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Competition-cooperation as a mediator of locus of control and achievement
JOURNAL
OF RESEARCH
IN PERSONALITY
16, 157-164 (1982)
Competition-Cooperation as a Mediator of Locus of Control and Achievement STEPHEN NOWICKI, Emory
JR.
University
To test the hypothesis that internals will achieve more than externals in situations where competition is preeminent but not where cooperation is required, 300 children completed a digit-symbol task and a locus of control scale. Children were divided into internals and externals, placed in situations varying in competition and cooperation, and readministered the digit-symbol task. While the general hypothesis was supported, it was found that externals increased from their significantly low performance in the competitive situation to equal performance with internals in the cooperative situation. These findings are discussed in terms of their meaning for social learning theory and their relevance for the potential development of classroom teaching methods for increasing achievement behavior.
Much research has focused on locus-of-control orientation. An important determinant of behavior within Rotter’s social learning theory (Rotter, Chance, & Phares, 1973), locus of control, is defined by how much of a connection is perceived by subjects between their efforts and the reinforcements they obtain. If people generally see such connections between behavior and reinforcement, they are called internal; if they do not perceive such a connection but rather view reinforcements as the result of luck, fate, chance, or powerful others, they are external. From such a definition it follows that a person with an internal as opposed to an external locus of control should show greater achievement effort and, because of this effort, greater achievement. Lefcourt (1976) further explicated this reasoning process: The link between locus of control and cognitive activity appeals to common sense. In like fashion, common sense suggests that a disbelief in the contingency between one’s efforts and outcomes should preclude achievement striving. Without an expectation of internal control, persistence despite imminent failure, the Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Stephen Nowicki, Jr., Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. 157 0092-6566/82/020157-08$02.00/O Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
158
STEPHEN
NOWICKI,
JR.
postponement of immediate pleasures, and the organizing of one’s time and efforts would be unlikely. Common sense would dictate that these characteristics, essential to any prolonged achievement effort, will occur only among individuals who believe that they can; through their own efforts, accomplish desired goals; that is, individuals must entertain some hope that their efforts can be effective before one can expect them to make the sacrijces that are prerequisite for achievement. (Author’s italics) (pp. 66-67)
In support of such reasoning, an internal locus of control of reinforcement has been related to a variety of achievement behavior (e.g., McGhee & Crandall, 1968; Clifford & Cleary, 1972; Gordon, 1977; Messer, 1972; Nowicki & Strickland, 1973). However, Rotter (1975) recently has pointed out that a generalized expectancy like locus of control is but one of several potential determinants of behavior. In his formula to determine behavior potential, Rotter includes generalized expectancies along with specific expectancies in an overall expectancy term as well as a reinforcement value term. Rotter points out further that locus of control is one of many potential generalized expectancies and that generalized expectancies have maximum impact on behavior potential when there is an ambiguous situation devoid of specific past experience. But it is also true that most people usually do not face situations without some specific experience in that or similar situations. In fact, the type of situation probably plays some significant mediational role between people’s expectancies and their resultant behavior. Such is the case with the locus of control and achievement relation. One possible significant situational mediator of locus of control in achievement relations may be the dimension of competition-cooperation. Because internals depend primarily on themselves to obtain relevant reinforcements, we suggest that they would react to a competitive situation with renewed efforts, which in turn should result in increased performance. In cooperative situations, however, internals need to share responsibility for their reinforcements with others. Such sharing should mitigate the role of internality, resulting in lowered persistence and lowered achievement compared to those situations that are purely competitive. Externals, on the other hand, should remain relatively unaffected by whether or not the situation requires them to be competitive or cooperative. From the perspective of externals, it doesn’t matter what they do because they perceive themselves as relatively unable to affect the flow of reinforcements. To test this general hypothesis, we have chosen to use children rather than adults as subjects. Children of elementary school age have established a locus-of-control orientation and are continuously involved in a variety of situations that require them to compete or cooperate with peers.
