No Contest: The Case Against Competition

by Alfie Kohn

  2. Aronson, p. 152.

  3. Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” p. 218. John Harvey similarly notes: “The defeat of the unsuccessful has nothing to do with the real value of success” (p. 14).

  4. Margaret M. Clifford, “Effect of Competition as a Motivational Technique in the Classroom” (1972).

  5. Morton Goldman et al., “Intergroup and Intragroup Competition and Cooperation” (1977).

  6. Abaineh Workie, “The Relative Productivity of Cooperation and Competition” (1974).

  7. Deutsch, Resolution of Conflict.

  8. The Johnson brothers are probably this country’s most prolific contributors to the study of competition and cooperation in the classroom. Both educators and social psychologists at the University of Minnesota, they have published, at last count, about 100 books and articles on the subject—most of them within the last decade. Besides conducting and reviewing research, they serve as consultants to other educators, demonstrating cooperative teaching strategies.

  9. David W. Johnson et al., “Effects of Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Goal Structures on Achievement: A Meta-Analysis” (hereafter “Meta-Analysis”).

  10. Ibid., p. 53.

  11. Ibid., p. 54; Bryant J. Cratty, Social Psychology in Athletics, p. 76; Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” p. 220.

  12. Morton Goldman et al.; David R. Schmitt, “Performance Under Cooperation or Competition,” pp. 660–62. However, Dorcas Butt rightly notes that “there are very few situations in life in which people are not interdependent” (Psychology of Sport, p. 41 n.).

  13. Johnson and Johnson, “The Socialization and Achievement Crisis: Are Cooperative Learning Experiences the Solution?” (hereafter “Crisis”), p. 146.

  14. Pepitone, p. 30.

  15. Johnson and Johnson, Learning Together and Alone (hereafter Learning), p. 191. A few years later, the Johnsons went further, suggesting that “cooperation without intergroup competition [may promote] higher achievement and productivity than cooperation with intergroup competition,” based on their meta-analysis (“Meta-Analysis,” p. 57).

  16. Deutsch, Distributive Justice, p. 163. The research and its findings are described in detail in his chapter 10: “Experimental Studies of the Effects of Different Systems of Distributive Justice.”

  17. See Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” pp. 220–21.

  18. For example, see Irving C. Whittemore’s 1924 paper, “The Influence of Competition on Performance: An Experimental Study,” p. 245.

  19. Pepitone, p. 234. This study involved almost 1000 children, ages five 10 eleven.

  20. Johnson and Johnson, “Crisis,” p. 146.

  21. John C. Adams, Jr., “Effects of Competition and Open Receptivity on Creative Productivity,” pp. 16–17.

  22. H.-J. Lerch and M. Rubensal, “Eine Analyse des Zusammenhangs zwischen Schulleistungen und dem Wetteifermotiv.”

  23. Deutsch has written a provocative essay on the effects of grading in American schools. He argues that grades (1) do not assess actual accomplishment so much as turn education into a contest in which students “are measured primarily in comparison with one another”; (a) do not intrinsically motivate students better than a cooperative system; (3) actually serve the purposes of setting students against one another, thereby inhibiting collective action, and socializing them to accept and succeed in a competitive, capitalist culture; and (4) ignore social contexts in mistakenly assuming that the individual can and should be evaluated independently. His conclusion: “If the competitive grading system in our schools—a less corrupted version of a competitive merit system than the one that characterizes our larger society—does not foster a social environment that is conducive to individual well-being and effective social cooperation, why would one expect that such values would be fostered in a society that is dominated by a competitive, meritocratic ideology? If the competitive-hierarchical atmosphere is not good for our children, is it good for us?” (Deutsch, “Education and Distributive Justice.”)

  24. Aronson, pp. 206–10.

  25. Johnson and Johnson, Learning, pp. 79–80. The whole of this book provides teachers—particularly at the elementary school level—with useful suggestions for implementing a cooperative curriculum.

  26. Johnson and Johnson, “Crisis,” p. 122.

  27. Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” p. 226.

