THE EFFECT OF FEAR OF FAILURE ON CHOICE OF STRATEGY IN PRISONER'S DILEMMA.
Abstract
The two-person non-zero sum game called Prisoner's Dilemma was used to investigate the fear of failure (FF) motive (operationally defined in terms of the Hostile Press (HP) scoring system of the TAT) and the need for achievement (nAch) in a situation where competition leads to failure and co-operation leads to success. Any one of three basic patterns of play (called Competitive, Defensive, and Optimal) were used by all Ss in the game situation as indicated by the way in which the Ss chose to describe their own behavior on a questionnaire after the experiment. It was hypothesized that high HP-high nAch Ss would show defensive play patterns significantly more often than Ss in other motive groups, low HP-high nAch Ss would show competitive play patterns more often, and high HP-low nAch and low HP-low nAch Ss would show optimal play patterns more often than Ss in the other motive groups. All three hypotheses were confirmed at p less than .05. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0649648
Entities
People
- Neil A. Stillings
- Robert C. Birney
Organizations
- Bucknell University