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
159
METHOD Subjects The subjects were 150 male and 150 female 9- and lo-year-old white children who were members of a suburban school system. On the basis of Hollingshead’s (1957) two-factor measure of socioeconomic level, 95% of the subjects were classified members of the lowermiddle and middle-middle class.
Measures Background information questionnaire. This questionnaire was completed for each child and contained his (her) name, age, grade, sex: and birth order. Locus of control. The Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale for Children (CNS-IE) is an inventory composed of 40 questions that are answered either yes or no (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973; Nowicki, 1979). Designed for students in grades 3 through 12, CNS-IE scores were not related to subject sex or IQ level, but have shown acceptable reliability and validity in well over 200 studies (see Nowicki, 1979). Digir-symbol task. Previous investigators have used a number of measures to assess competition, such as matching sums and products of cards (Workie, 1974) to a digit-letter task (Clifford, 1971), a “twenty questions” identification type game (Phillips, 1956), or a social studies test (Wheeler & Ryan, 1973). The variety of measures makes comparison of results of studies very difficult and the choice of a measure for the present study arduous. A measure of competition should be free from bias either in experience or skill. For example, a social studies test, while realistic, taps the students’ initial experiences, either good or bad, with class tests and thus confounds the obtained results. The task chosen to measure performance should be brief enough to maintain interest, long enough to be reliable, interesting enough to motivate, but easy enough so all students can feel as though they are accomplishing something. Such a task appears to be a digit-symbol task such as is found on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. As used in the present study, each digit-symbol task had the child writing in a number from 1 to 9 beneath a symbol. Which number to place beneath which symbol followed from a key presented at the top of the test form. There were 100 blanks and the subjects were instructed to complete as many as possible beginning at the top of the first of four rows and going from left to right. The first seven squares were practice squares and were completed under the observation of the experimenter to ensure the subjects’ comprehension of the task. The subjects were given a 120-set time limit to complete as many of the blanks as they could. The scores could range from 0 to 93.
Procedures Three experimenters (one white female and two white males) conducted the initial testing. The subjects were tested in small groups (n = 20-30) in their respective classrooms. Before having the children complete the locus-of-control scales, experimenters instructed them that the surveys were devised to measure how children their age felt about certain things and that there were no right or wrong answers. Experimenters read each item on the survey aloud twice. After the locus-of-control survey was completed, it was collected and the first digit-symbol task was administered. Experimenters told the children before the digit-symbol task that they were interested in how children their age performed on such a task. Seven sample squares were completed by the subjects under the supervision of the experimenter to ensure the subjects’ comprehension of the task. Then the subjects were given 120 set and told to work as quickly as they could to complete the blanks. Subjects who scored one half of a standard deviation above and below the mean locus-
160
STEPHEN
NOWICKI,
JR.
of-control score (11) were included in the second phase of the study. Equating the number of males and females in each condition eliminated another 17 subjects, leaving a total of 120 subjects who were equally distributed across the 12 cells. For the second phase of the study, the subjects were randomly placed in one of eight experimental conditions that sampled a continuum anchored at one end by competition against oneself (n = 40) and at the other end by cooperation with a same-sex peer against either same or opposite-sex pairs (n = 40). Midway between these anchor points lay the group in which subjects competed against an opposite- (n = 20) or same-sex (n = 20) peer. Because the children all had female teachers and similarity to the classroom situation needed to be maintained, and there were no differences in the initial testing related to sex of experimenter, female experimenters were used for phase two of the study. All testing was conducted during the morning before the students’ lunch period in the cafeteria of the school. Depending on what experimental condition the subject was in, the experimenter’s instructions were as follows. Competition against oneself-Males or females competing against themselves. “This is the same test as the one you took before. We are trying to see if you will improve the second time you take it. It is important that you try your hardest to do well because those who do their best will receive a prize at the end.” Competition against olte another-One one male vs one female.
