Competition, cooperation, satisfaction, and the performance of complex tasks among air force cadets

Autor: David B. Porter, Arthur Wunder, Megan E. Bird
Rok vydání: 1990
Předmět:
Zdroj: Current Psychology. 9:347-354
ISSN: 1936-4733
0737-8262
DOI: 10.1007/bf02687191
Popis: Forty-eight U.S. Air Force Academy cadets were studied to examine the effects of individual attitudes and organizational reward structures on the performance of a complex, integrative task. An attitudinal survey was used to measure each subject’s preference for cooperative or competitive situations. Distinctly different group environments were created by giving four groups of six subjectscompetitive instructions and another four groupscooperative instructions. The performance criterion was the “sum” score across eight trials of a complex arcade-type computer game which required one subject to control horizontal movement and another to control vertical movement. Although neither attitude nor reward structure alone influenced performance, their interaction was found to be very significant; subjects performed poorly when the reward structure did not match their individual orientation. Implications for military and professional training programs are discussed.
Databáze: OpenAIRE