The Relative Productivity of Cooperation and Competition

Summary The conflicting findings of previous investigations regarding the relative productivity of cooperation and competition were probably due to the confounding of cooperative and competitive variables. On the basis of an algebraic model, it was hypothesized that group productivity decreases in the following order: Intragroup cooperation with intergroup cooperation, intragroup cooperation without reference to another group, intragroup cooperation with intergroup competition, intragroup competition with intergroup cooperation, intragroup competition without reference to another group, and intragroup competition with intergroup competition. The six experimental conditions were created by differential instructions to 240 high school students concerning payoff systems in a card game. As hypothesized cooperation was found to be significantly more productive than competition both in the intragroup (p < .01) and intergroup (p < .05) conditions. The findings also confirmed in general the productivity order hypothesized for the experimental conditions.