No Contest (46 page)

63. Edward L. Deri, “Effects of Externally Mediated Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation,” p. 114. Elsewhere he recommends that “one who is interested in developing and enhancing intrinsic motivation in children, employees, students, etc., should not concentrate on external-control systems such as monetary rewards, which are linked directly to performance, but, rather, he should concentrate on structuring situations that are intrinsically interesting and then be interpersonally supportive and rewarding toward the persons in the situation” (“Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Reinforcement, and Inequity,” pp. 119–20).

64. Deci et al., pp. 82–83.

65. Jenifer Levin, “When Winning Takes All,” p. 94. Other writers who have addressed the detrimental effects of extrinsic motivators on athletic activities include Wayne Halliwell, “Intrinsic Motivation in Sport”; and Singer and Gerson, pp. 255–57.

66. John Holt,
How Children Fail,
p. 274.

67. See, for example, Johnson and Johnson, “Processes,” p. 6.

68. Deutsch,
Resolution of Conflict,
p. 26 and
passim
.

69. Blau, pp. 533–34.

70. Spence and Helmreich, pp. 54–55. Elsewhere, Helmreich writes: “The competitive individual may find it harder to establish effective collaborative relationships with both peers and students and may thus be robbed of intellectual stimulation” (Helmreich, “Making It in Academic Psychology,” p. 907).

71. Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” p. 1228.

72. Johnson and Johnson, “Crisis,” p. 151. Seven studies are cited in support of this conclusion.

73. Benedict, pp. 153–54.

74. Blau, p. 534.

75. For example, Donald Bruce Haines and W. J. McKeachie, p. 390: “The contribution made by competition to tensions already existing in the student is so great that undesirable consequences may follow. The present research demonstrated that students in competitive discussion situations became more anxious, displayed a greater incidence of selforiented needs, and found themselves losing self-assurance. Further, they were less able to perform effectively in recitation.” See also Johnson and Johnson, “Structure,” pp. 227–28.

76. For example, see Michele K. Steigleder et al., “Drivelike Motivational Properties of Competitive Behavior”—a contribution to the “accumulating body of literature” taking this position.

77. J. W. Atkinson, “The Mainsprings of Achievement-Oriented Activity,” p. 16. See also Atkinson's
An Introduction to Motivation,
esp. pp. 244–46. The “attempt to avoid failure . . . takes many forms but [it] does not lead to real learning,” writes C. H. Patterson
(Humanistic Education,
p. 86).

78. Henry A. Davidson supplies one example, in which an unusually competitive procedure for selecting office-holders of an unnamed organization discouraged the most talented individuals from running. “Many members were quite willing to offer themselves. But these were the ones who had nothing to lose, since they had no outstanding prestige in the first place. What it amounted to was this: the competitive climate favored the inferior and not, as you might expect, the superior members” (“Competition, the Cradle of Anxiety,” pp. 165–66).

79. Michael Novak,
The Joy of Sports,
p. 158.

80. Christopher Lasch,
The Culture of Narcissism,
p. 194.

81. Wynne-Edwards proposed the idea of group selection in his 1962 book,
Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour,
in which he argued that individual animals sometimes reduce their birth rate in order to benefit the species as a whole. The group vs. individual selection controversy is far from settled among evolutionary biologists.

82. “As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain . . . [and] the only sensible course for him is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and another . . . But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a commons. Therein is the tragedy” (Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” p. 1244). Hardin uses the example to argue for mandatory birth control; my point is that the tragedy inheres in our shortsighted individualism.

83. Fred Hirsch,
Social Limits to Growth,
p. 5.

84. The example is Thomas Schelling's, and it is cited by Robert H. Frank in
Choosing the Right Pond: Human Behavior and the Quest for Status
, p. 133

85. Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers,
On Democracy,
p. 57. Cohen and Rogers note that “the structure in which [workers] find themselves yields less than optimal social results from their isolated but economically rational decisions” (ibid.). This illuminates a key division among those who work for social change. Is the “social result” the ultimate goal? This would suggest a subjugation of the individual to the collective, not unlike the radically different worldview discussed above. Or is the collective action merely a means for individual betterment? This would be closer to the second shift I have been discussing, using cooperation as a tactic but retaining the individualism of the liberal tradition.

