I’m just speculating at random now, but the idea has popped into my head so I’ll share.
We’re adapted to function in small tribes where status may be very absolute and worth guarding on the one hand, and cooperation/helping each-other necessary very frequently. Our modern situation isn’t quite the same—I’m completely self-sufficient in the sense that I can participate in formal and impersonal business activities and then purchase anything I need. Most of my friends are the same—if we’re out, we pay our own tabs; if we’re having a bad day, we try not to spread our contagious bad moods to each-other.
But I’ve recently been reading Robert Wright’s book “Non-zero”. He suggests that trading favours with people is a central part of human bonding. We may need to have opportunities to get a feel for each-others’ characters by exchanging small favours, before we start trusting each-other with bigger things (Is this person a defector? I’ll test that out by exchanging a fairly trivial favour. If they don’t defect, I can up the ante. Etc). If that’s true, then we’re not getting many opportunities to show each-other that we’re co-operators, not defectors.
Of course, there used to be two ways of being a defector: 1) ruthlessly cheating for gain, or 2) being an inadequate tribe-member who can’t carry their weight. In that sort of situation, requiring help too often would look bad in the same way that someone with bad credit would look to a lender—not someone to do business with. Just as private companies have “optimal debt ratios”, perhaps humans do, too. If you’re too needy you start to look like bad credit, but if you aren’t needy enough, you never get an opportunity to up your credit rating. Perhaps the credit-rating → status analogy has something for it. And perhaps relative loners like me are too more tuned to the “avoid being perceived as an inadequate tribe-member” logic than is appropriate in our wealthy modern world.
Or you could be programmed to act that way because you’re a loner. You don’t have much in the way of connections or credibility, so asking for favors out of the blue is a recipe for failure.
I’m just speculating at random now, but the idea has popped into my head so I’ll share.
We’re adapted to function in small tribes where status may be very absolute and worth guarding on the one hand, and cooperation/helping each-other necessary very frequently. Our modern situation isn’t quite the same—I’m completely self-sufficient in the sense that I can participate in formal and impersonal business activities and then purchase anything I need. Most of my friends are the same—if we’re out, we pay our own tabs; if we’re having a bad day, we try not to spread our contagious bad moods to each-other.
But I’ve recently been reading Robert Wright’s book “Non-zero”. He suggests that trading favours with people is a central part of human bonding. We may need to have opportunities to get a feel for each-others’ characters by exchanging small favours, before we start trusting each-other with bigger things (Is this person a defector? I’ll test that out by exchanging a fairly trivial favour. If they don’t defect, I can up the ante. Etc). If that’s true, then we’re not getting many opportunities to show each-other that we’re co-operators, not defectors.
Of course, there used to be two ways of being a defector: 1) ruthlessly cheating for gain, or 2) being an inadequate tribe-member who can’t carry their weight. In that sort of situation, requiring help too often would look bad in the same way that someone with bad credit would look to a lender—not someone to do business with. Just as private companies have “optimal debt ratios”, perhaps humans do, too. If you’re too needy you start to look like bad credit, but if you aren’t needy enough, you never get an opportunity to up your credit rating. Perhaps the credit-rating → status analogy has something for it. And perhaps relative loners like me are too more tuned to the “avoid being perceived as an inadequate tribe-member” logic than is appropriate in our wealthy modern world.
Or you could be programmed to act that way because you’re a loner. You don’t have much in the way of connections or credibility, so asking for favors out of the blue is a recipe for failure.