Defeat Means Friendship: Does Competitive Play Prepare Children for Cooperation?

Abstract

Cooperative and competitive board games each have documented value for social-emotional learning (SEL), but whether the order in which children encounter them matters is largely unexplored.  Teachers may be tempted to begin with cooperative games; yet cooperation may depend on regulatory skills that competitive play is better suited to develop, and cooperative formats can conceal tensions that competitive play surfaces. We present a work-in-progress quasi-experimental study in four 2nd-grade classes (N = 86, ages 7-8). Students were assigned to competitive-first or cooperative-first sequences across eight monthly board-game sessions (Oct 2025 - May 2026). Social behaviours are coded during each session using a purpose-built 23-item instrument spanning Collaboration, Misconduct, Conflict, Emotionality, and Strategy and Support; pre- and post-intervention teacher questionnaires complement the observational data. Preliminary analysis of the pre-transition phase (12 sessions, 289 behaviours) shows that positively-coded behaviours are twice as frequent in cooperative (55%) as in competitive (28%) sessions, with indicators such as joint planning and accepting defeat positively concentrated in the former, and rule-breaking and coalition-forming in the latter — a contrast describing what each format elicits, not the children’s competence. Two classes show dissonances between baseline teacher ratings and observed behaviour, suggesting that structured gameplay surfaces regulatory demands the classroom context conceals. Post-transition data will test the sequencing hypothesis directly.