Part of our psychology is geared to cooperation. We help each other and have a great capacity for harmony. But we are also in competition with each other, so another way of benefiting from living in social groups is to use other human beings for our own ends. There are many situations in life where it pays more to exploit others than to cooperate. So some of our psychology is also centred on dealing with conflict.
There is a tension in life: should we be peacefully cooperative and resist the benefits of using others just for our own gain? Or should we get ahead by cheating and exploiting people? This tension is at the heart of being a social ...
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