INTRODUCTION Competition has been saddled with a generally negative reputation in the literature on learning and task performance. Johnson and Johnson (1975) reviewed the literature on competition and concluded, "Competition as a goal structure did not emerge with a positive image in the last chapter, and it fares even worse in the research review" (p. 40). In general, competition has been reported to raise anxiety, focus attention on interpersonal rather than task issues, and reduce creativity (McKeachie, 1969). Despite this picture, competition continues to be introduced into such diverse learning and work situations as the classroom, the athletic field, and the business environment, and recent research suggests that the effects of competition are not entirely negative. For example, competition has been found to stimulate computer-based instruction in schools (Strommen, 1993), business (Curry & Moutinho, 1992), and athletics (Alain & Sarrazin, 1990). In trying to square such diverse results, investigators (e.g., Zajonc, 1965) have argued that arousal (regardless of its source) enhances the performance of well-learned responses but inhibits the performance of complex or new skills. Arousal, Zajonc argued, may result from performing in a social situation, from competition, or from factors external to the performance situation. Although social facilitation effects have been demonstrated across a variety of tasks (Guerin, 1993), the major focus has been on comparing learned with new behaviors. It remains unclear whether or not an arousal-enhancing situation such as competition can facilitate performance of a new complex behavior in individuals who have an aptitude for that activity. For example, an individual may have an aptitude for athletic skills (e.g., eye-hand coordination, physical conditioning), but he or she may have never tried to hit a baseball. Will the introduction of competition facilitate or inhibit performance of this activity? Expanding Zajonc's reasoning that competition will energize dominant responses, it could be predicted that competition will facilitate performance of new tasks in individuals with high aptitude even when tasks are complex, but that it will not help and may inhibit performance of these tasks in individuals with low aptitude. Support of this prediction would expand the domain of social facilitation theory and help identify the conditions under which competition has a positive effect on performance. To determine whether facilitation occurs in high-aptitude behaviors or if prior learning is required, trainees in the present study were identified as either having high or low aptitude on a computer task. Some trainees began their initial performance under competition conditions, and others had an opportunity to learn the specific task before competition was introduced. A related question involves the conditions under which individuals compete. Some investigators suggest that it is the social nature of the performance situation that leads to social facilitation. Accordingly, arousal occurs because performers are concerned about being evaluated by others (Cottrell, Wack, & Sekerak, 1968), because they are distracted by the presence of others, or because they are stimulated by the conflict between paying attention to others and paying attention to the task (Sanders & Baron, 1975). These positions suggest that the social facilitation effect will be enhanced by the presence of others. In contrast, Zajonc's (1965) initial position was that any condition that heightened arousal and alertness, including ones with no face-to-face interactions, would enhance performance. In the present studies, we examined these alternative hypotheses by having trainees compete to reach an individual score alone or in groups of two or four people. This design allowed us to determine whether competition would enhance performance and whether the competition effect would be moderated by the social element. …
['Stephen Worchel', 'Wayne L. Shebilske', 'Jeffrey A. Jordan', 'Radmila Prislin']
Competition and Performance on a Computer-Based Complex Perceptual-Motor Task