Prosocial Progress

Would you help an old lady cross the road? How about picking up a stamped addressed letter off the sidewalk and putting it in a nearby mailbox? Or perhaps you might return a lost wallet you found? All of those actions are known as "prosocial" or society-promoting behaviors, and it's been a question for the ages as to how a human culture is best able to foster them. David Sloan Wilson has been working on exactly that. First, he and his team set out to measure the prevalence and geographical distribution of prosocial behaviors in his hometown of Binghamton, New York. The results were striking - prosociality (and I guess its inverse, which might be antisociality?) proved to be a cluster-based phenomenon. Prosocial people are grouped into geographic neighborhoods, with voids between them. Basically, Wilson has figured out a way to scientifically define a "good neighborhood."

At this point, Wilson and his team then looked at the results from an evolutionary standpoint.

As an academic evolutionist, I knew that prosociality can evolve in any species when highly prosocial individuals are able to interact with each other and avoid interacting with selfish individuals - in other words, when those who give also receive. Our surveys show that this is what is happening in Binghamton. The most caring and altruistic individuals receive the most social support from multiple sources, including family, neighbourhood, school, religion, and through extracurricular activities such as sports and arts. Groups that satisfy this basic condition for prosociality are likely to thrive.

Not only that, but he tracked people over time as they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood around town, and he found that their prosociality changed to match the existing levels of their new neighborhood! So obviously humans are versatile and resilient, and able to a certain extent to change themselves to fit their environment. Given this, let's go back to our original question - how do we foster prosociality?

Projects in the works to test for this include a neighborhood "Design Your Own Park" initiative, and the Regents Academy - a program being rolled out in local schools to aid at-risk children.

A group that functions well is a bit like an organism with numerous organs: remove any single organ and the organism dies. The Regents Academy has all the necessary organs to function as an effective group, and it seems to be working.

If we can understand the anatomy of a healthy social group, then we can start tinkering with and improving our own social health. In a prosocial culture, everyone wins.

Read more here: Evolutionary theory can make street life better via New Scientist