival logic of human society.
“Hey, kid, you should live a good life!” This is a phrase that we have often heard from adults since we were young. Most of us have come to have an unconscious belief that we should live a good life without questioning why we should live a good life, that is, live a proper life. Then why do we have to live correctly? Let’s explore what correctness is and why we have to live correctly.
First, there are many kinds of incorrect behavior. From acts prohibited by law, such as murder and robbery, to not giving up one’s seat to the vulnerable, to cutting in line even when there is a person waiting, we usually consider such behavior to be wrong. One of the “wrong” behaviors that we often encounter in college life is free-riding in group assignments. In other words, it is an act of doing nothing and only benefiting from the results. So, what causes free-riding?
There are many reasons for free riding, but the three most common reasons are as follows. First, someone is given a task to do but does not do it, so someone else ends up doing it instead (lack of will). Second, the roles in a shared task are not clearly divided, so the task is simply left undone. Finally, someone is unable to do their job due to a sudden health problem or unavoidable circumstances (lack of ability).
The best way to prevent free riding is active cooperation in which each person voluntarily finds and performs his or her own tasks. However, this is almost impossible in reality. Therefore, if a system is introduced to impose a sense of obligation, the probability that members will perform their assigned tasks increases. Such mandatory systems have a positive effect of curbing employee deviance, but at the same time, they can cause stress due to oppression and a sense of reluctance to do work that one does not want to do, which can lead to a risk of reduced work efficiency and quality of the resulting products. Therefore, it is necessary to minimize these negative effects and motivate employees to perform their work voluntarily. It is like giving a whip when a horse misbehaves and a carrot when it performs well.
The ‘carrot and stick’ method can prevent free-riding, improve work efficiency, and improve the quality of the results by motivating team members to perform their assigned roles while imposing a sense of obligation. For example, if a person fails to meet the quota assigned to them, or if they are not diligent, or if they do something that negatively affects group activities, a “stack” is built up for that person. Depending on the number of stacks built up, the person is subject to different levels of penalty according to predetermined rules. However, this penalty should be in a direction that can have a positive impact on the team members, not a punishment for the individual. For example, if you have one stack, you will be asked to buy snacks for the number of team members at the next meeting, two stacks will get coffee, and three stacks will get a meal after the meeting. Using the stack system in this way can reduce free-riding, and even if someone does free-ride due to personal circumstances, they will pay a price proportional to the accumulated stack, which can instill a sense of caution and responsibility to be more careful in the future. In addition, team members can be motivated to perform their assigned tasks by receiving material and mental rewards, such as eating delicious food as a result of someone else’s stacking and paying the price. In this way, both compulsion and motivation can be applied simultaneously to improve work efficiency and the quality of the results.
Then why do humans have to live right without engaging in selfish acts such as free riding? The theory of group selection hypothesis is introduced in the book The Emergence of Altruistic Humans. This theory expands the concept of natural selection from the individual level to the group level. In particular, the group selection hypothesis is useful for explaining why humans should live right, as they are a species that relies on interactions within and outside the group.
To make this easier to understand, imagine a world where everyone is programmed to be altruistic from birth. In such a world, people help each other, care for one another, and give in to others. But suppose that one day, a selfish person, A, who has no altruism at all, suddenly appears. A uses the altruism around him to pursue only his own interests and does not do any good to others. Two situations can be assumed here. The first is that altruistic people remain altruistic to the end, and the second is that they gradually become more selfish by learning to act selfishly. In the first assumption, A causes the people around him to become exhausted, and A eventually moves to another group and gradually destroys that group. In the second assumption, altruistic people gradually become selfish and each person only pursues their own interests, and the world is eventually filled with selfish people. Although selfish behavior may be beneficial in the short term, when they are in a difficult situation later, they will have nowhere to turn for help and self-destruct. This situation will lead to the decline of society rather than its development.
According to the group selection theory, the higher the proportion of individuals who show altruistic behavior, the more likely they are to survive environmental changes or trials, and the more likely they are to become the last group to survive natural selection. Even if there are selfish individuals, the group that continues to engage in altruistic behavior is more likely to survive than the group that does not. Therefore, even if there are selfish people around us, we should live altruistically, that is, correctly, so that the probability of survival of the group to which we belong as well as the entire human race increases. In the end, we need to live correctly for the sake of the survival of humanity.