  28. Johnson and Johnson, “Crisis,” p. 149. In fact, even the widely held assumption that “students learn more or better in homogeneous groups . . . is simply not true.” A review of hundreds of studies fails to support this assumption even with respect to higher-level students (Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality, p. 7).

  29. Johnson and Johnson, “The Internal Dynamics of Cooperative Learning Groups,” p. 105.

  30. Stuart Yager et al., “Oral Discussion, Group-to-Individual Transfer, and Achievement in Cooperative Learning Groups,” p. 65.

  31. John S. Wodarski et al., “Individual Consequences Versus Different Shared Consequences Contingent on the Performance of Low-Achieving Group Members” (1973), pp. 288–89.

  32. Peter M. Blau, “Cooperation and Competition in a Bureaucracy.”

  33. Robert L. Helmreich et al., “Making It in Academic Psychology: Demographic and Personality Correlates of Attainment,” pp. 897, 902.

  34. Helmreich et al., “Achievement Motivation and Scientific Attainment,” p. 224.

  35. Janet T. Spence and Robert L. Helmreich, “Achievement-related Motives and Behavior” (hereafter “Achievement-related”), p. 53.

  36. Ibid., p. 52.

  37. Helmreich, “Pilot Selection and Training.”

  38. Helmreich et al., “The Honeymoon Effect in Job Performance.”

  39. Georgia Sassen, “Sex Role Orientation, Sex Differences, and Concept of Success,” pp. 38–39. The study involved twenty-eight undergraduates. Competitiveness was measured by a “Competitiveness of Success-Concept” test that she devised.

  40. Teresa M. Amabile, “Children’s Artistic Creativity," p. 576. There was high interjudge reliability (.77) with respect to the seven artists.

  41. Will Crutchfield, “The Ills of Piano Competitions.” Béla Bartók once said, “Competitions are for horses, not artists” (cited in Carl Battaglia, “Piano Competitions: Talent Hunt or Sport?” p. 31).

  42. Sandra McElwaine writes: “If competition is one of the passwords in Washington, nowhere is it more keenly felt than in the media. News is big business in the capital, and for the thousands of reporters covering the Government it is a constant hustle to find a different angle. The pervasive rivalry that results can produce depression, anxiety and insecurity, leading many to seek psychiatric aid” (“On the Couch in the Capital,” p. 63).

  43. Jay Winsten, “Science and the Media: The Boundaries of Truth,” p. 8.

  44. “The result has been a spiraling competition, sometimes characterized by exaggerated claims, in which ‘science by press conference’ has begun to replace the traditional mode of scientific discourse” (ibid., pp. 14–15).

  45. Stephen Klaidman, “TV’s Collusive Role.” Klaidman is senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics.

  46. The comments of Fred Friendly, former head of CBS News and now journalism professor emeritus at Columbia University, are paraphrased by Adam Pertman in his article, “Media Observers Say News Coverage Is Pressuring U.S. to Act.”

  47. Johnson and Johnson, “Processes,” p. 22.

  48. Helmreich et al., “Making It in Academic Psychology,” p. 907.

  49. Spence and Helmreich, “Achievement-related,” p. 55.

  50. John McMurty is quoted by William O. Johnson, “From Here to 2000,” p. 446. Robert N. Singer and Richard F. Gerson wrote as follows: “If the athlete is being evaluated only on the basis of whether or not a rival has been beaten, little information is really provided relating to the level of excellence achieved in performance” (“Athletic Competition for Children,” p. 25
3). Frank Winer similarly distinguishes between trying to improve one’s skill and trying to win (“The Elderly Jock and How He Got That Way” [hereafter “Elderly Jock”], p. 193).

  51. Lisa Belkin, “Young Albany Debaters Resolve Who’s Best.”

  52. Marvin E. Frankel, “The Search for Truth,” pp. 1037, 1039.

  53. I. Nelson Rose, “Litigator’s Fallacy,” pp. 92–93.

  54. Thurman Arnold is quoted in Anne Strick, Injustice for All, p. 109. Strick’s book offers a comprehensive indictment of the adversarial model, demonstrating that the problems frequently attributed to our legal system are “due less to any venality or inadequacy of the legal professionals than to the intrinsic nature of the adversary ethic itself” (p. 16). She urges that “consensus through cooperative exploration . . . replace the concept of truth through battle” (p. 217), whereas Rose recommends the more modest change of “shifting the emphasis in the Canons of Ethics from lawyers as zealous advocates of their individual client’s interests to lawyers as well-considered representatives of the interests of the public” (p. 95).