male vs one male, one female vs one female,
“You and the person sitting across from you got about the same score on the first test we gave you. I need a separate score for each of you, so I am asking you to retake the test to see which one of you scores better this time. It is important that you do your best since whoever gets the highest score on this test will get a prize.” Comperition between pairs-Two cooperating males vs two cooperating males, tw-o cooperating females vs two cooperating females; two cooperating males vs two cooperating females. “You and your partner got about the same score as the partners sitting across from you did on the first test we gave you. At that time you were tested and scored by yourself. Now we want you and your partner to be a team. We will add both of your scores together to get a team score. Try to do your best because there will be a prize for those teams that do the best.” Again the experimenter completed the first seven squares of the second digit symbol scale with the subjects to ensure their comprehension of the task. A time limit of 120 set was again set. One week later an experimenter returned to the school to thank all subjects and informed them that since they all performed so well, she was going to reward them all. All subjects received candy from the experimenter.
RESULTS
As suggested by the main hypothesis, there was a significant interaction of locus-of-control orientation and condition of competition (F(2, 108) = 3.10, p < .05). While the overall analysis of variance (see Table I)
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
161
162
STEPHEN NOWICKI, JR.
also revealed significant main effects for locus of control (F(1, 108) = 3.02, p < .OS) and type of competition (F(2, 108) = 3.31, p < .05), these effects need to be interpreted by the underlying interaction between the two variables. The comparisons indicated by the significant interaction (see Table 2) revealed that externals who competed against themselves or against one other peer increased their digit-symbol scores less than any of the other groups. DISCUSSION The results of the present study support the assumption that a situational component significantly mediates this locus-of-control achievement relation. Internals significantly achieved more than externals when competition was involved, be it against oneself or another, but not when cooperation was the rule. These results were consistent with the general prediction made regarding locus of control and achievement. However, from another perspective, though confirmatory, these data may be seen as somewhat surprising. Implicit in the general hypothesis was the assumption that internals would be most sensitive to changes in the situation and therefore most likely to change their behavior accordingly. This was not what happened. Internals did not change their performance level in light of the changes in the situation. In fact, they achieved at about the same level regardless of whether the situation called for competition or cooperation. In contrast, the externals shifted their performance depending on the situation. When the situation called for team cooperation, their performance was comparable to that of internals and significantly higher than what other externals did in the competitive situation. Perhaps the apparent insensitivity of internals to the changes in the situation was due to the fact that they perceived all three situational conditions as competitive ones. Indeed, even in the cooperation condition, subjects cooperate with one another in order to compete against TABLE
2
MEANS FOR DIGIT-SYMBOL SCORE INCREASE FOR INTERNALS AND EXTERNALS BY COMPETITION AGAINST A PEER AGAINST OTHERS
Competition against self Internals Externals
10.26b 5.16
Competition against another 11.09b 6.81”
Cooperation to compete 12.16b 12.65’
Note. Numbers with the same letter do not differ significantly from one another but do differ from those numbers with different superscripts.
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
163
others. It may be that internals are most attuned to competitive elements in a situation and continue their achievement-oriented behavior when competition elements are present regardless of whether or not there are cooperative components. However, the behavior of the externals is less easily explained and in some ways perhaps even more important. Most studies relating locus of control to achievement show externals performing at lower levels than internals, so that when we find instances in which externals show increased levels of performance comparable to internals, our interest is aroused. What is it about this cooperative-teams situation that led externals to increase their performance? The work of others has shown that social cues facilitate the performance of externals (e.g., Lefcourt, Hogg, & Sordeni, 1975). In the instructions to the subjects in the cooperation conditions, it was emphasized that each child’s score was important to the final outcome, that the other person was depending on the subject’s performance. Perhaps that was enough to put the kind of pressure on externals that facilitated their performance. It was not discernable in the present study how much the competitive component was necessary to the increased performance of externals in a cooperation-team condition. Future researchers should include conditions that present a purer case of cooperation and/or instances in which cooperative elements are combined with other instances of competition. In this way the relative contribution of cooperation and competition to the process of achievement can be ascertained. However, if cooperation with a partner can increase the performance of externals, it suggests some interesting possible payoffs in the school situation. Rather than having children work by themselves at their desks, cooperative projects or tasks may pull far more achievement effort from the class as a whole. In any case, this possibility deserves additional attention. For example, some educators have suggested providing different curricula that would be appropriate for students with varying abilities and attitudes. Called by some “Schools within a School,” this concept has integrated the use of locus-of-control orientation as one significant categorizer of which curriculum is best for which children. Certainly, the possibility that particular curricula and/or procedures would aid externally controlled students achieve at higher levels deserves continued attention. REFERENCES Carlson, R. Personality. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Annual review of psychology. Palo Alto, California: Annual Reviews, 197.5. Clifford, M. Motivational effects of competition and goal setting in reward and non-reward conditions. .Iownal of Experimental Education, 1971, 39, 11-16. Clifford, M., & Cleary, T. A. Relationship between children’s academic performance and achievement accountability. Child Development, 1972, 43, 647-655.
