12.1 Conflict, Cooperation, Morality, and Fairness

Learning Objectives

Review the situational variables that increase or decrease competition and conflict.

Differentiate harm-based morality from social conventional morality, and explain how morality works to help people cooperate.

Define distributive justice and procedural justice, and explain the influence of fairness norms on cooperation and competition.

Whether we cooperate or compete is determined, as are most human behaviors, in part by the characteristics of the individuals who are involved in the relationship and in part by the social situation that surrounds them. Let’s begin by considering first the situational determinants of competition and conflict.