Last year, the World Cup football was held in Qatar. This year, the World Cup cricket was hosted by India. Next year, the Olympic Games will be held in Paris, France. These are global events participated by a huge number of countries from around the world. Athletes and teams compete with one another for victory, and fans support their teams, rejoicing in wins and becoming sad at losses. Probably, no one would be found who does not support home teams or athletes. Sometimes, because of unexpected losses, people become frustrated with the performance of their players and even angry. It’s as if somebody entrusted with the responsibility to fight for us has betrayed us.
It’s not only in the sports and athletics. We compete in education, career, wealth, lifestyle, and more as individuals. Competition is also there at organizational and national levels. Companies compete with one another for more market share and profit, countries compete for economic superiority and hegemony. Competition is everywhere.
The Journal article “The Psychology of Competition: A Social Comparison Perspective” published in the Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2013 suggests that our tendency to compare ourselves with others is a significant source of competition. In fact, there is a Social Comparison Theory originally offered by American Social Psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954 which proposes that people evaluate themselves in terms of their abilities or wealth by comparing with others.
Imagine this scenario: The boss of Mr. A comes to his desk and gives him the good news that he received a performance bonus of 500 company shares. After work, Mr. A takes his family to a top restaurant for dinner to celebrate his achievement. Everyone is happy. The next day, upon entering the office, he learns that his peer and friend, Mr. B, was granted a bonus of 600 shares. Mr. A’s happiness evaporates; a deep anguish takes its place. The joy of obtaining something is contingent on others not acquiring it or receiving a comparatively smaller share.
In the old days in Japan, the color purple was reserved for royalty, and common people were not allowed to wear purple clothes. Possessing something does not bring sufficient satisfaction, prestige, and pride unless others lack it. The Japanese royals just made sure of that.
We always compare ourselves with others in the domains of success, wealth, job, intelligence, attractiveness, etc. We don’t do that only to assess our relative position but to make sure that we stand out among the lot, we have more than the others. In a research article titled “Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns” published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the authors observed that an individual’s concern for the relative position in society in terms of wealth is more than the concern for absolute possession of wealth. They conducted a survey where the respondents were asked to choose between two worlds where they would prefer to live. In the first world, the respondent will have more than others in the society, and in the second world the respondent will have more than he had in the first world but all others will have even more. Over half of the respondents opted to live in the first world although they will have less than the second world.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on November 22, 2023. Please read the full article here or here.