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4
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Dictate
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Command
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Determine
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Announce
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5
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Function
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Earn
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Work
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Operate
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6
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Orderly
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Organized
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Disciplined
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Honest
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7
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Punishment
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Disciple
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Rejection
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Penalty
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8
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Reward
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Wealth
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Prize
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award
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READING 1 Living by the rules
Before you read
Work in groups. Do you agree with this quote?
Work in groups. Do you agree with this quote? Why / why not? When is it acceptable for things to be unfair?
"Life is not fair. Get used to it." (Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft)
Global reading
SKIMMING
Skim reading is a useful skill to learn when you are preparing for academic, study. You are likely to have a lot of texts to read, a lot of research to do, and not enough time to read everything on a topic. It is therefore often important to decide whether it is worth reading a text in greater detail. You can do this by skimming a text quickly to identify the main ideas using headings, sub-headings, and topic sentences to help give you a bigger picture.
1. Skim Living by the rules and check () what it is about.
how to make people's behavior fair
why we have to compromise
how to compromise in unfair situations
why we have rules in our communities
2 Read Living by the rules. Highlight the main points as you read. Then compare
with a partner. Did you highlight similar points? What are the differences?
Close reading
Scan back over Living by the rules and complete these sentences about the text.
1. A community is a group of people who are _____________________ by several factors.
2. When a situation is unfair, our brains respond with ___________ feelings ______________
such as __________________ and ___________________.
3. Social _____________________ are important in setting and following rules.
4. Internal controls are determined by our ______________ and __________________.
5. External controls include ______________________ and _____________________.
6. If we didn't have social controls, our communities would not __________________.
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AVGUST 25
What would life be like without rules? A recent study by Thurner, Szell and Sinatra (2012) examined the behavior of avatars in an online world with no rules and found, perhaps surprisingly, that the lack of rules did not result in disorder. There was very little cheating or antisocial behavior. People organized themselves into groups and traded, communicated and moved around much like people in the real world.
However, almost every community in the real world has some form of rules and some way of enforcing them. A community is a group of people who are united by a number of factors, including geography, language, and values that dictate acceptable behavior. So why do we have rules, and what makes people follow them? Studies have suggested that the reason we don't like cheating and rule-breaking is because fairness is programmed into our brains. Tricomi et al (2010) have found that the brain reacts in a particular way when we feel we are being treated unfairly. The study identified a reaction in a specific part of the brain when test subjects were given less money than others. A fair situation makes our brains respond in ways that lead to feelings of comfort and even happiness, but unfairness causes our brains to respond with negative feelings such as anger and pain. The study found that this also happened when subjects saw other people being treated unfairly. They concluded that fairness is a basic human need along with food and social contact.
Our sense of fairness depends on the influences in our culture, the immediate situation we are in, and our own self-interest. Arriving at a feeling of fairness means considering different, often conflicting, points of view. Regardless of the disagreement, people almost always need to compromise. But it can be difficult to arrive at a compromise when there are conflicting interests. This is why communities have rules that everyone must follow.
Social controls are an important factor in setting and following rules. They influence the way we behave, and can be internal or external. Internal controls come from within and are based on our values and fears. Most of us don't steal, for example, because we believe that theft is unfair and wrong. We also don't want to disappoint our family and friends. In other words, our internal controls keep us from behaving in ways that cause conflict.
External controls include rewards and punishments. They do not come from within but are implemented by an authority — this could be the national or local government, the police, a manager, a teacher or parents, depending on the situation. Rewards, such as job promotions, awards, and praise, are designed to encourage people to behave and act in
the interest of the whole community. Punishments, such as public embarrassment, fines, and even imprisonment can prevent people from acting against the community's best interests, regardless of their values.
People need their communities to function smoothly. Because of this, humans most often behave in orderly, fair, and predictable ways. If there were no rules, the majority of people would probably continue to interact positively, like the subjects in the online avatar study. However, there would always be a minority who would not, with serious consequences. This is why a society without rules is unlikely to become a reality any time soon — at least not in the real world.
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Developing critical thinking
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