Rivals without a cause? Relative performance feedback creates destructive competition despite aligned incentives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12166455 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jan K Woike (0000-0002-6816-121X, Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC) Max Planck Institute for Human Development Berlin Germany, corresponding author), Sebastian Hafenbrädl (0000-0002-5148-766X, IESE Business School Barcelona Spain) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 523-537 |
| Publication date | 2020-02-12 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0894-3257 • E-ISSN: 1099-0771 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/bdm.2162 |
| OpenAlex | W3005910435 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 97 |
Whether people compete or cooperate with each other has consequences for their own performance and that of organizations. To explain why people compete or cooperate, previous research has focused on two main factors: situational outcome structures and personality types. Here, we propose that—above and beyond these two factors—situational cues, such as the format in which people receive feedback, strongly affect whether they act competitively, cooperatively, or individualistically. Results of a laboratory experiment support our theorizing: After receiving ranking feedback, both students and experienced managers treated group situations with cooperative outcome structures as competitive and were in consequence willing to forgo guaranteed financial gains to pursue a—financially irrelevant—better rank. Conversely, in dilemma situations, feedback based on the joint group outcome led to more cooperation than ranking feedback. Our study contributes to research on competition, cooperation, interdependence theory, forced ranking, and the design of information environments
Affect (linguistics · Business · Competition (biology · Dilemma · Economics · Incentive · Microeconomics · Outcome (game theory · Personality · Rank (graph theory · Ranking (information retrieval · Situational ethics · Computer Science · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Game Theory and Applications · Psychology · Social Psychology
Psychology and industrial efficiency.
Organizational Culture
Cooperation and competition among primitive peoples.
A Conceptual Review of Decision Making in Social Dilemmas
All Frames Are Not Created Equal
Social Preferences, Beliefs, and the Dynamics of Free Riding in Public Goods Experiments
Social comparison processes in organizations
Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests
Group Size Effects in Public Goods Provision
The Dark Side of Competition for Status
Are people conditionally cooperative? Evidence from a public goods experiment
The Psychology of Competition
Prizes and Incentives
Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations.
Warm-Glow versus Cold-Prickle
Social Value Orientation
The Psychology of Rivalry
Interpersonal relations
Simple Heuristics in a Social World
The effects of feedback interventions on performance
Beyond Self-interest
The feedback environment
Competitive escalation and interventions
A Description–Experience Gap in Social Interactions
Public good provision in inter‐team conflicts
Subject-specific performance information can worsen the tragedy of the commons
A Theory of Co-operation and Competition
Tendencies toward Group Comparability in Competitive Bargaining
The Dynamics of Interdependence in Organizations
An Experimental Study of the Effects of Co-Operation and Competition upon Group Process
A Theory of Social Comparison Processes
The “Spite” Dilemma in Voluntary Contribution Mechanism Experiments
Choice behavior in social dilemmas
Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientations
The pursuit of joint outcomes and equality in outcomes
Role of interdependence structure, individual value orientation, and another's strategy in social decision making
Individual differences in game motivation as moderators of preprogrammed strategy effects in prisoner's dilemma
A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation
An Educational Psychology Success Story
Classic and current social comparison research
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |