Team Sports Off the Field: Competing Excludes Cooperating for Individual but Not for Team Athletes

Abstract

Both team and individual sports require competition, whereas cooperation is more prevalent in team than in individual sports. In particular, team athletes have to compete (for starting roles) while cooperating (for team success) with the same teammates. For team athletes, competition and cooperative behavior, two mutually exclusive constructs according to earlier psychological research, might therefore be less incompatible than for individual athletes. In Study 1, team athletes attributed a higher demand to compete and cooperate with the same teammates or training partners to their sport than individual athletes to their sport. Study 2 showed that experiencing competition (vs. control) undermines information sharing less for team than for individual athletes. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated that priming competition undermines the accessibility of cooperative thoughts less for team than for individual athletes. Therefore, team athletes might be better at competing without ceasing to cooperate. Implications for collaboration in groups are discussed.