164
STEPHEN
NOWICKI.
JR.
Gordon, D. Children’s beliefs in internal-external control and self esteem as related to academic achievement. Journal of Personality Assessment, 1977, 41, 383-386. Hollingshead, A. The two-factor index of social position. New Haven: Author, 1957. Lefcourt, H. Locus of control. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum, 1976. McGhee: P. E., & Crandall, V. C. Beliefs in internal and external control of reinforcement and academic performance. Child Development, 1968, 39(1-2), 91-102. Messer, S. The relation of internal-external control to academic performance. Child Development, 1972, 43, 1456-1462. Nowicki, S. A manual for the Children’s Nowicki-Strickland locus of control scale. Unpublished manuscript, Emory University, 1979. Nowicki, S., & Strickland, B. A locus of control scale for children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1973, 40, 148-155. Peplau, L. A. Impact of fear of success and sex-role attitudes on women’s competitive achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1976, 34, 561-568. Phillips, B. N. Effect of cohesion and intelligence on the problem-solving efficiency of small face to face groups in cooperative and competitive situations. Journal of Educational Research, 1956, 50, 127-132. Rotter, J. B. Social learning and clinical psychology. Euglewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1954. Rotter, J. B. Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 1966, 80, No. 1 (Whole No. 68a). Rotter, .I. B. Some problems and misconceptions related to the construct of internal versus external control of reinforcement. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1975, 43, 56-67. Rotter, J. B., Chance, J., & Phares, E. J. Social application of social learning theory. General Learning Press, 1972. Rudow, E., & Hautaluoma, J. Competition with oneself vs. others as a facilitator in the classroom. Journal of Social Psychology, 1975, 95, 281-282. Wheeler, R., & Ryan, F. L. Effects of cooperative and competitive classroom environments on attitudes of elementary school students engaged in social studies inquiry activities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 65, 402-407. Witt, S. J. Sex-role preference and competitive behavior in female children. Unpublished masters’ thesis, Emory University, 1973. Workie, A. The relative productivity of cooperation and competition. Journal of Social Psychology, 1974, 92, 225-230.
OF RESEARCH
IN PERSONALITY
16, 157-164 (1982)
Competition-Cooperation as a Mediator of Locus of Control and Achievement STEPHEN NOWICKI, Emory
JR.
University
To test the hypothesis that internals will achieve more than externals in situations where competition is preeminent but not where cooperation is required, 300 children completed a digit-symbol task and a locus of control scale. Children were divided into internals and externals, placed in situations varying in competition and cooperation, and readministered the digit-symbol task. While the general hypothesis was supported, it was found that externals increased from their significantly low performance in the competitive situation to equal performance with internals in the cooperative situation. These findings are discussed in terms of their meaning for social learning theory and their relevance for the potential development of classroom teaching methods for increasing achievement behavior.
