Why doesn’t human selfishness go away? The spatial structure effect causes people to decide how to behave differently depending on the physical distance and scope of interaction, i.e., people are more inclined to act in their own favor when interaction with their surroundings is limited or distant, which may explain why selfish behavior is repeated in social situations.
We know that altruistic behavior is socially desirable, and that selfish behavior is unacceptable. This is consistent with the fact that humans have historically survived by helping and cooperating with each other to form larger communities. We often grow up with or witness the sacrifices of others, and we naturally internalize these values as we grow up. As a result, we are concerned with “selfish” behaviors that undermine the good of the community – behaviors that put our own interests ahead of the interests of others. The negative consequences of selfish behavior are felt on a scale from small to large, from interpersonal relationships to society as a whole.
This is why we feel outraged by selfish behavior when we read in the news about a public official taking a bribe, a company misrepresenting the ingredients of a product, or a captain abandoning passengers on a sinking cruise ship. This is because they are not just seeking personal gain, but harming others and undermining social trust. We condemn selfish behavior and hope that it will never happen again, but selfish behavior is a constant in human society. So why does it persist? Why hasn’t human selfishness completely disappeared?
One of the theories that answers these questions is the “spatial structure effect”. The spatial structure effect is the idea that human behavior is influenced by the physical spatial structure, and it’s gaining traction in the fields of psychology and sociology. The term “spatial structure” refers to the distance between an individual and the rest of the society, i.e. the physical or psychological distance between people with whom they can interact. This shows that human behavior can be strongly influenced not only by the personality or intentions of the individual, but also by the surrounding environment, especially spatial factors.
For example, assuming that 100 people make up a society, the distance between any two people is highly dependent on how they are arranged. If you arrange them in a 10×10 checkerboard, the closest people to a person will be their neighbors to the east, west, north, and south, and everyone else will be farther away. On the other hand, at the other extreme, you can imagine an arrangement where everyone is directly adjacent to everyone else. This is similar to the Internet, a wide area network that interacts in real time with an unknown number of people far away. Each of these spatial structures defines the physical distance to reach a particular person, and that distance determines the frequency and density of human interactions.
So why do spatial structure effects affect human behavior? Because physical distance determines the quality and quantity of interactions between members of a society. Consider the two spatial structures we mentioned earlier. In a checkerboard arrangement, the farther apart people are, the more effort it takes to reach them and interact with them. On the other hand, if all members are neighbors, it takes the same amount of effort to interact with anyone. If we apply this to interactions between members of a society, it’s easy to see how these distance differences can affect the quality and quantity of interactions.
Now, let’s look at an example of selfish behavior with the spatial structure effect. The captain of a sinking cruise ship has two choices. One is to stay on the sinking ship until all passengers have escaped, and the other is to leave them alone and escape alone. According to social conventions, the former is labeled as selfless and the latter as selfish. Of course, society expects the captain to stay and help the passengers escape. However, the reason why the captain might leave passengers behind and escape might be due to the spatial structure of the cruise ship. In the unique situation of a sinking cruise ship, the captain has limited interaction with the crew and passengers around him, and limited communication with them. Because he is in a spatial structure that limits his interaction with the distant public or society as a whole, his behavior is likely to be determined by his relationship with the crew and limited passengers closest to him, rather than the community as a whole.
On the other hand, if the sinking of the ship is being broadcast live across the country, and the captain is aware of this fact, his behavior may be different. In this case, the captain may have the perception that he is interacting with a spatially distant public, and this may make him more likely to make altruistic choices that meet public expectations. While spatial structure effects can lead to differences in interactions like this, human behavior is ultimately determined by a variety of complex conditions beyond spatial structure.
In conclusion, the spatial structure effect is an important factor that can influence the tendency to act altruistically or selfishly. In theory, this makes human behavior a little more predictable across contexts, and has implications for how we can design environments to reduce selfish behavior and promote altruistic behavior in society. Because human behavior is not simply determined by individual characteristics, but is strongly influenced by the environment in which we live and how we interact with it, we can create more desirable social behaviors by providing the right social and physical spatial structures.
