Post B7LOswCYuZK9xbmtMW by grimalkina@mastodon.social
 (DIR) More posts by grimalkina@mastodon.social
 (DIR) Post #B7LOswCYuZK9xbmtMW by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       We hear about competition all day long. Win goals, win games, win business, win against the other applicant, win against the other team. I've been in a lot of workplaces where the dominant messaging about how we should all act was that competition is what delivers the sharpest knowledge work, and I'd bet a lot of you have heard this too.  But the science of group problem-solving tells a different story
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOswaJUGK59GtrNo by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       And the specific thing competition does to your brain, once you know about it, is hard to unsee.We literally *stop being able to fluently access empathy* when our cognition is pointed at grouping the world into opposing sides. The more we see people as not as the complex individuals they are but as a flattened part of a rival group, the stronger these effects. The more we interpret group conflict as the stage for individual actions, the more our minds inhibit empathy.
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOsx5raxYmj7f3Ym by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       Mina Cikara's research on intergroup competition (among others) documents that under competition conditions, the empathy gap between us and them can flip into something measurable as pleasure at the other side's failure. People surrounded by narratives of intergroup conflict are more likely to justify violence toward outsiders, and feel more schadenfreude at their misfortune. We have powerful systems in our minds for empathy, but we also have systems that dampen empathy during threat.
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOsxSYEbhxrUHAvI by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       But we can disrupt this zero-sum competition frame, and the healthiest groups learn how to do this. Some concrete strategies that work across the research: - making people aware that groups are not monolithic in their social connections- finding cross-cutting ties between members of "different" groups and, - invoking a group's own values against a harmful set of actions and holding one's group to a higher standard --> this one is a particularly fun area of work on "loyal dissenters"
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOsxxkMcf5QEs5Y0 by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       Loyal dissenters, as studied by Dominic Packer, are people who strongly identify with their group but *are also capable of dissenting with their group's norms.* They are key agents of reshaping and moving groups toward better. They are, as he calls them in a delightful paper title, "rebels with a cause." Disrupting the empathy dampening is absolutely possible, and the more you cultivate habits of empathy, the more you become willing to point out hypocritical groups, the more you play this role
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOsyJj2uF6WP9do0 by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       All of this is central, not just a "nice to have," when we need groups of knowledge workers to build immensely complex technology. We'll learn more in the next week! This is the COUNTDOWN to preorders for THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOFTWARE TEAMS on June 23! In celebration, I'm sharing a new piece of evidence every day from the book and how it helps us understand our minds and build more thriving, joyful communities in technology ❤️ Sign up for a preorder reminder here: https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Software-Teams/Hicks/p/book/9781032963389
       
 (DIR) Post #B7LOsyjxTNE5plQah6 by grimalkina@mastodon.social
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       Every single chapter in the book has its own FULL reference list, so if I'm calling out interesting scientists and studies you want to learn more about, trust that you will have a guide in your hands with this book!