Humans have a remarkable capacity to cooperate with others around shared goals. Yet, at the same time, many of society's most persistent social challenges are related to the difficulty of cooperating with others.

By studying the sustainable resource use patterns of diverse human communities around the world, Noble-prize winning political scientist, Elinor Ostrom, first identified 8 core design principles for how humans might organize our groups to facilitate cooperation around shared aims. Ostrom's framework has since been found to be helpful for a wide range of groups, including schools and classrooms.

Humans have a remarkable capacity to flexibly change our behaviors and that of those around us. Yet, at the same time, many of society's most persistent social challenges are related to the difficulty of behavior change, even when individuals and communities would prefer to do so.

Understanding the science of psychological flexibility provides a powerful lens for understanding the mental processes that can facilitate or hinder our abilities to move towards what matters to us.

Understanding the evolutionary origins of our elaborated human capacities for cooperation and flexibility provides a unique perspective for understanding the causes and consequences of our everyday social behaviors.

Understanding the role of social context as selection pressure on our own behavioral variation provides still a further powerful lens for thinking about how humans can create conditions that allow them to work together better.