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This article examines 122 existing studies concerning the effectiveness cooperation with and without intra-group competition, inter-personal competition, and individualistic goal structures, by using a meta-analysis. Three types of met-analysis are performed: vote method, effect-size method, and z-score method. Results indicate that cooperation is superior to competition and individualistic efforts for increasing achievement and productivity, cooperation without inter-group competition is better than cooperation with inter-group competition, and no significant differences occur between interpersonal competition and individualistic efforts on achievement and productivity. The authors conclude that these findings should have significant impacts for education and industry.
Johnson et al. (1981) studied this question.