More Competitors Weaken Motivation To Excel

Pulse

oi-Staff

Friday, December 11, 2009, 11:18

Motivation and level of performance is weakened when a competition is against a large group of people.

Subjective factors influence our motivation to compete. However, objective factors such as the number of competitors also have an effect on the level of motivation. Higher the number of competitors, lower the level of performance becomes.

In a study, it was found that a group with lesser number of competitors performed much better than a group with higher number of candidates.

This was also confirmed by Cognitive Reflection Test, a psychological test that was conducted on two different groups of students.

Students who were competing against 9 others completed their tests significantly faster than those who thought they were competing against 99 others. Therefore it is clear that when there is tough competition among many competitors, the motivation to excel reduces.