“Professional Networks and their effective engagement could produce benefits for you personally and the things that matter to you” (Reader 3, 2013).
Within the work place, especially in the performing arts, it would almost seem it’s part of one’s instinct to ‘get to the top’ no matter what that takes. ‘Co-operation’ and ‘Affiliation’ are two different networking theories exploring how different people will take what they want from a given situation to get where they want to be.
Co-operation
When think about ‘co-operation’ and how I use it within daily life, and particularly my working life, I think about getting on with people (whether I like it or not). In most cases, it is just something you have to do and without yet thinking about ‘game theory’ you will co-operate to achieve something. For example, working in a dance company, each member would work together as a team to put on the best performance possible. Robert Axelrod is an influential researcher in this field who identified the benefits of “co-operating fully, until you reach a point of maximum benefit, and then defect” (Reader 3, 2013). A representation of this can be seen in “Prisoners Dilemma” which involves two contestants who each must make a choice without knowing what the other will do. From this game theory, Axelrod inferred, “The temptation is to defect. But, the dilemma is that if both defect, both do worse than if both had co-operated.” (Axelrod, 1984). From this, I came to the conclusion, that whilst eventually, one would defect in order to gain the most one can, equally, it pays to cooperate and consequently, the longer you co-operate, the more you can achieve. Arguably, co-operating for too long, can leave you worse off if the opponent defects before you. Within the theory, Axelrod also points out that a “tit-for-tat” pattern is created and we should “take advantage of networks for our own benefit and that of the wider network”. (Axelrod, 1984, p. xi-xiv).
It could be argued that the usefulness of the actual game, on the other hand, could be that this model is fundamentally flawed. It is based on a scientific scale, few social situations could be modeled accurately by a single transaction, and as the reader states, it’s “a very simple model”.
When reading through other blogs posted about this task, one opinion I saw was that Axelrod’s game theory, to them, was just ‘using’ someone. I could relate to this as I thought this too at first, however, I would challenge this by saying; it is very rare that a person will give without gaining something themselves. For example, within my workplace, I will co-operate because I gaining from the experience to support my PGCE application yet at the same time, the department is gaining from me, new choreography that the students have used for their assessment. I believe, in order for co-operation to work, all persons involved should be getting something out of it and benefit from it, whether that be for themselves or someone else. There may be situations, for example, in auditions, where people follow Axelrod’s theory and co-operate up to a certain point, and then defect.
Affiliation
Although I can see it sharing similarities with the traits of ‘co-operation’, in terms of ‘getting on’, when I think of ‘affiliation’ I associate it with friendships you make and this theory would seem a lot more intimate than that of co-operation. As humans, it is in our nature “to form close relationships” (Crisp and Turner, 2007). Everyone has affiliations and some rely on them more heavily than others, which links to the affiliation theory of ‘homeostasis’ where we each seek to balance our affiliations to a preferred level (O’Connor and Rosenblood, 1996). In other words, finding a balance of associations which is right for you at a particular time. Within this concept comes the idea of ‘having friends in the right places’, and is all part of professional networking.
Another key aspect of ‘affiliations’ is trust. Those you affiliate with, both professionally and socially, are people you trust and trust information and knowledge they pass onto you. With this also comes the risk of putting trust in the wrong person and with that, the ethics behind that information getting leaked.
References:
The Evolution of Co-operation, (Axelrod, R, 1984)
Essential Social Psychology (2nd ed), (Crisp, Richard J. and Turner, Rhiannon N, 2007)
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