An Analysis of Berg's Essay

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In Achieving Goals: To Compete or To Cooperate?
Participating in games is often an excellent opportunity that will promote critical-thinking skills, imagination, and creativity. Aside from the fact that playing games are a fun experience, it also brings out the innate competitive side that each one of us has. Competition is by no means a negative thing because this actually fuels individuals to reach greater heights and achieve more, however, in Berg’s “Competition and Cooperation: The Wisdom to Know When” both the application of competition and cooperation as options when trying to accomplish a goal are presented.
The Red-Blue Exercise is the game that is used in Berg’s article. This exercise effectively stimulates competition, problem-solving skills, and the decision-making process that the participants have. The general objective of the game is for one out of the two teams to achieve the highest possible score, to be declared as the winning team. This exercise triggers a feeling that team B may choose the option which will best benefit themselves while leaving team A at a disadvantage. This kind of thinking will enable team A to be guarded and choose a more competitive option that will prioritize points for themselves. However, as the article points out, this kind of strategy will not bring any of the two teams positive points. It is an application of the prisoner’s dilemma that demonstrates the unfortunate outcome when the prisoner only thinks of himself without regard to other inmates, on the other hand, when cooperation between the prisoners is seen then all the involved individuals may end up with satisfactory results (Berg, 2010, p. 177).
In “Education: Running Together Rather Than Outrunning the Other” the concept and meaning of “winning” was explained to be something more than just surpassing the other team because a very important aspect is to achieve the goal. It is also said to be applicable in higher education, and similar to the concepts and reflections that Berg presented in the article, the accompanying feelings of competition such as pressure, jealousy, and deceit should not overpower the main goal, and in education, it is to advance further into higher education. This can be possible by promoting cooperation and healthy competition that will help in boosting creativity and mental health in general.
A part of the Red-Blue Exercise that I personally find interesting is how it revealed an aspect of human nature when it comes to competition. When dea...