To the psychologist all marital problems present themselves in two aspects. The first is concerned with the individuals involved and their personalities, the second with the technique and methods they use in dealing with each other. It is possible to recognize the reasons for a person’s actions and the nature of his difficulties by understanding his personal development, his pattern of life, his training, and the degree of his comprehension; and similarly, since all difficulties are social in character, and any difficulty in an individual’s experience is, therefore, not his exclusive concern, it is necessary to recognize the human interactions and interrelationships which produce existing conditions and social atmospheres. Alfred Adler was the first to expose all individual problems and conflicts in their essentially social nature. In trying to understand the individual patients, he discovered the “logic of communal life,” 1 also termed the “ironclad logic of living together,” which the neurotic patient disregards and offends. He formulated certain laws which must be observed in group living, wherever people wish to get along with each other. Definite rules of cooperation are essential for the preservation of every harmonious human relationship. All failures in life, all unhappiness and disappointment can be traced back to disregard and violation of the necessary rules of cooperation.
What does cooperation mean? Is it, as many seem to think, a moral obligation of our fellow-man toward ourselves? We easily realize its absence in others, and we recognize then its importance. But it is difficult to perceive deficiency of cooperation in ourselves. Although we have definite ideas of what cooperation means, we apply them only in limited degree to ourselves.
Cooperation as a subject for research seems to imply the consideration of values which appertain less to science than to religion and ethics. It is easy for the physical sciences to ignore values. Psychology, however, cannot do this, for its very subject is the person who evaluates. It must deliberately attempt to make bias a subject of research, and even accept its presence in the research procedure and find some means of overcoming its undesirable effects. Psychology as a science must remain free from subjectivity as far as is humanly possible; it must refrain from personal evaluation -but it must analyze it.
We can avoid irrelevant and undesirable evaluation when we define cooperation without reference to morals and ethics, by not seeking to determine whether a particular act is “good” or “bad.” In pointing out the results to which a specific act will lead, however, we remain objective and can achieve a good description of cooperation.
Those acts which disturb human relationship we may regard as contradictory to the rules of cooperation. All those acts which tend to remove friction and antagonism from human relationships seem to be in accord with the rules of cooperation. Cooperation is orderly interaction, harmonious working together toward a common objective, agreement and mutual assistance. All those acts which stimulate or increase these conditions can be considered as conforming to the rules of cooperation, and whatever creates disagreement, friction, and opposition, as violating them. A clear knowledge of these rules can help considerably to improve vital cooperation and to avoid disastrous mistakes. Investigation of all factors involved is not yet concluded. We can hope to obtain a clearer picture through the integrated research of psychology, social science, and probably anthropology. Already, however, we know some of the fundamentals upon which cooperation is based. For marital happiness especially, observance of the rules of cooperation is imperative, since marriage is the closest kind of living together-the most intimate association between two human beings.
Human nature is essentially social, and human qualities result from social intercourse. Human beings isolated for a period of years-a shipwrecked sailor, for example-lose all typical human qualities. Responsiveness to inter-human contact, however, is based on an innate social feeling. This, the result of several hundred thousand years of community living, is inherited as a potentiality and must be developed anew in each child to the high degree necessary for the intricate social order of our present culture. The ability to cooperate is based primarily on the amount of social feeling which a person has developed during childhood and after.
Social feeling means social interest; it is the expression of a sense of belonging together. Lack of sufficient social feeling limits cooperation; fellow men too easily appear to be sinister antagonists against whom defense is imperative. The resulting feeling of hostility prevents cooperation just as social feeling establishes it.
The feeling of belonging presupposes confidence in others, who are recognized and accepted as fellow creatures, and confidence in oneself as a source of strength which enables us to face any eventuality. Fear is the chief obstacle to cooperation. Human beings develop social feelings and act cooperatively as long as fear does not frustrate their natural inclinations. The desire to cooperate is curbed only by a feeling of inferiority which produces a compulsion toward self-defense. Very frequently the defensive attitude is assumed unnecessarily in the face of an imaginary danger, usually when one senses a threat to personal prestige. Everyone prefers to cooperate and suffers if he cannot.
Since fear is the chief obstacle to cooperation, how can we avoid it? Apparently the establishment of a feeling of security is one means. But security in itself does not exist. Death, sickness, and disaster threaten constantly-and always will. We cannot establish security because we cannot perfectly control these threats. We can, however, cultivate confidence in ourselves and our neighbors. We can cultivate whatever gives us acceptance in their eyes and find acceptable whatever we can in the qualities they present. Only self-confidence can help us face eventualities beyond our control. Self-confidence evinced under stress is courage. Courage and self-confidence constitute the only possible basis for a feeling of security, founded on the realization that whatever may arise, one will be able to take it and to make the best of it.