  55. John Knowles, A Separate Peace, p. 46.

  56. George B. Leonard, Education and Ecstasy, p. 129.

  57. David N. Campbell, “On Being Number One,” pp. 145–46. Morton Deutsch also observes that “through the repeated and pervasive experience of competitive struggle for scarce goods in the classroom, students are socialized into believing that this is not only the just way but also . . . natural and inevitable” (“Education and Distributive Justice,” p. 394).

  58. “The idea is essentially, ‘Make my kid suffer now so he gets used to it. Teach him to claw his way to the top by any means necessary. Teach him to hate those who win and himself when he loses and despise those who don’t make it’” (Campbell, p. 144).

  59. Clifford, pp. 134–35.

  60. See, for example, Matina Horner, “Performance of Men in Noncompetitive and Interpersonal Competitive Achievement-Oriented Situations.”

  61. Edward L. Deci et al., “When Trying to Win: Competition and Intrinsic Motivation,” p. 79. It is true that very competitive people may be said to have internalized the motivator. Structural competition then becomes fully intentional—a matter of temperament. With such people, the problems with extrinsic motivators may not be the best explanation for achievement differentials. For most of us, though, the appeal of the activity itself and the reward of being better than someone else remain very different.

  62. Johnson and Johnson, “Processes,” p. 16.

  63. Edward L. Deri, “Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation,” p. 114. Elsewhere he recommends that “one who is interested in developing and enhancing intrinsic motivation in children, employees, students, etc., should not concentrate on external-control systems such as monetary rewards, which are linked directly to performance, but, rather, he should concentrate on structuring situations that are intrinsically interesting and then be interpersonally supportive and rewarding toward the persons in the situation” (“Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Reinforcement, and Inequity,” pp. 119–20).

  64. Deci et al., pp. 82–83.

  65. Jenifer Levin, “When Winning Takes All,” p. 94. Other writers who have addressed the detrimental effects of extrinsic motivators on athletic activities include Wayne Halliwell, “Intrinsic Motivation in Sport”; and Singer and Gerson, pp. 255–57.

  66. John Holt, How Children Fail, p. 274.

  67. See, for example, Johnson and Johnson, “Processes,” p. 6.

  68. Deutsch, Resolution of Conflict, p. 26 and passim.

  69. Blau, pp. 533–34.

  70. Spence and Helmreich, pp. 54–55. Elsewhere, Helmreich writes: “The competitive individual may find it harder to establish effective collaborative relationships with both peers and students and may thus be robbed of intellectual stimulation” (Helmreich, “Making It in Academic Psychology,” p. 907).

  71. Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” p. 1228.

  72. Johnson and Johnson, “Crisis,” p. 151. Seven studies are cited in support of this conclusion.

  73. Benedict, pp. 153–54.

  74. Blau, p. 534.

  75. For example, Donald Bruce Haines and W. J. McKeachie, p. 390: “The contribution made by competition to tensions already existing in the student is so great that undesirable consequences may follow. The present research demonstrated that students in competitive discussion situations became more anxious, displayed a greater incidence of selforiented needs, and found themselves losing self-assurance. Further, they were less able to perform effectively in recitation.” See also Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” pp. 227–28.

  76. For example, see Michele K. Steigleder et al., “Drivelike Motivational Properties of Competitive Behavior”—a contribution to the “accumulating body of literature” taking this position.

  77. J. W. Atkinson, “The Mainsprings of Achievement-Oriented Activity,” p. 16. See also Atkinson’s An Introduction to Motivation, esp. pp. 244–46. The “attempt to avoid failure . . . takes many forms but [it] does not lead to real learning,” writes C. H. Patterson (Humanistic Education, p. 86).

