In this thoughtful Kappan article,University of Missouri/St. Louis professors David Light Shields and Brenda Light Bredemeier reexamine Alfie Kohn’s assertion (in his 1986 book, No Contest: The Case Against Competition) that competition interferes with creativity, narrows thinking, promotes conformity, diminishes self-esteem, undermines performance and productivity, and increases prejudice, hostility, cheating, aggression, and violence.
Kohn was right in one sense, say Shields and Bredemeier. Research before and after his book confirms that win-lose, conflict-oriented competition really does produce negative effects. But there is another kind of competition, they say – striving with one’s opponent for the highest level of excellence – and it has distinctly positive effects. “Rather than corrupting our young,” they say, “competition can cultivate their character. It can build their self-esteem, promote humanistic values, support a sense of competence, and lead to enjoyment.” Here is a comparison of the two types of competition:
•The kind that Kohn attacks involves situations in which the goals of the contestants are mutually exclusive and the aim is deciding who is the winner and who is the loser.
•The other kind derives from the Latin petere, meaning “to strive” or “to seek”, combined with the prefix, com, meaning “with.” It isn’t striving against but striving together with one’s opponent in an enjoyable quest for excellence. “In sports, for example, what is being sought is excellence of physical performance,” say Shields and Bredemeier. “It is the exhilaration, excitement, and sense of accomplishment that comes with maximizing one’s physical and mental potential in the pursuit of a goal. In school-sponsored contests such as spelling bees and debates, we seek to promote a joy of learning that will lead to academic excellence… In true competition, each party is pushed to its limits by the challenge coming from the best effort of opponents. The mutual challenge is a stimulus to maximum effort that, when rooted in the values of true competition, leads to an… upward spiral toward excellence.”
The attitude people bring to the contest is what makes the difference. If contestants see it as a partnership aimed at excellence, competition will be positive. If they see it as a battle for victory and domination, competition will be negative.
It’s vital that young people learn this distinction, say Shields and Bredemeier, and sports may be the best arena to learn it, since sixty percent of American children participate in organized sports. “If students learn that sports are all about who’s number one,” they say, “if they embrace showboating and dominating as goals, if they learn that rule-bending is normative, if they come to believe that opponents are simply there to be victimized, what does this portend for how they will think about contests in other sectors of life?”
Educators need to realize that there is a natural pull toward the dark side of competition. Student athletes can become confused when a coach pushes them to be competitive and then criticizes them for trash-talking, cheating, or fighting. Just how competitive are we supposed to be? they might ask. In fact, they need to be more competitive, but with a focus on excellence and enjoyment. “If winning is viewed as a demonstration of personal superiority, if it is valued as an opportunity to claim supremacy, if it is a salve for an insecure ego, then the desire to win will likely lead to ethical lapses, even if the desire isn’t particularly strong,” say Shields and Bredemeier. “On the other hand, if the desire to win springs from a desire to test one’s limits, to approximate personal excellence, to support one’s teammates and the core values of the community, then even a powerful desire to win will be walled off from a temptation to deviate from ethical commitments… While the immediate goal may be to win, the meta-goal is to enable all participants to explore the boundaries of personal growth and accomplishment. In this broader goal, opponents are partners.”
Fortunately, there are some great competitors who can serve as role models, for example, tennis champion Chris Evert, who says that her favorite match ever was when she lost to her arch rival, Martina Navratilova, in a contest that pushed them both to the top of their game. “Competition requires balancing seriousness with play,” say Shields and Bredemeier, “intrinsic motivations with extrinsic motivations, and outcome orientation with process orientation.” Teaching young people to see competition this way, they say, “will help us avoid the many pitfalls of contesting that have been eloquently described by Kohn and other critics of the contest.”
“Competition: Was Kohn Right?” by David Light Shields and Brenda Light Bredemeier in Phi Delta Kappan, February 2010 (Vol.91, #5, p. 62-67); this article can be purchased at [
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http://www.pdkintl.org.