As a naturally inquisitive person, I am always interested in how things work. The human brain is always working even when our bodies are asleep. A great book currently states that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made”, meaning that there are no limits to what we can accomplish. Humans have no problem pushing themselves to the limit, especially when there is a strong competing force. However, when outmatched, we have no problem reaching for our “ace in the hole”; collaboration. “Two heads are better than one”. While there may not be limits to what we can accomplish, we can accomplish so much more and at a much faster pace when working together. Collaboration is the sharing and completion of activities towards a common goal in a social or work-related setting (Iivonen & Huotari, 2000). Humans have a natural instinct to work together, or collaborate, to accomplish a common goal.
To that end, technology has made the world a much smaller place and we find ourselves not only competing on a much broader scale but also collaborating on a much larger scale. Globalization is but one example of the direction our new global society is traveling. Please allow me to stray a bit … in the 1996 Paramount motion picture “Star Trek: First Contact” the earth’s “first contact” with an alien race is threatened by another alien race that travels back in time to eliminate that occurrence. This alien race, which thrives as a “collective” order, realized through research that this was a pivotal point in history; when humankind realized that competition “was futile” and collaboration was more beneficial. Of course, this alien race, called “the Borg”, did not meet their objective, but if it had been successful, humanity would have been stagnant and ripe for conquest. This may have been “only a movie”, but it was clearly grounded in reality.
Competition with an equal or superior adversary serves as motivation for collaboration. Pareto et al. (2012) conducted a study on how collaboration and competition impact motivation and learning. Their findings indicated that a competitive and collaborative environment caused intense motivation which subsequently increased learning. Returning to the point of Star Trek, it stands to reason that human beings would collaborate upon discovering that they were not alone in the universe. In addition, the fact that the competition (aliens) was far more advanced would serve as motivation to stop the petty squabbling and collaborate.
References
Iivonen, M., & Huotari, M. (2000). The impact of trust on the practice of knowledge management. Chicago, IL: American society for information scienc annual meeting.
Pareto, L., Haake, M., Lindstrom, P., Sjoden, B., & Gulz, A. (2012). A teachale-agent-based game affording collaboration and competition: evaluating math comprehension and motivation. Educational Technology Research & Development, 60, 723-751. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&sid=6e889609-3c1c-43bc-9f72-c08e859bbd4a%40sessionmgr110&hid=114
Mia's Blog 