According to Howard Bloom's book, Global Brain, a networked global brain attributes to evolution as opposed to individual selection. I'm not sure how much I agree with his notion, but I did find one of his supporting examples intriguing: that the "collective learning machine" provides information to the population to allow for evolution via a few mechanisms, one of which is "inner-judges" (page 43). This concept notes that we as individuals of a group have rushes in hormones when we are praised by the group that lead to increased energy and achievement and value to the group. However, if we are not valued by the group, we release stress hormones that eat away at our energy, our brain, and our self-worth and ultimately repel the group from the individual.
Seems intuitive from what we're learning about with stress' effect on the body. But most intriguing to me was finding out that this is observed not only in organisms like ourselves with complex social structures, but also with single-cell organisms (page 17). Through chemical signaling, primordial bacteria would communicate attraction and repulsion cues back to the group. Attraction cues would tell the group food was found and drive the group to the individual. Repulsion cues would signal the group to stay away from the individual and thus the individual would have no food and die.
Main takeaway: make sure you're giving out good vibrations to the group, ones that make the group see your value and further your chemical hormones that keep you active and achieving rather than vibrations that repel others and lead to stress hormones that lead to the degradation of yourself.
I wonder if there's a difference in this hormone reward effect between introverts and extroverts. I know introverts are thought to have dfferences in dopamine processing (Book: On the Psychobology of Personality: Essays in Honor of Marvin Zuckerman. Chapter 21). However, I can't find any research regarding introverts, physiological mechanism, and team-based or social learning context.
ReplyDeleteI did find a possible analog study conducted on young girls. Basically, introverted and extroverted young girls had the strength of a knee excercise measured both with and without verbal social encouragement. The extroverts, as expected, were stronger when they were cheered on. The introverts, on the other hand, not only showed to improvement with verbal encouragement, but actually did WORSE when cheered on.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20812856
Link to Psychobiology of Personality Ch 21:
http://books.google.com/books?id=swhd33LCBqcC&pg=PA409&lpg=PA409&dq=the+psychobiology+of+personality:+Essays+chapter+21&source=bl&ots=E_BGtIzEeu&sig=Co1sDtN4YGzXtZNugAfmuJhyIWA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BTJnUNkl7ZvIAdvigbgE&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20psychobiology%20of%20personality%3A%20Essays%20chapter%2021&f=false
This was a good topic to blog about. It links what we are learning in class with how we are learning (TBL). I can understand why the takeaway is to project positive feelings towards the group to increase the likelihood that you are seen as a positive contributor so you can stay in the group; however, I would argue that it may be as important to give praise to the group. Based on his argument, there would be a possibility for an exponential effect on group effectiveness if members focused on praising others. If someone praises another member for something that was helpful then the praised member will have a surge of hormones that enable them to be more active in providing helpful contributions, which will result in more praise from the rest of the group. I would think that a praised and more active member would be more likely to praise another group member when they benefit the group, so this cycle could help foster a more efficient group.
ReplyDeleteThe primordial bacteria example made me think of altruism and its evolutionary basis. I found an article from Nature investigating forms of altruistic behavior that provides a specific example that ties into this blog. The article, Oxytocin increases trust in humans, demonstrates that increased exposure to oxytocin can make humans more trusting in social situations. The researchers were able to conclude that subjects exposed to an increased level of oxytocin took more social risks and expressed more trust in others. I don't know if oxytocin was one of the hormones that Howard Bloom argues is released as a result of praise, but if it is, then maybe this helps explain why someone who is praised is more likely to contribute. I believe that before most people contribute something they assess whether or not their contribution will be received well. You have to trust your group members to be supportive of your contribution. Maybe increasing group sociability and, thus, productivity is just another positive feedback mechanism for oxytocin.
Reference: Kosfeld, M., Heinrichs, M., Zak, P.J., Fischbacher, U., & Fehr, E. Nature, 435, 673-676. doi:10.1038/nature03701
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7042/full/nature03701.html
(As far as the study design goes, all I know is the subjects were given oxytocin via a nasal spray. Unfortunately, I can't seem to access the full article.)