The recent addition of the Most Awesome Arcade here has prompted me to ponder the concept of competitiveness. What makes people so competitive with each other? What is the root cause of it? What do you gain? And do you think men and women enjoy competing against each other, or do they prefer to compete with their same gender? Are you competitive?
a) Competition has the potential to enhance the overall "fitness" of a group. By competing, group members make an effort to become stronger and competition enables a hierarchy in the group based on ability, which is beneficial to members.
b) By competing, you gain strength and an idea of where you are in a social hierarchy compared to other people.
c) I think male competition is stereotypically more task focused (i.e. sports, video games, etc.) while female competition is stereotypically more socially focused (i.e. who is the most popular, who is the most succesful in life, etc.). I think women
may enjoy competing against men more than men may enjoy competing against women due to prevailing prejudices about a so called "superiority" of males in some areas related to competence. This prejudice would drive women to "correct" the existing bias due to the perception of how gender relates to competence.
d) I am not competitive socially, but am sometimes in a given task. When it comes to the social realm, I do not compare myself to other people to assess how well I'm doing in society or life in general. There will always be someone better or worse than me, and my relative position is not as important as my overall happiness irrespective of my social rank. When it comes to a task, I try to be the best I can be and compete with my past performances by trying to better them (i.e. trying to beat my last timing when I run a given distance). Sometimes, though, I enjoy competing with other people in a task (i.e. playing poker to win).