Replication Data for: Collectivism Impairs Team Performance When Relational Goals Conflict With Group Goals

This research challenges the idea that teams from more collectivistic cultures tend to perform better. We propose that in contexts in which there are tradeoffs between group goals (i.e., what is best for the group) and relational goals (i.e., what is best for one’s relationships with specific group members), people in less collectivistic cultures primarily focus on group goals but those in more collectivistic cultures focus on both group and relational goals, which can lead to suboptimal decisions. An archival analysis of 100 years of data across three major competitive team sports found that teams from more collectivistic nations consistently underperformed, even after controlling for a number of nation and team characteristics. Three follow-up studies with 108 Chinese soccer players, 109 Singapore students, and 119 Chinese and the U.S. adults provided evidence for the underlying mechanism (i.e., prioritizing relational goals over group goals). Overall, this research suggests a more balanced view of collectivism, highlighting an important context in which collectivism can impair team performance.

本研究对一种观点提出挑战，即来自更具有集体主义文化的团队往往表现更佳。我们提出，在集体目标（即对团队最有利的目标）与关系目标（即与特定团队成员的关系最有利的目标）之间存在权衡的情境中，来自较少集体主义文化的个体主要关注集体目标，而来自更具有集体主义文化的个体则同时关注集体目标与关系目标，这可能导致次优决策。通过对三大主要竞技团队运动100年数据的存档分析发现，来自更具有集体主义国家的团队在控制了多个国家和团队特征后，表现始终不尽如人意。针对108名中国足球运动员、109名新加坡学生以及119名中国和美国的成年人进行的后续三项研究，为这一潜在机制（即优先考虑关系目标而非集体目标）提供了证据。总体而言，这项研究对集体主义提出了更为平衡的视角，突显了集体主义可能损害团队表现的重要情境。