86. Axelrod, pp. 189–90, 100.

87. See, for example, Robyn M. Dawes et al., “Behavior, Communication, and Assumptions About Other People's Behavior in a Commons Dilemma Situation.”

88. Douglas Hofstadter, “Irrationality Is the Square Root of All Evil,” P. 758.

89. Mayor Ramon Aguirre Velazquez is quoted in Richard J. Meislin, “Mexico City Gets Too Big a Million Times a Year,” p. E26.

90. Horney argues this in
Neurotic Personality,
p. 160. Of course one can qualify such a position by observing, with Paul Wachtel, that “in the United States, the anticommunal forces of the competitive market place are reinforced, rather than checked, by prevalent cultural values” (p. 168). Institutions such as sports and schooling affect and are affected by economic competition.

91. A study by Citizens for Tax Justice was cited by James Reston, “Politics and Taxes," p. E21.

92. This estimate is offered and defended by Michael Harrington in
The New American Poverty,
p. 88.

93. Paul Wachtel,
passim
. See also E. F. Schumacher,
Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
.

94. John P. McKee and Florence B. Leader, “The Relationship of SocioEconomic Status and Aggression to the Competitive Behavior of Preschool Children.”

95. Roberts, p. 184.

96. “Measured globally there is enough food for everyone now . . . [and] less than 60 percent of the world's cultivable land is now being cropped” (Frances Moore Lappé and Joseph Collins,
Food First,
pp. 13–14).

97. Wachtel, p. 58.

98. One of the best discussions of the creation of needs is contained in Herbert Marcuse,
One-Dimensional Man,
chapter 1.

99. Philip Slater,
The Pursuit of Loneliness,
pp. 103, 106–7, 110.

100. Pepitone, pp. 295–96.

101. Charles Derber,
The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Individualism in Everyday Life,
p. 16, n. 17.

102. Lawrence K. Frank, “The Cost of Competition,” pp. 314–16.

103. John M. Culbertson,
Competition, Constructive and Destructive,
p. 3. He continues: “The most effective economies have not been those with the least government regulation and guidance, but those with skillful, realistic, problem-solving regulation” (pp. 3–4).

104. See, for example, Robert Lindsey, “Airline Deregulation Stranding Some Towns,” pp. A1, B19.

105. Fred Pillsbury, “Bus Industry Slips Into a Lower Gear,” p. A1. Also see William Serrin, “How Deregulation Allowed Greyhound to Win Concessions from Strikers,” p. A22.

106. Norman Lear, “Bottom Linemanship,” p. E23.

107. Arthur W. Combs, “The Myth of Competition,” p. 268.

108. Sinclair Lewis,
Babbitt,
p. 55.

109. Lawrence Gonzales, “Airline Safety: A Special Report,” p. 210.

110. Frederick C. Thayer, “Can Competition Hurt?” p. A17. Paul Wachtel agrees: “It is in the very nature of a system in which one must constantly look over one's shoulder at the competition that corners will be cut—in design, in information to the public, and in morals” (p. 58). Also see John J. Nance's recent book
Blind Trust
for evidence of the safety hazards that have resulted from deregulation of the airline industry.

111. Wachtel, pp. 68–71 and
passim
.

112. Harvey et al., p. 95.

113. Lawrence K. Frank, pp. 318–23. The last consequence—the suppression of individuality—is not as paradoxical as it may appear. I will return to this issue later.

114. For a review of the productivity gains enjoyed by cooperatives, see Appendix I in John Simmons and William Mares's
Working Together
. Also see Morton Deutsch's review of the literature in his chapter “Suppose We Took Egalitarianism Seriously?” in
Distributive Justice
.

 

CHAPTER
4

 

1. Harvey et al., p. 13.

2. George Leonard,
The Ultimate Athlete,
p. 128.

3. Edwards, p. 4.

4. Johan Huizinga,
Homo Ludens:
“The ways in which men compete for superiority are as various as the prizes at stake. . . . But in whatever shape it comes, it is always play” (p. 105). And again: “. . . competition implies play” (p. 133).

