If we only learn about how to win competitive games, then we have fewer tools for dealing with cooperative situations
Which, to me, is about more than just bluffing and psychological warfare.
Take my comments in light of the context.
I don't know. I could easily imagine the answer being both, depending on circumstance, thus making as simple a characterization of them as you seem to implying pretty difficult.
I can't really get a handle on where you are coming from. Are you saying that it is often useful to bluff the people you are cooperating with, or would it be a once in the blue moon kind of situation? Give an example of it helping?
But you also seem to be suggesting that approaching an objective competitively is inherently less efficient than approaching it cooperatively. Surely you don't mean that.
Only if you have total knowledge of the situation... Consider the human body, the places where competition help it to achieve objectives, (the brain possibly and the immune system) are the portions trying to gain knowledge about the outside world. Can you tell me how competition would help the human body apart from in these situations?
Are you saying that it is often useful to bluff the people you are cooperating with, or would it be a once in the blue moon kind of situation? Give an example of it helping?
Drivers often slow down or stop far ahead of time for pedestrians, wasting more of their time to do so than it costs the pedestrian to wait for the car. When I'm on foot and anticipate this, I often bluff the driver by looking away or pretending to change direction. It's minor, but effective and quite frequent.
Only if you have total knowledge of the situation
What about perfect knowledge of a prisoner's dilemma involving non-cooperative agents?
John F. Rizzo is an expert on losing. However, if you want to win, you would do better to seek advice from an expert on winning.
David Sirlin is such an expert, a renowned Street Fighter player and game designer. He wrote a series of articles with the title "Playing to Win", about playing competitive games at a high level, which were so popular that he expanded them into a book. You can either read it for free online (donations are appreciated) or purchase a dead tree edition.
Any further summary would simply be redundant when you could simply read Sirlin's own words, so here is the link:
http://www.sirlin.net/ptw