Terrah garner
This piece was contributed by Terrah, an intern in the News and Careers Department, as part of the JYI Summer Internship program in 2023.
Imagine yourself at a dining table with mouthwatering fragrances permeating the room. You reach for the salt, eager to sprinkle it all over your culinary masterpiece, your taste buds tingling in anticipation. However, as you ask the person seated next to you respectfully to pass the salt, their answer comes as a shock to you: a resounding "no." How often have you experienced this unanticipated denial? The response may be "very few." Have you ever considered how being in a different part of the world might limit collaboration, even down to the simple task of passing a table condiment?
Recently, a study conducted by researchers from UCLA, Australia, Ecuador, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K. examined the universality of cooperation. The study's findings, published in the scientific journal "Reports," challenge previous research that proposed cultural differences in behaviors. Contrary to the previous belief that cultures strongly influence levels of cooperation, the study suggests something unexpected—a surprising similarity in universal collaboration. The study aims to explore the human capacity for collaboration while attempting to answer the question, "to what extent are everyday cooperative events organized by common principles and to what extent do they vary across human groups?"
To unravel the mysteries of human cooperation, the researchers conducted an extensive analysis of video recordings capturing everyday life in diverse settings. These recordings, totaling a staggering 40 hours of footage, showcased the interactions of over 350 individuals, representing a wide range of demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds.Within this rich collection of scientific studies, one particular research study stood out by focusing on a specific aspect: the altruistic tendencies exhibited by humans when faced with low-stakes and low-cost tasks, in contrast to higher-stakes scenarios involving the sharing of resources. To provide context, the researchers examined how individuals responded to a simple yet meaningful signal—an explicit request for immediate assistance. This signal could take the form of a straightforward question such as, "Can you please pass me the salt?"
The study discovered that among diverse societies, when given the opportunity to share or help others, people tend to choose generosity over selfishness if they have something to offer. When someone requires immediate assistance, individuals are much more likely to respond with a "yes" rather than a "no." On average, the study found that people are seven times more likely to agree than decline, six times more likely to agree than ignore, and almost three times more likely to agree than either refuse or ignore. This preference for agreement is observed across different cultures and remains consistent, whether the request is within a family or between unrelated individuals.
However, it's important to note that the study did find instances where requests for help were declined. However, these instances occurred less than 10 percent of the time, and outright ignorance of requests happened less than 20 percent of the time. While these numbers might sound significant, they are outweighed by the substantial majority of participants, approximately 79 percent, who willingly complied with the request for help.
The study's findings indicate that there’s a cultural norm for verbalizing rejections when it comes to requests for assistance. Both English and Italian participants were more likely to use words when requesting help, which is interesting considering that the researchers observed a higher incidence of interrogative/question strategies in the requests rather than the more commonly used imperative/order strategies. In other words, participants were more inclined to frame their requests as questions rather than direct commands. This prevalence in the pattern can be attributed to societal norms in Western cultures, which may involve cultural differences regarding autonomy and cooperation.
In terms of rejections, the majority occur without giving a reason for non-compliance. Recruits often employ various strategies to reject a request without explicitly saying "No" or providing a reason. Instead, they may suggest that the recruiter should handle the request themselves or question the purpose behind it. In some cases, recruits visibly refused to cooperate by pulling their hands away or turning away. When we look at how often people reject each other in different countries, particularly in Western and non-Western cultures, we find some interesting results. Research shows that while the way rejections happen and how often they occur can vary across cultures, unexplained rejections are usually linked to social tension or conflict. In situations where people engage in small acts of kindness towards each other, it was observed that recruitment events happen frequently. People tend to prefer agreeing or showing compliance rather than rejecting or ignoring the request. When rejecting, people often expressed their refusal verbally, whereas compliance was often shown through nonverbal actions. These observations indicate that there is a common tendency for cooperation in everyday interactions worldwide. People generally have a willingness to assist others when asked, regardless of their relationship or connection.
Throughout the chapter, the diverse linguistic and embodied practices employed by participants to explicitly and accountably recruit each other for practical courses of action are emphasized. The theme of recruitment, both through linguistic resources and visible bodily actions, is explored. It is important to note that even subtle visible bodily actions, which make a problem publicly recognizable, can recruit others to offer assistance, even if these actions are not initially accountable as requests for help or other forms of solicitation. This suggests that the inclination to assist others extends beyond explicit verbal communication and encompasses non-verbal cues as well.
The research highlights the innate inclination of humans to be helpful, extending beyond explicit verbal communication to include non-verbal cues as well. This research ultimately serves as an intimate reminder that no matter where we come from, we all have the ability to understand, be kind, and work together.
References:
University of California - Los Angeles. (2023, April 24). Small acts of kindness are frequent and universal, study finds: Around the world, research reveals, people help each other about every 2 minutes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 10, 2023, from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230424162911.htm
Rossi, G., Dingemanse, M., Floyd, S., et al. (2023). Shared cross-cultural principles underlie human prosocial behavior at the smallest scale. Scientific Reports, 13, 6057. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30580-5
Floyd, S., Rossi, G., Enfield, N. J., Kendrick, K. H., Blythe, J., Zinken, J., Baranova, J., & Dingemanse, M. (2020). Getting others to do things: A pragmatic typology of recruitments. (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 31). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4017493