Posted by J. Donner on
URL: https://coalpha.arkian.net/Group-Cohesion-tp5588680p5594369.html

Ardia wrote

If anything, it should be stress towards a common goal. That stress is the stress of separation and isolation.

Creating artificial stress for a loosely defined group without any clearly delineated values, purposes, or goals (by which I mean immediate, tangible goals that we can work towards) is ill advised.

Boot camp works for the military because everyone in the process knows that the recruits are probably going to be sent to war. Therefore, they subject recruits to all kinds of physical, mental and even moral stress to acclimate them to the hardships of fighting a war. However, these training techniques are highly ineffective in environments where people know they aren't going to go to a war - for example, at my command in Okinawa. We were not deployable there, and yet the command tried to use the same boot camp style tactics to control us, and we all resented the command and dissociated ourselves from the Marine Corps because of it.

Why, aside from a perceived increase in "cohesion," would we want to subject potential CoAlphas to artificial stress?