CONSTRUCTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE COMPETITION
Competition can vary from destructive to constructive: unfair, unregulated competition at the destructive end; fair, regulated competition in between; and constructive competition at the positive end.
In constructive competition, the losers as well as the winners gain. Thus, in a tennis match that takes the form of constructive competition, the winner suggests how the loser can improve, offers an opportunity for the loser to learn and practice skills, and makes the match an enjoyable or worthwhile experience for the loser. In constructive competition, winners see to it that losers are better off, or at least not worse off than they were before the competition.The major difference, for example, between constructive controversy and competitive debate is that in the former, people discuss their differences with the objective of clarifying them and attempting to find a solution that integrates the best thoughts that emerge during the discussion, no matter who articulates them (see Chapter Three for a fuller discussion). There is no winner and no loser; both win if during the controversy each party comes to deeper insights and enriched views of the matter that is initially in controversy. Constructive controversy is a process for constructively coping with the inevitable differences that people bring to cooperative interaction because it uses differences in understanding, perspective, knowledge, and world view as valued resources. By contrast, in competitive contests or debates there is usually a winner and a loser. The party judged to have “the best”—ideas, skills, knowledge, and so on— typically wins, while the other, who is judged to be less good, typically loses. Competition evaluates and ranks people based on their capacity for a particular task, rather than integrating various contributions.
By my emphasis throughout this chapter, I do not mean to suggest that competition produces no benefits. Competition is part of everyday life. Acquiring the skills necessary to compete effectively can be of considerable value. Moreover, competition in a cooperative, playful context can be fun. It enables one to enact and experience, in a nonserious setting, symbolic emotional dramas relating to victory and defeat, life and death, power and helplessness, dominance and submission; these dramas have deep personal and cultural roots. In addition, competition is a useful social mechanism for selecting those who are more able to perform the activities involved in the competition. Further, when no objective, criterion-referenced basis for measurement of performance exists, the relative performance of students affords a crude yardstick. Nevertheless, serious problems are associated with competition when it does not occur in a cooperative context and if it is not effectively regulated by fair rules. (See Deutsch, 1973, pp. 377-388, for a discussion of regulating competition.)