Page 368 - The Social Animal

350 The Social Animal

first few days, most of them tried to compete against each other—
even though competitiveness was dysfunctional. Let me illustrate
with an actual example, typical of the way the children stumbled
toward the learning of the cooperative process. In one of our groups
there was a Mexican-American boy, whom I will call Carlos. Car-
los’s task was to report on Joseph Pulitzer’s young manhood. He
knew the material, but he was very nervous and was having a very
hard time. During the past few weeks, some of the Anglo students
had taunted him about his accent, and he was afraid that this might
happen again.
He stammered, hesitated, and fidgeted. Sure enough, the other
kids in the circle were not very helpful. They were well versed in the
rough-and-tumble tactics of the competitive classroom. They knew
what to do when a kid stumbled—especially a kid whom they be-
lieved to be stupid. They ridiculed him. During our experiment, it
was Mary who was observed to say: “Aw, you don’t know it, you’re
dumb, you’re stupid. You don’t know what you’re doing.” In our ini-
tial experiment, the groups were being loosely monitored by a re-
search assistant who was floating from group to group. When this
incident occurred, our assistant made one brief intervention: “Okay,
you can do that if you want to. It might even be fun for you. But it’s
not going to help you learn about Joseph Pulitzer’s young adulthood.
By the way, the exam will take place in less than an hour.” Notice
how the reinforcement contingencies had shifted. No longer did
Mary gain much from rattling Carlos; in fact, she now stood to lose
a great deal.
After a few similar experiences, it dawned on the students in
Carlos’s group that the only way they could learn about the segment
Carlos was trying to teach them was by paying attention to what
Carlos had to say. Gradually, they began to develop into good lis-
teners. Some even became pretty good interviewers. Instead of ig-
noring or ridiculing Carlos when he was having a little trouble
communicating what he knew, they began asking gentle, probing
questions—the kinds of questions that made it easier for Carlos to
communicate what was in his mind. Carlos began to respond to this
treatment by becoming more relaxed; with increased relaxation
came an improvement in his ability to communicate. After a couple
of weeks, the other children realized that Carlos was a lot smarter
than they had thought he was. Because they were paying attention,