The results on cooperation, the study authors say, are a good sign for our ability to solve problems on a global scale.
You’ve probably heard it before. Whether it’s about holding a door, helping locate a lost item or providing strangers with directions, you’ve encountered the idea that people aren’t as helpful as they once were. Is there any truth to this idea, despite its pervasiveness?published in the American Psychological Association’sshows that the inclination to cooperate has slightly increased among strangers in the U.S. in the years since the 1950s.
"We were surprised by our findings that Americans became more cooperative over the last six decades," Kou says in a press release. Ultimately, the study authors say that these findings offer an optimistic vision of the future. "Greater cooperation within and between societies may help us tackle global challenges, such as responses to pandemics, climate change and immigrant crises," Kou says in a press release.According to the team, only a small number of studies have investigated long-term cooperation changes, and those that have, tended to rely on self-report measures rather than experimental data.
Though the study cannot prove what factors specifically caused this increase in cooperation, the team theorizes that the increase could connect to several changes in the society of the U.S. For instance, the findings do show that the increase in cooperative activity corresponds with increases in urbanization, in wealth and wealth disparities, and in the proportion of people living by themselves.
“It’s possible that people gradually learn to broaden their cooperation with friends and acquaintances to strangers, which is called for in more urban, anonymous societies,” says Paul Van Lange, another author of the study and a professor of social psychology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in a press release. “U.S. society may have become more individualistic, but people have not.”
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