title: Resilient help to switch and overlap hierarchical subsystems in a small human group.
abstract: Groups of social organisms in nature are resilient systems that can overcome unpredicted threats by helping its members. These social organisms are assumed to behave both autonomously and cooperatively as individuals, the helper, the helped and other part of a group depending on the context such as emergencies. However, the structure and function of these resilient actions, such as how helpers help colleagues and how the helper's action is effective at multiple subsystem scales remain unclear. Here we investigated the behaviour of organised and efficient small human groups in a ballgame defence, and identified three principles of hierarchical resilient help when under attack. First, at a present high emergency level, the helper simply switched the local roles in the attacked subsystem with the helped. Second, at an intermediate emergency level, the helpers effectively acted in overlapping subsystems. Third, for the most critical emergency, the helpers globally switched the action on the overall system. These resilient actions to the benefit of the system were assumed to be observed in only humans, which help colleagues at flexibly switched and overlapped hierarchical subsystem. We suggest that these multi-layered helping behaviours can help to understand resilient cooperation in social organisms and human groups.
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Health Physical Fitness and Sports, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-0814, Japan.|Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujii
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Health Physical Fitness and Sports, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-0814, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.affiliation: Sport Medical Science Research Institute, Tokai University, 4-1-1 Kitakaname Hiratsuka Kanagawa, 259-1292, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koyama
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Education, Tokai University, 4-1-1 Kitakaname Hiratsuka Kanagawa, 259-1292, Japan.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rikukawa
authors.affiliation: School of Physical Education, Tokai University, 4-1-1 Kitakaname Hiratsuka Kanagawa, 259-1292, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.affiliation: Research Center of Health Physical Fitness and Sports, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-0814, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yamamoto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004189:Disaster Planning; D004630:Emergencies; D005716:Game Theory; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012919:Social Behavior; D014741:Video Recording; D055815:Young Adult