Existing research on the relationship between team performance goals and team performance has yielded mixed findings. We argue that these inconsistencies arise in part from the use of two different operationalizations of team performance goals: a collective-based operationalization (averaging team members’ perceptions that their team aims to outperform other teams) and a composition-based one (aggregating team members’ personal aims to outperform other individuals). In this research, we adopted a multiconceptualization approach to examine whether collective and composition performance goals interact in predicting team performance. In Study 1 (98 observations from 73 players across 31 teams), video game teams with higher collective performance goals performed better in a major European tournament when their composition performance goals were lower. In Study 2 (535 observations from 201 players across 22 teams), volleyball teams with higher collective performance goals performed better in the Swiss volleyball championship when their composition in-group performance goals were lower (i.e., fewer members striving to outperform teammates). Because of concerns about statistical power and causality in Studies 1 and 2, we conducted a larger, preregistered experiment. In Study 3 (751 participants from 292 teams), experimentally assembled teams assigned to a collective performance goal condition exhibited less behavioral sabotage during a collaborative task compared to teams instructed to endorse composition performance goals or both goal types simultaneously. This manipulation did not directly affect team performance but indirectly improved it via lower sabotage. Together, our findings suggest that high collective performance goals and low composition performance goals may provide a recipe for fostering team cooperation and performance.

The present study examined whether prosocial reasons to comply with anti-COVID measures were related to pro-environmental behaviours (PEB), as both have in common that they were/are mostly performed to help others. We investigated two mediating psychological mechanisms: perceived interdependencies between the self and others, and reduced climate change psychological distance. Latent class analyses applied to data from an online study conducted in France, Switzerland, the UK, and Spain (Ntot = 967) revealed five different ‘environmental’ profiles. Path models showed that prosocial reasons for complying with anti-COVID measures were related to the most congruent profiles (the ‘strongly committed’, frequent PEB/strong pro-environmental intentions, and the ‘strongly disengaged’, infrequent PEB/low intentions) through a reduced vs. heightened psychological distance of climate change. Prosocial reasons were not related to the three other profiles. However, a reduced vs. heightened psychological distance between COVID-19 and the self was related to perceived interdependencies, which were then related to the two most incongruent profiles: the ‘well-meaning’ and the ‘committed to private PEB’. We discuss these results to the extent that they inform on (a) the relevance of using a profile-approach, (b) the way to measure the psychological distance of different global crises, and (c) the relevance of pursuing research on perceived interdependencies as predictors of PEB.