Week 8, Monday Lecture Outline
- I. Why cooperate?
- II. Influences on cooperation
- III. Conflict as a path to cooperation
- produce mutual benefit
- accomplish tasks beyond the capacity of individuals
- satisfy affiliative needs
- two research directors with complementary data on a new discovery
- both share -- each profits by $20,000
- neither shares -- each loses $20,000
- if one shares -- the sharing director loses $60,000; the other director
profits by $60,000
- function of rewards system, vis the "commons dilemma"
- function of culture, vis Deming's critique of U.S. society
- farmers have common pasture for cattle
- for each individual farmer it is rational to increase the size of the herd
- for the collective this strategy is a disaster -- overgrazing exhausts the
common pasture
- Japanese society is collectivistic
- concern about group outcomes
- "the nail that sticks up gets pounded down"
- U.S. society is individualistic
- concern about personal outcomes
- "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"
- Conflict may increase levels of cooperation:
- when conflict brings out problems and new ideas
- when conflict occurs within the context of superordinate goals
- when mechanisms exist for managing conflict
Return to slides.
Return to the Introduction to Organizational Psychology Home Page.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~finholt/Psych360/handouts/10-30-95-outline.html
Contact the author via e-mail. Or send e-
mail to finholt@umich.edu
Copyright © 1996, The Regents of the University of Michigan,
All rights reserved.
Revised - November 4, 1996