Much research has focused on locus-of-control orientation. An important determinant of behavior within Rotter’s social learning theory (Rotter, Chance, & Phares, 1973), locus of control, is defined by how much of a connection is perceived by subjects between their efforts and the reinforcements they obtain. If people generally see such connections between behavior and reinforcement, they are called internal; if they do not perceive such a connection but rather view reinforcements as the result of luck, fate, chance, or powerful others, they are external. From such a definition it follows that a person with an internal as opposed to an external locus of control should show greater achievement effort and, because of this effort, greater achievement. Lefcourt (1976) further explicated this reasoning process: The link between locus of control and cognitive activity appeals to common sense. In like fashion, common sense suggests that a disbelief in the contingency between one’s efforts and outcomes should preclude achievement striving. Without an expectation of internal control, persistence despite imminent failure, the Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Stephen Nowicki, Jr., Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. 157 0092-6566/82/020157-08$02.00/O Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
158
STEPHEN
NOWICKI,
JR.
postponement of immediate pleasures, and the organizing of one’s time and efforts would be unlikely. Common sense would dictate that these characteristics, essential to any prolonged achievement effort, will occur only among individuals who believe that they can; through their own efforts, accomplish desired goals; that is, individuals must entertain some hope that their efforts can be effective before one can expect them to make the sacrijces that are prerequisite for achievement. (Author’s italics) (pp. 66-67)
In support of such reasoning, an internal locus of control of reinforcement has been related to a variety of achievement behavior (e.g., McGhee & Crandall, 1968; Clifford & Cleary, 1972; Gordon, 1977; Messer, 1972; Nowicki & Strickland, 1973). However, Rotter (1975) recently has pointed out that a generalized expectancy like locus of control is but one of several potential determinants of behavior. In his formula to determine behavior potential, Rotter includes generalized expectancies along with specific expectancies in an overall expectancy term as well as a reinforcement value term. Rotter points out further that locus of control is one of many potential generalized expectancies and that generalized expectancies have maximum impact on behavior potential when there is an ambiguous situation devoid of specific past experience. But it is also true that most people usually do not face situations without some specific experience in that or similar situations. In fact, the type of situation probably plays some significant mediational role between people’s expectancies and their resultant behavior. Such is the case with the locus of control and achievement relation. One possible significant situational mediator of locus of control in achievement relations may be the dimension of competition-cooperation. Because internals depend primarily on themselves to obtain relevant reinforcements, we suggest that they would react to a competitive situation with renewed efforts, which in turn should result in increased performance. In cooperative situations, however, internals need to share responsibility for their reinforcements with others. Such sharing should mitigate the role of internality, resulting in lowered persistence and lowered achievement compared to those situations that are purely competitive. Externals, on the other hand, should remain relatively unaffected by whether or not the situation requires them to be competitive or cooperative. From the perspective of externals, it doesn’t matter what they do because they perceive themselves as relatively unable to affect the flow of reinforcements. To test this general hypothesis, we have chosen to use children rather than adults as subjects. Children of elementary school age have established a locus-of-control orientation and are continuously involved in a variety of situations that require them to compete or cooperate with peers.
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
159
METHOD Subjects The subjects were 150 male and 150 female 9- and lo-year-old white children who were members of a suburban school system. On the basis of Hollingshead’s (1957) two-factor measure of socioeconomic level, 95% of the subjects were classified members of the lowermiddle and middle-middle class.
