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One hundred fifty-seven undergraduate students participated as members of four-person laboratory groups under one of three experimental conditions of cooperation or competition. Conditions were created by differential instructions to students as to how their laboratory exercises were to be graded. Measures included an assessment of both the quantity and quality of group performance, participant and observer ratings of group process, and participant post-session reactions. The prediction was confirmed that both individual and group competition produce higher motivation and quantity of performance. However, contrary to hypothesis, the quality of performance was also higher for the competitive conditions. The purely cooperative condition yielded the lowest level of group performance, but induced the most favorable interpersonal relations among group members. Results suggested the need for qualification of the usual generalizations drawn from previous studies of cooperation and competition.
Julian et al. (Wed,) studied this question.