Understanding and Managing Competitiveness
See also: Self-MotivationCompetitiveness is the drive to succeed or win, which usually means against others. It is an extremely powerful force, which can motivate people to enormous success—and you only have to look at Olympic athletes to see this in action.
However, for other people, competition can be demotivating, and even cause them to remove themselves from situations. It can also, if not managed carefully, lead to conflict with others and personal stress.
It is therefore clear that competitiveness is a trait that needs to be carefully managed. This page explains more about the psychology of competitiveness, and how to manage it in yourself and others so that you can harness the positives, and avoid conflict and stress.
What is Competitiveness?
A competitive situation, also known as a competition, is one in which you succeed by performing better than someone else.
Competitiveness is therefore the drive to be more successful than others: to win (see box).
Defining Competition and Competitiveness
competition n. any performance situation structured in such a way that success depends on performing better than others.
Source: APA Dictionary of Psychology
competitiveness, n. possession of a strong desire to be more successful than others.
Source: Oxford Languages, via Google
competitiveness, n. the fact of a person wanting very much to win or be more successful than other people.
Source: Cambridge Dictionaries
Levels of Competitiveness
It seems obvious that different people have different levels of competitiveness.
We all know people who are very, very competitive, and others who will just walk away from any competitive situation.
Psychologists have speculated that these differences have survived through evolution because they are rooted in a balance between ability to obtain resources, and ability to exploit them efficiently. Very competitive people are often so focused on winning the resources in the first place that they then do not exploit or use them effectively. However, others who are less competitive are more focused on using resources once obtained.
There are therefore both advantages and disadvantages associated with different levels of competitiveness—though there is definitely such a thing as being too competitive (see box).
The Perils of Hypercompetitiveness
Psychologists have identified a trait known as hypercompetitiveness, which is defined broadly as the need to win at all costs, usually as a way of maintaining or enhancing self-worth.
Hypercompetitive people are often very extrinsically motivated. This means that they are motivated by external factors such as prestige, recognition and financial rewards, rather than simply the internal desire to do something or get better at doing it (and there is more about this in our page on Self-Motivation). They also often have lower self-esteem than people with higher intrinsic motivation.
There are serious drawbacks to hypercompetitiveness, on both a personal and a professional level.
Professionally, hypercompetitive people tend to take on too much. They often therefore fail to achieve goals, or even complete tasks—and this can damage their self-esteem still further, because their self-worth is bound up in winning.
They also often have poor interpersonal relationships. This is unsurprising, because relationships are built on give-and-take, not one person always ‘winning’.
Psychologists have found that various factors can influence individual levels of competitiveness. These include genetic factors, environmental factors, and situational factors.
Your genetics influences both your desire to compete, and your ability to compete in a given situation. For example, elite athletes usually have certain physical advantages, often called ‘natural talent’. However, they also have a significant drive to win that may keep them going when others would give up.
How you are brought up—the environment surrounding you as a child—can also influence both ability and desire to compete. The parents of Olympic athletes have generally supported their sporting ambitions for years, for example.
However, competitiveness is not an absolute: someone who behaves competitively in one situation may not do so in another.
In particular, how competitive we feel seems to depend on the number of people against whom we are competing. In general, people are more motivated to compete when there are fewer people in the competition—perhaps because they feel that they have more chance of doing well against fewer competitors.
However, this varies with our own personal levels of orientation towards social comparison.
People who tend to make a lot of social comparisons tend to be more affected by the number of people against whom they are competing. Those who are less motivated by social comparison do not seem to be as affected by the numbers involved.
Self-awareness Pays Dividends
The tendency for competitiveness to be influenced by the number of people around you obviously has implications for activities like test-taking, learning and team-working. It is worth being aware of your own preferences so that you can choose situations where your natural level of competitiveness will be of maximum benefit, and avoid inadvertently disadvantaging yourself in some way.
Types of Competitiveness
Psychologists have defined different types of competitiveness.
In particular, they have focused on a distinction between a desire to win for its own sake, or to beat others, and a desire to compete against yourself—that is, to master particular skills or tasks.
Some psychologists have made a more value-based judgement, and described healthy and unhealthy competition.
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Healthy competitiveness involves wanting to improve your personal skills, and also enjoying the competitive process (for example, competing in races for fun).
It can therefore include both types of competitiveness above.
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When the desire to win against others becomes ‘at all costs’, then that is unhealthy competitiveness.
It can also become unscrupulous, if someone takes their desire to win to extremes. Similarly, it is possible to take the desire for personal development too far, when it turns to perfectionism. This is also unhealthy, because it means that you are competing against an impossible ideal that you can never reach. This can lead to burnout, and loss of self-esteem.
Managing Competitiveness
Competitiveness is unavoidable. We all have some level of competitiveness—even if it’s quite low.
What’s more, a reasonable level of competitiveness is not a bad thing.
It drives us to perform more effectively, and provides motivation. It helps us to have fun, and assess ourselves against others. However, if it runs to extremes, it can be a problem.
The key for us as individuals, and as we interact with others, is to manage our own and others’ levels of competitiveness to avoid it becoming a problem.
Some ways in which you can do that include:
Focus on personal improvement and self-development. Use competition as a way to motivate yourself to improve. However, don’t beat yourself up if others are better in some way (and our page on social comparison explains more about this).
Enjoy yourself. As long as competing is fun, then it’s healthy. As soon as you start to feel that you have to compete to prove yourself, then it’s no longer fun. Make sure that you are enjoying the activity in which you are competing, and all will be well.
Make sure you have a balance in your life. Not everything needs to be a competition, and you certainly don’t have to win at everything. If you are starting to find this is your general approach to life, take a step back, and look for other interests that are less competitive. Make sure that you have some interests that are competitive, and some that are very definitely not.
Concentrate on fair play and doing your best. Winning should never be ‘at all costs’. Enjoy competing ‘fairly’, and respect other competitors. Focus on doing your best, and do not worry too much about whether you win.
Develop a growth mindset. Don’t ask ‘how did I do?’. Instead, ask ‘how can I improve?’. It changes the whole face of competition, from winning to getting better. There is more about this in our page on The Importance of Mindset.
Don’t get stressed about it. Competitive environments can be very stressful, even if you are generally very competitive. It is worth being aware of your reactions in particular environments, and taking steps if necessary to reduce your stress (and there is more about this in our pages on Stress and Stress Management).
See the bigger picture. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in how well you have done this time compared with last time, and forget how far you have come overall. Take time to look at how you have developed and improved overall, and not just since last week.
A Final Thought
Crucially, remember that your level of competitiveness is only one part of you. It does not define you, and it certainly is not everything about you.
Why, then, should you allow how well you compete to define your sense of self-worth?