Matching or Competition? Performance Comparison Processes in an Idea Generation Task

Abstract

Performance matching due to social comparison has been proposed as one explanation for the observed productivity loss in group brainstorming (Brown & Paulus, 1996; Paulus & Dzindolet, 1993). According to Festinger (1954), however, social comparison should not lead to performance matching but rather to competition. In our first experiment, we tested this hypothesis for a coactive situation and found enhanced performance due to interpersonal competition but no performance matching. In the second experiment, we attempted to replicate this result with interactive dyads and introduced an outgroup in order to shift competition from the interpersonal to the intergroup level. Both the replication and the shift of competition were successful. The intergroup competition was not accompanied by performance matching within the dyads.