Measures Background information questionnaire. This questionnaire was completed for each child and contained his (her) name, age, grade, sex: and birth order. Locus of control. The Nowicki-Strickland Internal-External Control Scale for Children (CNS-IE) is an inventory composed of 40 questions that are answered either yes or no (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973; Nowicki, 1979). Designed for students in grades 3 through 12, CNS-IE scores were not related to subject sex or IQ level, but have shown acceptable reliability and validity in well over 200 studies (see Nowicki, 1979). Digir-symbol task. Previous investigators have used a number of measures to assess competition, such as matching sums and products of cards (Workie, 1974) to a digit-letter task (Clifford, 1971), a “twenty questions” identification type game (Phillips, 1956), or a social studies test (Wheeler & Ryan, 1973). The variety of measures makes comparison of results of studies very difficult and the choice of a measure for the present study arduous. A measure of competition should be free from bias either in experience or skill. For example, a social studies test, while realistic, taps the students’ initial experiences, either good or bad, with class tests and thus confounds the obtained results. The task chosen to measure performance should be brief enough to maintain interest, long enough to be reliable, interesting enough to motivate, but easy enough so all students can feel as though they are accomplishing something. Such a task appears to be a digit-symbol task such as is found on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. As used in the present study, each digit-symbol task had the child writing in a number from 1 to 9 beneath a symbol. Which number to place beneath which symbol followed from a key presented at the top of the test form. There were 100 blanks and the subjects were instructed to complete as many as possible beginning at the top of the first of four rows and going from left to right. The first seven squares were practice squares and were completed under the observation of the experimenter to ensure the subjects’ comprehension of the task. The subjects were given a 120-set time limit to complete as many of the blanks as they could. The scores could range from 0 to 93.
Procedures Three experimenters (one white female and two white males) conducted the initial testing. The subjects were tested in small groups (n = 20-30) in their respective classrooms. Before having the children complete the locus-of-control scales, experimenters instructed them that the surveys were devised to measure how children their age felt about certain things and that there were no right or wrong answers. Experimenters read each item on the survey aloud twice. After the locus-of-control survey was completed, it was collected and the first digit-symbol task was administered. Experimenters told the children before the digit-symbol task that they were interested in how children their age performed on such a task. Seven sample squares were completed by the subjects under the supervision of the experimenter to ensure the subjects’ comprehension of the task. Then the subjects were given 120 set and told to work as quickly as they could to complete the blanks. Subjects who scored one half of a standard deviation above and below the mean locus-
160
STEPHEN
NOWICKI,
JR.
of-control score (11) were included in the second phase of the study. Equating the number of males and females in each condition eliminated another 17 subjects, leaving a total of 120 subjects who were equally distributed across the 12 cells. For the second phase of the study, the subjects were randomly placed in one of eight experimental conditions that sampled a continuum anchored at one end by competition against oneself (n = 40) and at the other end by cooperation with a same-sex peer against either same or opposite-sex pairs (n = 40). Midway between these anchor points lay the group in which subjects competed against an opposite- (n = 20) or same-sex (n = 20) peer. Because the children all had female teachers and similarity to the classroom situation needed to be maintained, and there were no differences in the initial testing related to sex of experimenter, female experimenters were used for phase two of the study. All testing was conducted during the morning before the students’ lunch period in the cafeteria of the school. Depending on what experimental condition the subject was in, the experimenter’s instructions were as follows. Competition against oneself-Males or females competing against themselves. “This is the same test as the one you took before. We are trying to see if you will improve the second time you take it. It is important that you try your hardest to do well because those who do their best will receive a prize at the end.” Competition against olte another-One one male vs one female.
male vs one male, one female vs one female,
“You and the person sitting across from you got about the same score on the first test we gave you. I need a separate score for each of you, so I am asking you to retake the test to see which one of you scores better this time. It is important that you do your best since whoever gets the highest score on this test will get a prize.” Comperition between pairs-Two cooperating males vs two cooperating males, tw-o cooperating females vs two cooperating females; two cooperating males vs two cooperating females. “You and your partner got about the same score as the partners sitting across from you did on the first test we gave you. At that time you were tested and scored by yourself. Now we want you and your partner to be a team. We will add both of your scores together to get a team score. Try to do your best because there will be a prize for those teams that do the best.” Again the experimenter completed the first seven squares of the second digit symbol scale with the subjects to ensure their comprehension of the task. A time limit of 120 set was again set. One week later an experimenter returned to the school to thank all subjects and informed them that since they all performed so well, she was going to reward them all. All subjects received candy from the experimenter.