  78. Henry A. Davidson supplies one example, in which an unusually competitive procedure for selecting office-holders of an unnamed organization discouraged the most talented individuals from running. “Many members were quite willing to offer themselves. But these were the ones who had nothing to lose, since they had no outstanding prestige in the first place. What it amounted to was this: the competitive climate favored the inferior and not, as you might expect, the superior members” (“Competition, the Cradle of Anxiety,” pp. 165–66).

  79. Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports, p. 158.

  80. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism, p. 194.

  81. Wynne-Edwards proposed the idea of group selection in his 1962 book, Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour, in which he argued that individual animals sometimes reduce their birth rate in order to benefit the species as a whole. The group vs. individual selection controversy is far from settled among evolutionary biologists.

  82. “As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain . . . [and] the only sensible course for him is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy” (Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” p. 1244). Hardin uses the example to argue for mandatory birth control; my point is that the tragedy inheres in our shortsighted individualism.

  83. Fred Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth, p. 5.

  84. The example is Thomas Schelling’s, and it is cited by Robert H. Frank in Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status, p. 133

  85. Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, On Democracy, p. 57. Cohen and Rogers note that “the structure in which [workers] find themselves yields less than optimal social results from their isolated but economically rational decisions” (ibid.). This illuminates a key division among those who work for social change. Is the “social result” the ultimate goal? This would suggest a subjugation of the individual to the collective, not unlike the radically different worldview discussed above. Or is the collective action merely a means for individual betterment? This would be closer to the second shift I have been discussing, using cooperation as a tactic but retaining the individualism of the liberal tradition.

  86. Axelrod, pp. 189–90, 100.

  87. See, for example, Robyn M. Dawes et al., “Behavior, Communication, and Assumptions About Other People’s Behavior in a Commons Dilemma Situation.”

  88. Douglas Hofstadter, “Irrationality Is the Square Root of All Evil,” P. 758.

  89. Mayor Ramon Aguirre Velazquez is quoted in Richard J. Meislin, “Mexico City Gets Too Big a Million Times a Year,” p. E26.

  90. Horney argues this in Neurotic Personality, p. 160. Of course one can qualify such a position by observing, with Paul Wachtel, that “in the United States, t
he anticommunal forces of the competitive market place are reinforced, rather than checked, by prevalent cultural values” (p. 168). Institutions such as sports and schooling affect and are affected by economic competition.

  91. A study by Citizens for Tax Justice was cited by James Reston, “Politics and Taxes," p. E21.

  92. This estimate is offered and defended by Michael Harrington in The New American Poverty, p. 88.

  93. Paul Wachtel, passim. See also E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered.

  94. John P. McKee and Florence B. Leader, “The Relationship of SocioEconomic Status and Aggression to the Competitive Behavior of Preschool Children.”

  95. Roberts, p. 184.

  96. “Measured globally there is enough food for everyone now . . . [and] less than 60 percent of the world’s cultivable land is now being cropped” (Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins, Food First, pp. 13–14).

  97. Wachtel, p. 58.

  98. One of the best discussions of the creation of needs is contained in Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, chapter 1.

  99. Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness, pp. 103, 106–7, 110.

  100. Pepitone, pp. 295–96.

  101. Charles Derber, The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Individualism in Everyday Life, p. 16, n. 17.

  102. Lawrence K. Frank, “The Cost of Competition,” pp. 314–16.

  103. John M. Culbertson, Competition, Constructive and Destructive, p. 3. He continues: “The most effective economies have not been those with the least government regulation and guidance, but those with skillful, realistic, problem-solving regulation” (pp. 3–4).

  104. See, for example, Robert Lindsey, “Airline Deregulation Stranding Some Towns,” pp. A1, B19.

  105. Fred Pillsbury, “Bus Industry Slips Into a Lower Gear,” p. A1. Also see William Serrin, “How Deregulation Allowed Greyhound to Win Concessions from Strikers,” p. A22.

  106. Norman Lear, “Bottom Linemanship,” p. E23.

  107. Arthur W. Combs, “The Myth of Competition,” p. 268.

  108. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt, p. 55.