Ashlee Cravens

Assignment #5
Period 4

Cooperation vs. Competition. 1. Is competition over-emphasized in American

Society? Why? What are the advantages of such a competitive attitude? What are
the disadvantages?
2. Identify situations that you have observed in which competition has actually
interfered with people achieving a goal. Is competition emphasized in children?
What recommendations would you make to parents regarding their child's
participation in soccer, baseball, etc.?

I have experienced the harm of competition for myself. I am a competitive

cheerleader. I grew up with my family (nuclear) pushing me harder and
harder to reach my full potential. They (myself included) eventually made me
feel worthless and like I would never be enough for them. I felt neglected. If I
did not succeed to their standards, they would punish me with silence. I had
very low self-esteem because of my high competiveness. This made me
weak and an easy target. My freshman year was a disaster because I had
forgotten about what really mattered. I had lost all my friends and had no
goals to achieve. This put me in a Pre-conventional moral reasoning. My
most important value was maintaining my appearance of obedience to my
authority. (Berger,2014, p.310)
There are many advantages to competition. It makes you want to work hard,
which is a great quality to develop. It makes you fight for what you want and
not give up until you get it. Most of the time competition teaches you how to
be resilient. The capacity to adapt well to significant adversity and to

Ashlee Cravens
Assignment #5
Period 4

overcome serious stress. (Berger,2014, p.287) Competition makes you work

hard to win so you defeat the stress. If you are resilient you are a god. You
are a special type of person because its not an easy thing to master.
The disadvantages are depressing. We can only push ourselves so far.
Eventually we are going to burn out. Being competitive is going to destroy
you. The Stress and the neglect you experience is not something you want to
experience. Repeated stress that you get from a competition is was makes
resilience difficult. (Berger,2014, p.287) Repeated stress can traumatize you
and make you end up hating your sport.
I have noticed that parents are a huge invester in competitive children. The
parents are the ones who put the thoughts in the childs mind. They are the
ones who want their children to be little Michael Jordans. Parents are the
metacognators. They have ultimate control that allows them to evaluate a
cognitive task, determine how to accomplish it, monitor the performance and
make adjustments. (Berger, 2014, p. 258) My advice to parents is to let your
child push themselves. If they like the game, then they will work hard
because they want to and not because they are being forced to. Be there for
them and support them, that is the best thing you can do.
References:
Berger, K.S. (2014). Invitation to the life span (2nd ed.). New York, NY: worth
Publishers.