addition, it also raised questions on possible differences in perception and
interpretation of competitiveness and cooperation in a country that is culturally
different from the USA. Another interesting point in the study of King et al.
(1995) was a strong Japanese motivation to avoid success when that success
required a competitive strategy against other Japanese. While this was
intriguing and certainly contrary to the high competitive scores among
Japanese students, nevertheless, it is potentially meaningful when we consider
the underlying Japanese collectivism orientation – one that is expressed in
Japanese’ innate desire to fit in and not offend other members of the in-group.
By contrast, American students did not show any inclination in deferring to
others of their in-group in this study. This competitive versus cooperative
anomaly found among Japanese is indicative of yet another facet of
competitiveness – a possible in-group versus out-group facet – that is one
with higher competitiveness against outgroups (non-Japanese) and lower
competitiveness against in-groups (Japanese). A similar comparison study was
carried out by Tang (1999), who used the King et al. (1995) scale to examine the
differences between the US and Chinese students. His findings were even less
conclusive than the original King et al. (1995) study, although there were
underlying indications at the scale item level that Chinese students were more
competitive than US students on some items but not others. Tang (1999)
attributed the more competitive Chinese attitudes to the very competitive
education system for college admission in China versus the more open US
system where students had more educational opportunities. Thus, the duality
of relationships between competitiveness and cooperation is seen as raising
more questions than providing answers. These somewhat uncertain findings in
both the King et al. (1995) and Tang (1999) studies reinforced the need to
further examine different facets of competitiveness and how competitiveness
could exist with cooperation, especially within a generally collectivistic
environment in Asia.