5. M. J. Ellis's
Why People Play
offers a reasonably good review of selected definitions and theories of play—definitions and theories being difficult to disentangle—although the review is colored by his strong behaviorist bias.

6. Huizinga, pp. 13, 203.

7. Chesterton is quoted by Huizinga, p. 197, n.2.

8. George Herbert Mead saw play as a chance for the child to try on various adult roles (esp. pp. 150, 364–65). See also Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's bibliographic review (“Play and Intrinsic Rewards,” p. 42).

9. “The child must somehow distance himself from the content of his unconscious and see it as something external to him, to gain any sort of mastery over it. In normal play, objects such as dolls and toy animals are used to embody various aspects of the child's personality which are too complex, unacceptable, and contradictory for him to handle” (Bruno Bettelheim,
The Uses of Enchantment,
p. 55).

10. Orlick, for instance, suggests that we help children play in such a way that they will learn to be honest and cooperative (
Winning Through Cooperation,
pp. 138–39). It might be noted that such inculcation of values takes place, willy-nilly, whenever we guide—or react to—our children's play. It is just that we are accustomed to sexist roles, competitive interactions, and so forth, so we are less likely to notice the ways in which most play (as well as stories and films) quietly perpetuates these values.

11. Whether humans are primarily motivated to reduce tension, as psychoanalysts and behaviorists alike maintain, is actually a controversial question in personality theory. Among those who argue that we evince a “resistance to equilibrium” is Gordon Allport (see, for example, his
Becoming
).

12. Huizinga, pp. 197, 199.

13. See Michael Novak,
The Joy of Sports
(1976), or John Underwood,
Spoiled Sport
(1985), for example.

14. Winer, p. 194.

15. Novak, p. 218.

16. Joseph Heller,
Something Happened,
pp. 221–24.

17. Ellis, p. 140.

18. Günther Lüschen, “The Interdependence of Sport and Culture,” p. 127.

19. Edwards, pp. 47–48.

20. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi,
Beyond Boredom and Anxiety,
p. 182.

21. Sadler, p. 169.

22. Reagan is quoted by Brenda Jo Bredemeier and David L. Shields, “Values and Violence in Sports Today,” p. 23.

23. Gai Ingham Berlage, “Are Children's Competitive Team Sports Socializing Agents for Corporate America?” pp. 313–14, 331.

24. “Sport is a primary vehicle through which youth are socialized to accept and internalize American values,” wrote D. Stanley Eitzen. “Thus, sport is viewed as the darling of the conservatives and the culprit of radicals” (
Sport and Contemporary Society,
p. 90). Gerald Ford could be added to the list of conservative defenders of competition. “Broadly speaking,” he wrote while president, “outside of a national character and an educated society, there are few things more important to a country's growth and well-being than competitive athletics” (“In Defense of the Competitive Urge,” p. 17). The mention of regional differences in sport appreciation is based on Gallup Poll results, cited in Edwards, p. 92.

25. George H. Sage, “American Values and Sport: Formation of a Bureaucratic Personality,” pp. 42, 44.

26. Riesman cited in Tutko and Bruns, p. 42.

27. Arnold V. Talentino has discussed this issue in “The Sports Record Mania: An Aspect of Alienation.”

28. George W. Morgan,
The Human Predicament,
esp. pp. 82–93. Alongside the prosaic man's predilection for quantification, according to Morgan, is his inability to tolerate ambiguity or uniqueness, his fascination with technique, and his need to classify (and, finally, to control) whatever he experiences. The poet e.e. cummings was characteristically more blunt: “Nothing measurable matters a good goddam.”

29. Cited in Tutko and Bruns, p. 206.

30. Ibid., p. 205.

31. Stuart H. Walker,
Winning,
p. 58.

32. Leonard, p. 47. “But,” he continues, “when the seasoning is mistaken for substance, only sickness can follow” (ibid.).

33. Betty Lehan Harragan,
Games Mother Never Taught You,
p. 78.

34. This idea represents an important part of each psychologist's thought and is consequently discussed in many of their respective works. See, for example, Maslow's
Religion, Values, and Peak-Experiences;
Lifton's
The Life of the Self,
pp. 33–34: and Csikszentmihalyi's “Play and Intrinsic Rewards.”