No Contest

No Contest Read Online Free PDF

Book: No Contest Read Online Free PDF
Author: Alfie Kohn
in chapters 5 and 6 substantiates this view.
Our psychological state and our relationships with others not only are correlated with the extent of our intentional competitiveness but are changed by a framework of structural competition
. Deutsch, to cite yet another study, found that “the psychological orientations of the subjects [including] their views of themselves and of the others in their group were considerably different as a function of the distributive system under which they worked.” 7 Another sort of evidence is provided by Susan Shirk’s account of how Chinese students, who were cooperatively inclined, began to stop helping each other when a competitive structure was imposed on them. 8 Closer to home, one need only watch what happens to courteous and cooperative drivers when they move to a city where an informal but powerful structure demands competitive behavior on the roads: in remarkably short order, individual personality patterns shift to accommodate the structure. 9
    The primacy of structural forces also can be demonstrated by showing that a
cooperative
framework changes behaviors and attitudes. After reviewing several strategies for lowering intentional competition, Terry Orlick wrote: “It may be more fruitful to introduce new games than to change old orientations. We may come closer to achieving our objectives if we simply let cooperative games do the shaping.” 10 When values follow from the structure, moreover, they are generalized throughout an individual’s life, as Paul Breer and Edwin Locke found:
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To the extent that a man is rewarded for putting the organization’s goals first, harmonizing his own efforts with those of his colleagues, and making himself personally attractive to the people around him, he will develop situationally specific orientations in which co-operation, harmony, teamwork, etc. are seen as instrumental to success, intrinsically pleasurable, and morally desirable. From his job, such orientations can be expected to spill over to his family, community, and even society as a whole. This, it will be recalled, is precisely the sort of thing we found in the laboratory. 11
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    A final example of the effects of structural cooperation is provided by Robert Axelrod. In the course of discussing the Prisoner’s Dilemma game (in which a cooperative strategy proves most effective), Axelrod cites a fascinating historical illustration. During World War I, army battalions that faced each other from their respective trenches often agreed not to shoot—a kind of “live and let live” understanding that emerged spontaneously. This mutual restraint was, of course, infuriating to the high commands of both sides, but soldiers had the temerity to persist in not killing each other. Obviously they had not been predisposed to work together, having been trained to hate each other; structural cooperation took root in spite of their attitudes. In fact, the new arrangement
changed
these attitudes. Axelrod cites an incident in which a shot was fired inadvertently one day, prompting a German to call out, “We are very sorry about that; we hope no one was hurt.” This apparently genuine concern, Axelrod comments, “goes well beyond a merely instrumental effort to prevent retaliation. . . . The cooperative exchanges of mutual restraint actually changed the nature of the interaction. They tended to make the two sides care about each other’s welfare.” 12 Individual orientations, in other words, were affected by the structure.
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    HOW TO PREVENT SOCIAL CHANGE 13
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    Making our society less competitive ultimately depends on reducing structural competition. Unfortunately, bringing about structural change of any kind requires overcoming enormous resistance. It is much easier to describe how change can be blocked than how it can be furthered. For those so inclined, then, here are five simple ways to perpetuate the status quo.
    1. L
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