"... You see this often when engineers meet. If the group is new, and haven't established a status hierarchy already, they will quickly start throwing jargon around at each other, to show who is more knowledgeable and try to make others look stupid. ..."
"... I think it is necessary to emphasize that this extends to professional domain knowledge. It is absolutely unacceptable to put anyone down because of their religion, sex orientation, skin color, or body shape. ..."
It's naive to think telling people "they are full of shit" won't have repercussions. If opinion is disregarded with such emotion it will have negative impacts on the team and team members. Queen bees use "homovanillyl alcohol" (HVA) to chemically interfere and suppress worker drones. Maybe in human teams, status is enforced through social pressure?
"... Evolution has provided queen bees with a chemical that selectively blocks aversive learning but leaves reward learning intact ..."
Now that's an idea worth exploring. How to knock down potentially inefficient ideas more efficiently?
Great observation. Mean girls and Queen-bee behaviour in engineers ~ http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Bees-Wannabes-Boyfriends-Realiti...
"... But there is an upside to it. ..."
In the natural world, "status hierarchy" is used to protect the integrity of groups at the expense of pions. So there is upside. You see it in Bees for example: ~ http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/sci-tech/researchers-unr...
"... I think it is necessary to emphasize that this extends to professional domain knowledge. It is absolutely unacceptable to put anyone down because of their religion, sex orientation, skin color, or body shape. ..."
It's naive to think telling people "they are full of shit" won't have repercussions. If opinion is disregarded with such emotion it will have negative impacts on the team and team members. Queen bees use "homovanillyl alcohol" (HVA) to chemically interfere and suppress worker drones. Maybe in human teams, status is enforced through social pressure?
"... Evolution has provided queen bees with a chemical that selectively blocks aversive learning but leaves reward learning intact ..."
Now that's an idea worth exploring. How to knock down potentially inefficient ideas more efficiently?