RESULTS
As suggested by the main hypothesis, there was a significant interaction of locus-of-control orientation and condition of competition (F(2, 108) = 3.10, p < .05). While the overall analysis of variance (see Table I)
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
161
162
STEPHEN NOWICKI, JR.
also revealed significant main effects for locus of control (F(1, 108) = 3.02, p < .OS) and type of competition (F(2, 108) = 3.31, p < .05), these effects need to be interpreted by the underlying interaction between the two variables. The comparisons indicated by the significant interaction (see Table 2) revealed that externals who competed against themselves or against one other peer increased their digit-symbol scores less than any of the other groups. DISCUSSION The results of the present study support the assumption that a situational component significantly mediates this locus-of-control achievement relation. Internals significantly achieved more than externals when competition was involved, be it against oneself or another, but not when cooperation was the rule. These results were consistent with the general prediction made regarding locus of control and achievement. However, from another perspective, though confirmatory, these data may be seen as somewhat surprising. Implicit in the general hypothesis was the assumption that internals would be most sensitive to changes in the situation and therefore most likely to change their behavior accordingly. This was not what happened. Internals did not change their performance level in light of the changes in the situation. In fact, they achieved at about the same level regardless of whether the situation called for competition or cooperation. In contrast, the externals shifted their performance depending on the situation. When the situation called for team cooperation, their performance was comparable to that of internals and significantly higher than what other externals did in the competitive situation. Perhaps the apparent insensitivity of internals to the changes in the situation was due to the fact that they perceived all three situational conditions as competitive ones. Indeed, even in the cooperation condition, subjects cooperate with one another in order to compete against TABLE
2
MEANS FOR DIGIT-SYMBOL SCORE INCREASE FOR INTERNALS AND EXTERNALS BY COMPETITION AGAINST A PEER AGAINST OTHERS
Competition against self Internals Externals
10.26b 5.16
Competition against another 11.09b 6.81”
Cooperation to compete 12.16b 12.65’
Note. Numbers with the same letter do not differ significantly from one another but do differ from those numbers with different superscripts.
COMPETITION-COOPERATION
163
others. It may be that internals are most attuned to competitive elements in a situation and continue their achievement-oriented behavior when competition elements are present regardless of whether or not there are cooperative components. However, the behavior of the externals is less easily explained and in some ways perhaps even more important. Most studies relating locus of control to achievement show externals performing at lower levels than internals, so that when we find instances in which externals show increased levels of performance comparable to internals, our interest is aroused. What is it about this cooperative-teams situation that led externals to increase their performance? The work of others has shown that social cues facilitate the performance of externals (e.g., Lefcourt, Hogg, & Sordeni, 1975). In the instructions to the subjects in the cooperation conditions, it was emphasized that each child’s score was important to the final outcome, that the other person was depending on the subject’s performance. Perhaps that was enough to put the kind of pressure on externals that facilitated their performance. It was not discernable in the present study how much the competitive component was necessary to the increased performance of externals in a cooperation-team condition. Future researchers should include conditions that present a purer case of cooperation and/or instances in which cooperative elements are combined with other instances of competition. In this way the relative contribution of cooperation and competition to the process of achievement can be ascertained. However, if cooperation with a partner can increase the performance of externals, it suggests some interesting possible payoffs in the school situation. Rather than having children work by themselves at their desks, cooperative projects or tasks may pull far more achievement effort from the class as a whole. In any case, this possibility deserves additional attention. For example, some educators have suggested providing different curricula that would be appropriate for students with varying abilities and attitudes. Called by some “Schools within a School,” this concept has integrated the use of locus-of-control orientation as one significant categorizer of which curriculum is best for which children. Certainly, the possibility that particular curricula and/or procedures would aid externally controlled students achieve at higher levels deserves continued attention. REFERENCES Carlson, R. Personality. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Annual review of psychology. Palo Alto, California: Annual Reviews, 197.5. Clifford, M. Motivational effects of competition and goal setting in reward and non-reward conditions. .Iownal of Experimental Education, 1971, 39, 11-16. Clifford, M., & Cleary, T. A. Relationship between children’s academic performance and achievement accountability. Child Development, 1972, 43, 647-655.
164
STEPHEN
NOWICKI.
JR.
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