INTERDEPENDENCE, DIFFERENTIAL REWARDING, AND PRODUCTIVITY.

Previous work on the effects of cooperative and competitive settings appears to be completely ambiguous. An examination of these studies suggests that the strength and direction of the effect is strongly influenced by the extent to which the group has an interdependence task. A review of the literature suggests that the results may be generalized to a variety of types of groups. The thesis is put forward that these results may be conceptualized in terms of a balance between two opposing behavior patterns: one oriented to greater individual productivity and one oriented to blocking the productivity of others. This paper reports an experiment confirming the hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]