Why cooperation is better than competition

Why cooperation is better than competition
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395631254/002-6319114-9736057?redirect=true&n=283155

No Contest is a must-read book for anyone wishing to create, build and
invent. It shows how cooperation allows us to excel.

"Superbly researched, lucidly written, and delineated with admirable
clarity."
- Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Alfie Kohn marshals the evidence that competition is not the mainspring of
achievement in industry, the arts, education, or games."
- Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician

"Well researched and sound, No Contest exposes erroneous assumptions about
the inevitability and value of competition. This book deserves our
attention."
- Carl Rogers, psychologist

Sample excerpts from No Contest;
pg. 149;
"... so that each of us knows what it is to work with others to paint a
room, prepare a report, cook a meal. To remember such experiences is to know
that cooperation encourages us to view our collaborators favorably; it is to
understand how cooperation teaches us, more broadly, the value of
relationship. Cooperation means the success of each participant is linked to
that of every other.

As of 1985, the Johnsons themselves had conducted thirty-seven studies of
interpersonal attraction under different learning arrangements. Thirty-five
of them clearly showed that cooperation promoted greater attraction, while
the results were mixed in the other two.61

pg. 45;
"Put plainly, one can set and reach goals - or prove to one's own and
others' satisfaction that one is competent - without ever competing.
'Success in achieving a goal does not depend upon winning over others just
as failing to achieve a goal does not mean losing to others.' A moment's
reflection reveals this as an undeniable truth. I can succeed in knitting a
scarf or writing a book without ever trying to make it better than yours.
Better yet, I can work with you - say, to prepare a dinner or build a
house. Many people take the absence of competition to mean that one must be
wandering aimlessly, without any goals. But competing simply means that one
is working toward a goal in such a way as to prevent others from reaching
their goals. This is one approach to getting something done, but (happily)
not the only one. Competition need never enter the picture in order for
skills to be mastered and displayed, goals set and met."

pg. 55;
"The simplest way to understand why competition generally does not promote
excellence is to realize that trying to do well and trying to beat others
are two different things. Here sits a child in class, waving his arm wildly
to attract the teacher's attention, crying, "Oooh! Oooh! Pick me!" The child
is finally recognized but then seems befuddled. "Um, what was that question
again?" he finally asks. His mind is on beating his classmates, not on the
subject matter. The fact that there is a difference between the two goes a
long way toward explaining why competition may actually make us less
successful."

pg. 62;
"... is more likely to be solved quickly and imaginatively if scientists
(including scientists from different countries) pool their talents rather
than compete against one another.
Here it is not competition that is peculiarly unproductive; any kind of
individual work suffers from this drawback. But structural competition has
the practical effect of making people suspicious of and hostile toward one
another and thus of actively discouraging cooperation. (The evidence on
competition and affiliation will be reviewed in detail in chapter 6.) This
occurred to both Peter Blau and Robert Helmreich as they tried to make sense
of their respective findings. Blau's competitive employment agency workers
"in their eagerness to make many placements . . . often ignored their
relationship with others"; their noncompetitive counterparts, meanwhile,
enjoyed more "social cohesion...," 70

pg. 154;
"But the sort of affirmation that is concerned with beating others, the sort
of camaraderie that develops from working to beat another group, - or from
simply claiming the superiority of one's own - has an ugliness about it
that I believe is intrinsically objectionable. Camaraderie is desirable,
all things being equal. But all things are not equal when the feeling is
derived from derogating an out-group. As to the defense that it is all in
fun, I am reminded of the person who cruelly taunts someone and then
remonstrates, "But I was only kidding!"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0395631254/002-6319114-9736057?redirect=true&n=283155


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