Task 3b

It is my understanding that this task is based on two concepts of the professional network; Affiliation and Co-operation and our reflection on this. I will look at both of these topics separately.

The reader defines professional networks as 'a work related community held together by either close working affiliation or more distant but common work interests or needs'

Affiliation
Crisp and Turner describe affiliation as “A network of support that will help us when we are in need” and go on to say that "we all benefit from affiliations", a point I am certainly in agreement with.

Viewing affiliation subjectively lead me to contemplate my interaction within my current professional networks, and assess whether I have decided to engage on different levels with each of my networks, and if so how those levels differ and my reasons behind those choices. Having approached Task 3 as a whole unit and not as individual tasks I have already established my five important sources of information and it is true that my interaction within each of these networks is very different.

In the excerpt from Essential Social Psychology, Crisp and Turner note meaningful social interaction as requiring four main points:

• Affiliation
  
• Friendship
  
• Attraction
  
• Love
  

Looking at these words within the realms of Professional Practice I suggest they could be changed to:

• Affiliation - A network of support that will help us when we are in need
  
• Interaction – The determinant amount of time spent with such affiliations
  
• Connection – How we feel about the affiliation and their worth
  
• Passion – How we feel about the subject matter the affiliation produces

The reader raised the question: Why are we social creatures? Two quotes immediately sprang to mind:

The first by Aristotle:

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ”


The second a poem by John Donne:


"No man is an island,
 Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.
 If a clod be washed away by the sea, 
Europe is the less.
  As well as if a promontory were.  
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
 Or of thine own were: Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind,
 And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; 
It tolls for thee."

It also suggested some theories on this:

Privacy regulation theory
The Privacy regulation theory is a theory about our need for privacy by Irwin Altman.  This theory looks at why people choose solitude at one time, choosing interaction at others. It relates to the levels of privacy required at a given time as opposed to the levels of interaction. Encompassed within this are the dialectic principle – where our desire for privacy can fluctuate, and the optimization principle – the attempted alignment of desired contact with that of actual contact. This blog posted by Mak Wai Hong explains further: 

Social affiliation model
The Social Affiliation Model theory is a theory by O'Conner and Rosenblood (1996) regarding our need for contact and the levels of sociability required, linking in with Granovetter's (1973) concept of “strong ties”

Privacy versus affiliation is an enormous issue which I consider on reflection to have a huge effect on my level of engagement within particular groups. For example there are networks that I am a spectator in, ones which I engage in and a myriad of those in the middle.

Looking at the examples from Task 3c:

ISTD - my involvement with the ISTD is engaged but peripheral. I am an active member, but my engagement is not such that I am well known amongst its 7500 plus members, staff and lectures. This is not down to a privacy versus affiliation issue, but instead down to logistics.

The internet – my involvement with the internet professionally is predominantly one of a spectator, with two exceptions: anything to do with BAPP and my Dance Teachers South West page I set up to unite a profession I considered risked isolation. However even with these I am cautious of my engagement. To have ones opinions-in-progress out there in black and white for anyone to read does not make me comfortable, especially as my opinion can change as quickly as my need for more or less or social affiliation or privacy can. This is something that has remained a concern of mine throughout this course. 

Dance Academy South West – I am fully engaged with DASW and spend a lot of my time either there (when in the UK) or interacting with people I have met there. I feel safe and can 100% myself. There is a steady stream of peers, colleagues, contemporaries and examiners alike, all of which are prepared to listen and help when required. There is a great family atmosphere, along with a wealth of knowledge and experience. Maybe I identify so much with this network as the connections are personal, and face-to-face.

However with many people at the studio the boundaries between personal and professional relationships are definitely blurred (as they are a lot in the dance world).  

A local school – My involvement with the school is engaged yet cautious. I am just establishing myself in Beijing and I need to be careful with the relationships I establish. The school is a great establishment to be involved with and has been a wonderful support to me. 

Friends – Obviously my interaction with my friends is extensive. I am a very open person privately and interact with my closest friends daily. I establish a lot of my thinking with my friends.

The idea that the level of social interaction one might have, need or require being determined by multiple factors was interesting and I have noted some below:

• Personality type – Introvert/extrovert
  
• Physiological determinants
  
• Implications of development of professional networks
  
• Cultural differences
  
• Individual collectivism
  
• Individual differences
  
• Social/Psychological/emotional

The idea of cultural differences effecting interaction is an interesting one for me at the moment, giving my location, however I have not experienced any cultural differences that I would perceive as effecting professional interactions.

Another suggestion was the additional idea of not fully engaging due to the worry of rejection and the discomfort/anxiety that would create. I think this is a huge factor in the process behind people not fully interacting in a situation.

We try to constantly live in a state of homeostasis. Homeostasis is the tendency towards a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes or more simply balancing mutual dependency to maintain normal healthy functioning. This links to the idea of cooperation. By cooperating with those around us we are likely to get back what we put in and thus lead more satisfying lives.

Co-operation
The reader states: In an early but seminal work Axelrod (1984) identified the importance of the notion of cooperation, and in particular, the benefits of cooperating fully with others, until you reach a point of maximum benefit and then to 'defect'. All though I can see the truth in this, the optimist in me struggles to believe it. I believe cooperation leads to a harmonious life, both personally and professionally, and I believe that relationships breakdown but I had never thought of this as one side 'defecting', more of two people naturally going their separate ways.


As suggested I played 'Prisoner's Dilemma', a game based on 'Game Theory'. I have to admit to being a little confused over it, but nevertheless persevered. I attempted starting by both cooperating and competing, pretty much with the same outcome realising after the first few goes it was always giving me the same number of chances and always copying my move, leading me to decided to defect at the last minute and see what the outcome would be. After a couple of times of this, the number of 'turns' changed on me again and I had to decide on a different route.

This process of commencing with cooperation and thereafter copying the opponents previous move it called Tit for Tat. I believe this game highlights how in the beginning when trying to find your feet you may be unintentionally more or less cooperative, more as a result of being incompetent at the task in hand than anything and people are sympathetic to this. However after some time this changes to people only being prepared to do for others their interpretation of what they see as equal to others in the relationship having done for them.

Ideas/people I looked into whilst doing my research:

• Game Theory 
  
• Sociobiology
  
• Tit for Tat
  
• Benefits/drawbacks/processes
  
• Defecting
  
• Strategic vs genetic
  
• Robert Axelrod/William Hamilton (could only find Wikipedia biographies)

The excerpt from Axelrod's work The Evolution of Cooperation made me think. Axelrod asks the questions

“When should a person cooperate, and when should a person be selfish, in an ongoing interaction with another person? Should a friend keep providing favours to another friend who never reciprocates?” This could put into many contexts, but I believe the answer to be that after a while the friend would 'defect' linking back to the homeostasis of relationships.

Axelrod's concluding paragraph:

“This led me to an evolutionary perspective: a consideration of how cooperation can emerge among egoists without central authority. The evolutionary perspective suggested three distinct questions. First, how can a potentially cooperative strategy get an initial foothold in an environment which is predominantly noncooperative? Second, what type of strategy can thrive in a variegated environment composed of other individuals using a wide diversity of more or less sophisticated strategies? Third, under what conditions can such a strategy, once fully established among a group of people, resist invasion by a less cooperative strategy?"

I found this paragraph thought provoking and something potentially worth delving deeper into.  However with the dominating thought process running through these being one of the Egoist: an ethical theory that treats self-interest as the foundation of morality, where does that leave altruism?