Prosocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable, and Collaborative Groups

by Paul W.B. Atkins

How can we support ourselves in order to act together in such a way that satisfies our own interests, the interests of our group, and the interests of the larger systems of which our group is a part? This

By improving your group, you are literally doing the work of intentional cultural evolution. You are creating a more cooperative

We call this the Prosocial process, which works on three main fronts and is focused on building better small groups, or groups of small groups, in this new evolutionary environment humans are creating:

Prosocial behavior is generally understood as the act of getting along and cooperating with others. It is about benefiting others or society as a whole.

The word “prosocial” is derived from the Latin pro, meaning “in favor of,” and socialis, meaning “allies or friends.”

But in an increasingly interconnected world, we can no longer afford to just be in favor of our friends.

Some values and goals are “objectively” better than others in the sense that they lead to greater human thriving. Human thriving, then, is our benchmark, and thriving involves both agency and communion.

A core idea of our approach, as you will see, is that the locally appropriate, contextually relevant solutions that groups grow for themselves are usually much more effective than trying to shoehorn in the latest fad or conceptual model.

Chapter 1 describes how human cooperation can be understood as a complex adaptive and multilevel system that is evolving. It is hard to plan, predict, and control when you’re dealing with a complex adaptive system, but evolutionary theory can help you chart a path toward sensing and responding consciously in order to move small and large groups in directions you wish

Unless we become “wise managers of evolutionary processes,” social evolution might well take us where we do not want to go.1

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”5

Evolution has no foresight and

Thankfully, evolutionary scientists are going back to the basics by defining evolution in terms of variation, selection, and retention and not just genes.

The third mechanism of inheritance is learning, which can be found in many species. The psychologist B. F. Skinner famously observed that trial-and-error learning is a variation-and-selection process much like genetic evolution.

Skinner’s phrase for this was “selection by consequences.” Once again, variation, selection, and retention—but applied to a different stream of organization.

Empires rose on the strength of cultural group selection between groups and fell on the basis of disruptive cultural evolution within groups.

All of these mechanisms of evolution interact. Behavioral changes in farming practices led to the ready availability of milk in some cultures, which, over time, led to genetic changes in the capacity of adults to digest lactose.

In this fashion, the slow process of genetic evolution follows wherever the faster processes of individual learning and cultural evolution lead.

Generally speaking, the more frequently our behavior is guided by moving toward what we want, rather than away from what we don’t want, the happier and more fulfilled we’ll be. Moving toward what we care about creates energy and vitality, as well as expands the flexibility and range of our behaviors.

Moving away, by contrast, tends to diminish vitality and decrease the flexibility and range of our behaviors. So, for example, if your work is something you want to do because it matters to you, you are much more likely to experience well-being than if you work to simply avoid poverty or the disapproval of others. Over time, people who spend more of their life moving toward what matters have broader and more flexible repertoires of behavior, whereas people who spend their life trying to avoid having difficult or painful experiences have smaller and more rigid repertoires.

Indeed, B. F. Skinner defined freedom as being under the control of appetitive stimuli as opposed to aversive stimuli—living in a ...

There are other ways into this quadrant. You can ask people to reflect on times when they were most alive and felt vital, and then extract key values and overarching goals from their story. Or you can have them identify a guide or hero (see the “Picking a Guide or Hero” exercise in chapter 4). Or you can do some kind of exercise to identify a person’s key strengths (such as a strength-finder inventory), as these are often linked closely to values. Or you can do some kind of values card sort or use a list of values.

What difficult internal experiences show up and get in the way of moving toward what is most important to you? There may be lots of external hindrances that get in the way, such as a lack of resources or opposition from others, but we’re interested in what shows up internally in your mind that hooks you and drags you away from being the person you want to be and acting in the ways that you wish to. Internal hindrances can include emotions, such as fear, or thoughts, such as self-judgments. They can include images or memories of past situations, such as times when you were criticized, or even bodily sensations, such as a trembling stomach.

There is always something to put in this quadrant, because caring about anything creates the possibility of loss, failure, and other forms of pain.

There are three broad classes of behavior that can fit in this quadrant. The most common strategy is to try to avoid the painful experience in some way or other. In the presence of fear about a conflict with someone, for example, we might avoid raising the issue. In the presence of fear of failure, we might avoid taking the risk of giving a presentation where others might see how little we actually know. A second broad class of behavior is to attempt to resist, attack, or get rid of difficult inner experiences. In the presence of doubt, for example, we might repeat to ourselves, “Come on, snap out of it,” and in the presence of sadness, we might strive to think happy thoughts. Finally, we can seek to ignore or distract ourselves by directing our attention elsewhere. All animals have evolved these fight-or-flight responses for dealing with external threats. But humans amplify these moves as they engage with the internal threats of the mind. Figure

5.4 shows what Kai said she did when she got really hooked by difficult internal experiences.

This is your personal map of your interests in relation to your group.

How Well Is the Top-Left Behavior Working? It can be helpful at this point to explore how well the various strategies outlined in the top-left quadrant

of the matrix are working. You can do this simply by asking three key questions: In the short term, how well is what you noted in the top-left quadrant working to help you control or avoid the difficult experiences in the bottom left? And how well is what you’re doing working to help you control or avoid difficult experiences in the long term? And how well is what you’re doing working to move you in the direction of what really matters to you?

And open acceptance fits with this process because nothing is good or bad when it comes to what people write in this quadrant—the

Beginning with the bottom-right quadrant, the one featuring the question “What matters most to you about this group?”

When your partner tells you about what they have written, your role is simply to listen and reflect what you hear.

(see http://www.prosocial.world/digital-tools).

(see https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises).

Invite people to get into pairs and to nominate a person to be the first speaker (A) and first listener (B). A speaks for five minutes, and B simply listens without saying anything. It’s okay if B smiles or nods or responds naturally, but they should not ask questions or take notes. Their role is to listen mainly for feelings, values, and needs—in other words, interests. If A runs out of things to say, they can simply lapse into silence until they think of something else they would like to say. Then for two minutes B reflects back what they heard in their own words while A simply listens. This reflection is all about A’s experience. It might involve how B went “beyond the data” to make inferences about what A was thinking or feeling on the basis of their expressions or tone of voice, but it’s not about B’s reaction to what they heard. A and B then debrief for one minute. They then switch roles and repeat the exercise.