The concept of cooperation and its set of ideas may be useful to me within my professional career. Tackling problems in a range of areas including Sociology, economics, international relationships and biology are all relevant in there own ways in my lines of work. Robert Axelrod’s (1984) theory on cooperating is an interesting one to me and I instantly see how I already use this concept in life and work environment, in really I would call it ‘survival’ and I think is shown well in his simple model known as the ‘prisoner dilemma’(1) the basis simply ‘cooperate until maximum benefit produced then defect’ to gain the maximum yield or in the context of professional networks making the most of a contact then know is fully with others until you reach the point of maximum benefit after which a choice emerges, have you benefited enough from this contact? Will it be more valuable to move on from this contact than to carry on co-operating? These are all thing to consider when relating this theory to my professional practice. A good example of this is my practice has been when iv been doing voluntary work and have had to way up if the current situation has been valuable enough for me to give up more of my time? Can I gain from staying on? Or am I being overworked for little yield? Is the person doing the same to me in the context of the ‘prisoner theory’?
Affiliation is in the area of Social psychology that seeks to understand why humans ‘form close relationships’. The theory say’s that the desire and need to form affiliation is partly a social result of a psychological process operating in our brains and need that satisfies us by providing us ‘with a network of support that will help us when we need’.(2) The need for Affiliation differs between us but we each seek to balance our interations with others to a prefered level, this theory clearly links to Oconner and Rosenblood’s theory of homeostasis(3), which says our level of affiliation is relative to our preferred levels of social stimulation, which is often personal preference but can also so be effected and linked by the opposite the need to maintain privacy which I took from Hofstede ideas on privacy regulation(4) or cultural differences.
I notice that this is obviously relevant to me no many levels. I create different networks for different reasons and choose some over others, because firstly my preference of what I perceive valuable to me this links with the theory of cooperation, the level I want to network according to what I want achieve and what culturally I am able or told I can do or should do. But I find this valuable to me and I will continue to affiliate as a major technique a network of support within my personal and professional development and try to attract even more those beneficial individuals that I come into my networks, this is something that has to be sustained long term. I’m aware that a lack of affiliation at this stage of my development could result in a lasting negative impact later on in life.
Constructionism is the view that all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context. (5) the ideas say that networks are large social constructions of our own making directed by our perceptions and experience of the world and the interaction for the people around us. They evolve as experience constantly changes your perceptions and inconsequence altering your networks and circles. I not this has got meaning for me in my professional development process. When I came to comeing up with the ideas of peaeofthepye.com I sat back one day and asked my self why do want to create an information network to possibly better the world in some way ad I instantly realized it must have a link with my experience of the world, the people I have around me and the ideology I have around me. I looked at the current networks I have and are involved in and c a link with my perception on life. I know that may networks will constantly evolve according to my experiences and even ideas for say a documentary will also evolve according to the world around me .
Connectivism is a learning theory among others, which emphasizes the importance and role of networks and connections between people as central to the learning process(6). Connectives says that teachers, experts, books, web sites , all provide ‘information’ but web 2.0 has help develop a more networked and complex basis to share information which has increase more and more with the development of social networking platform, and that’s these are more up to date as they provide more than one way information sharing ie books. Web 2.0 allows people who don’t have the credibility of say a teacher to share, learn or comment on information that may have been hard to access and promote learning and sharing of knowledge. This is relevant to me in ways of coming up with ideas. Also allows me to and the participants of peaceofthepye to share relevant and new information we feel worthy to our networks.
References
(1) Axelrod. R, , The Evolution of Cooperation 1981pp 1390-1396
(2) Crisp, J & Turner, R. 2007 pp266
(3) Oconner and Rosenblood 1996 pp267
(4) Hofstede, 1980
(5) Crotty, M. 2005 pp 42-44
(6) Siemens, G 2004
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