by Alfie Kohn
12. John T. Lanzetta and Basil G. Englis, “Expectations of Cooperation and Competition and Their Effects on Observers’ Vicarious Emotional Responses.”
13. David A. Wilder and Peter N. Shapiro, “Role of Competition-Induced Anxiety in Limiting the Beneficial Impact of Positive Behavior by an Out-Group Member.” In this experiment, subjects were told that they would work on projects in small groups and that their work would be evaluated by members of another group. Some subjects were told that the other group was cooperating with them; others, that it was competing. When asked to describe one member of the other group (who had made mostly positive comments about their own group’s efforts), those who thought they were competing responded more negatively to that person and were also somewhat more likely to see that person as similar to the other members of that group.
14. Kenny Hill quoted in Frank Litsky, “Aggression Necessary, Hill Says,” p. D30.
15. William Zimmerman, “On Negative Ads.” That was in 1986. Six years later, Susan Estrich, who had been Michael Dukakis’s campaign manager, delivered an even more rousing endorsement of dirty campaigns. “You can’t really blame the candidates. . . . They’re doing what works” (“Let the Mud Fly”).
16. Gary Edwards quoted in Paul Wilkes, “The Tough Job of Teaching Ethics,” p. 24F.
17. Sheila Widnall quoted in Fox Butterfield, “Scandal Over Cheating at M.I.T. Stirs Debate on Limits of Teamwork.”
18. See my brief essay on this topic, “Competition vs. Excellence.
19. Richard A. Knox, “‘Free-choice’ Rhetoric Isn’t the Answer.”
20. James C. Robinson and Harold S. Luft, “Competition and the Cost of Hospital Care, 1972 to 1982." Their study of nearly 6,000 hospitals found that these institutions competed for patients (and doctors) by providing fancy amenities rather than by lowering their rates. A hospital admission was 26 percent more expensive (and the average patient cost per day was 15 percent higher) in hospitals located within fifteen miles of more than ten competitors. Another result of competition, the researchers suggested, is a lower patient load and therefore, in the long run, less expertise-building experience for the clinical staff. Competition in this field, therefore, may actually provide lower-quality care at higher cost for fewer people who really need it.
21. In the last few years, deregulation has bankrupted several more airlines, throwing tens or even hundreds of thousands of employees out of work, increasing the market share of the three or four remaining giants, reducing the quality of service, and raising prices on most routes. (The Department of Transportation claims that airfares, adjusted for inflation, actually have declined since the industry was deregulated in the late 1970s. But a 1990 study by the Economic Policy Institute pointed out that this change was due to a drop in the price of jet fuel. When this variable, obviously unrelated to competition, is held constant, prices increased through the 1980s.) Furthermore, airlines are free to sell their excess takeoff and landing slots at airports, but some refuse to do so, effectively reducing the number of flights available to the public just so rival carriers will not benefit. (See Bob Kuttner, “Air Fares That Reach to the Sky.”) Such is the logic of competition.
22. Dean T josvold, Working Together to Gel Things Done, pp. 29, 70. Tjosvold’s studies appear with remarkable frequency in journals of psychology, management, and organizational studies.
23. The task was a video game with a joystick that could be performed either individually or at cross-purposes with another player. In the latter condition, speed went up and accuracy went down. See David A. Washburn et al., “Effects of Competition on Video-Task Performance in Monkeys.”
24. Deming’s comments are included in an introduction to his work on videotape, a series called “The Deming Library.” See volume 18, “Competition Doesn’t Work, Cooperation Does.”
25. For a description of the parallel deprivation of substantive opportunities for workers in the United States and the USSR to participate in making decisions, see Thomas H. Naylor, “Redefining Corporate Motivation, Swedish Style,” pp. 566, 568.
26. See, for example, David Warsh, “A Financial World in Dark Until It Finds Bottom Line.”
27. For welcome exceptions to this rule, see Samuel Bowles, “Economic Justice—For Us and Them,” and David M. Gordon, “Do We Need to Be No. 1?” Another economist, Bob Kuttner, framed the issue well: “The need is to restore American productivity, but not at other nations’ expense. . . . [We must put] the world back on a high-growth path where every economy can prosper” (“A Time for Shared Trade Growth”). This is easier said than done, of course, but first we must convince our leaders that it is a goal worth saying.
28. Teresa M. Amabile, “The Motivation to Be Creative,” pp. 242–43.
29. Robert J. Vallerand et al., “Negative Effects of Competition on Children’s Intrinsic Motivation.”
30. Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self Determination in Human Behavior, p. 85.
31. Joan L. Duda, “The Relationship Between Goal Perspectives, Persistence, and Behavioral Intensity Among Male and Female Recreational Sport Participants.” Indeed, teenagers are dropping out of organized sports in sizable numbers—partly because of the pressure to win—as is confirmed by the work of Martha Ewing and Vern Seefeldt at the Youth Sports Institute of Michigan State University.
32. UCLA Sport Psychology Laboratory, “Playing On,” p. 39.
33. Deci and Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation, p. 325.
34. Bil Gilbert, “Competition: Is It What Life’s All About?”
35. Laura Fraser, “Super Bowl Violence Comes Home.”
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