The neuroscience of social comparison and competition.

The study of competition from a social comparison perspective offers valuable insights into the neuroscience of social judgment and decision making under uncertainty. When engaging in social comparison, individuals seek and assess information about similarities or differences between others and themselves, in large part to improve their self-evaluation. By providing information about one's relative position, abilities, outcomes, and more, social comparisons can inform competitive judgments and decisions.

Gender and competitive preferences: The role of competition size.

In a series of 8 studies, we examine whether gender differences in competition entry preferences are moderated by the size of the competition. Drawing on theories of gender roles and stereotypes, we show that women, relative to men, prefer to enter smaller compared with larger competitions. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrate this effect in observational data on preferences for working in differently sized firms and applying to differently sized colleges.

The Psychology of Competition: A Social Comparison Perspective.

Social comparison-the tendency to self-evaluate by comparing ourselves to others-is an important source of competitive behavior. We propose a new model that distinguishes between individual and situational factors that increase social comparison and thus lead to a range of competitive attitudes and behavior. Individual factors are those that vary from person to person: the relevance of the performance dimension, the similarity of rivals, and their relationship closeness to the individual, as well as the various individual differences variables relating to social comparison more generally.

The N-effect: more competitors, less competition.

This article introduces the N-effect-the discovery that increasing the number of competitors (N) can decrease competitive motivation. Studies 1a and 1b found evidence that average test scores (e.g.

Ranks and rivals: a theory of competition.

Social comparison theories typically imply a comparable degree of competition between commensurate rivals who are competing on a mutually important dimension. However, the present analysis reveals that the degree of competition between such rivals depends on their proximity to a meaningful standard. Studies 1 to 3 test the prediction that individuals become more competitive and less willing to maximize profitable joint gains when they and their commensurate rivals are highly ranked (e.