Psychology Commons^™

Competitive, Cooperative, And Individualistic Group Environments: Effects On Job Satisfaction And Performance, Erin Marie Steinbach Welters

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

The effects of task interdependence (competition, cooperation, and individualism) on job satisfaction and performance were investigated. Students from two Catholic, liberal arts colleges completed a creative thinking task in one of four conditions: group competition, cooperation, individual competition, and individual. Rather than supporting the hypotheses, the results indicated that students in the competitive conditions had superior performance to students in non-competitive conditions, and job satisfaction was generally unaffected by the condition students participated in. Trait competitiveness of the participants was also measured in order to determine whether it had a relationship with performance and job satisfaction. A strong relationship between …