Team Strategies & Gift Exchange

The three New York Times articles we read in preparation for this week’s blog post touched on the related ideas of equality, fairness, and altruism. In each case, the authors highlighted a human predisposition towards each of these ideals. They went on to discuss the ways societal evolution has influenced our perceptions in terms of norms for what is fair, what is right, and when equality is appropriate. Many behavioral economists seek to answer these same types of questions when they consider the effect of human thought processes and emotions in decision making.

Because a great deal of our class efforts of late have been focused on our term papers, I wanted to try and use the information the articles conveyed to improve our team as we progress to our second draft. In preparation for our first draft submission, certain inefficiencies were made apparent. It is my assessment that these issues stem from a lack of accountability towards each other and a scarcity of motivation that may not reflect one’s feelings toward the group, project, or class, but could be a result of extenuating circumstances. As each of our group members finds themselves in our senior year, it could be that our other courses are dominating our time, or that “senioritis” has kicked in. In any case, I think certain strategies introduced in the articles might be effective at reshaping group attitudes, implementing stronger incentives, and ultimately improving our outcome through intentional actions. Most certainly, a gift exchange mentality would improve these areas as well.

The first article highlighted an important relationship between effort and outcome. It seems there is a human phenomenon that when people are forced to work together and cooperate to achieve an outcome, they feel more inclined to share the reward. Conversely, when team members are not forced to cooperate and, in some cases, exert no effort at all to gain the reward, the members do not feel as inclined to split the reward fairly. In this latter case, the attitude is that “I earned this” either by effort or chance. Whereas splitting the reward in the first case feels like sharing, since all members contributed to the outcome, the second might be viewed as more of a handout to which the disadvantaged member is not entitled.

Applying this notion to our group, it becomes apparent that cooperation could aid our team by producing stronger results, as well as increasing individual satisfaction. Although we don’t have the option to split the reward unequally, it’s important to note that our term papers could easily be completed by any one individual and, as a result, do not force cooperation. In preparation for our first draft, I admittedly took the lead, hoping to spur productivity leading by example. This strategy was not especially effective, and it certainly didn’t take advantage of cooperation. By assigning each member to specific sections of the paper, we were merely a sum of our parts; not forced to work together. I propose that going forward we rely more heavily on cooperative efforts. This decision has the power to strengthen the entire group, and working together more closely will enable us to challenge each other’s assumptions and build trust.

The second article examines the idea of fairness. The author summarizes his point well when he writes that “humans evolved to want fair treatment” (KJ Dell’Antonia). We see this behavior plainly evidenced in the actions of children who, as an extension of not yet learning that life is not inherently fair, demand equal treatment in nearly every scenario. To mitigate arguments over inequality, Dell’Antonia introduces strategies for making participants perceive the outcome as fair, even when the circumstances prevent perfect equality. At the core of these methods are the ideas of cooperation, randomization, and bribery.

I believe any of the strategies introduced could be implemented for our team and would serve to communally benefit our efforts. There were times working on our first draft I felt things were not fair. As someone inclined towards time management and organization, I put in effort early on to lay out a plan for completion and began working on our paper whenever I had spare time. Consequentially, it seemed I was contributing a greater share of the work and realized we would all be receiving the exact same grade. Something about it didn’t feel fair, and yet I couldn’t think of a better solution because I cared about the grade and the work needed to get done. As relatively new acquaintances, we had yet to build trust among our group, and I felt I had little power for motivating or incentivizing my groupmates to step up and do their share.

In the previous article, I touched on how we might implement cooperation within our group to mitigate this scenario. This is probably the best method for encouraging a feeling of fairness. Randomization might be used to decide who takes on which tasks for draft two; this way, if someone receives a task they perceive is harder or more work than another group member, they know it was purely by chance. Bribery, while effective, seems like a stretch simply because none of us are likely willing to put up the money to create an effective bribery system. The cost would likely outweigh the benefits, and it certainly doesn’t fit in the gift exchange model.

The last article examined the idea of inherent altruism in society. Author David Brooks shares his belief that “we are strongly motivated to teach and help others”, in defiance of classical economic theory based on people’s self-interest. Brooks believes that altruism is a societal norm, but that expectations and shifting incentives can revise this norm over time. We can apply this idea to our team; perhaps if this project was just to collaborate with others to review Chandler’s paper, we would each be willing to pitch in equally and help the other team members out when needed.

By attaching grades to the project, we see the incentive shift Brooks describes from moral to financial. Whereas moral obligations more strongly motivate people to help one another, financial obligations provide an “easy out” because people are now motivated to maximize their returns rather than maximize social welfare. The focus is on themselves, rather than the whole. This mindset might be the hardest to switch as our group begins work on draft two because I don’t think any one of us will forget that there are grades attached to our effort, but the altruistic ideal is a nice goal to have.  

The prompt challenged us to come up with an example of team production using gift exchange. I was only vaguely familiar with this concept, but a quick internet search enlightened me with the Wikipedia definition; “a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.” Using the articles, I’ve outlined a couple ways a group might implement a more productive, co-dependent structure, none of which involve implicit bribery. For gift exchange to properly motivate people, I’m not sure they even need to feel a sense of responsibility to their teammates. Even in the classical theory of economics, if people are motivated by self-interest I would think they would put in the effort in a group project to get the grade for themselves. In this case, their groupmate’s shared grade is simply a positive externality. Considering this, I would pose the question of whether empathy, or even a mere sense of accountability, are essential components to a gift exchange economy. Could a gift exchange model work if people are purely motivated by their own interests?