Competition and Risk-Taking

Mishra, Sandeep; Fogg, Cody; Deminchuk, Jeff

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190060800.013.16

The Oxford Handbook of the Psychology of Competition 2022

DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190060800.013.16

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Competition and Risk-Taking

Sandeep Mishra

Cody Fogg

Jeff Deminchuk

Abstract: How does competition motivate risk-taking? In this chapter, the authors consider and define competition through the lens of evolution by natural selection. The authors then review the relative state model, a recently developed, evolutionarily informed, mathematically modeled motivational framework that conceptualizes risk-taking as a product of competitive dis/advantage. The authors describe how an understanding of the two key inputs into competitive dis/advantage—embodied capital and situational/environmental… Show more

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Cited by 2 publications

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“…It is also important to note that these strategies are not uniformly distributed across groups. For instance, exposure to economic inequality predicts greater economic risk-taking among individuals with lower incomes compared to those with higher incomes (Mishra et al, 2015), which can ironically perpetuate cycles of poverty (for relevant review, see Mishra et al, 2024). For now, we will explore whether the nexus between economic inequality and competitive motivations holds true not only among adults in their everyday lives but also among students in school settings.…”

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Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

Sommet,

Claes,

Elliot

2024

Motivation Science

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Research on the effects of exposure to economic inequality has primarily focused on adults in their everyday lives. In this review, we argue that these effects extend to children and adolescents in their school environments. We begin by presenting evidence that economic inequality promotes students’ competitive motivations. We then examine three critical implications of this phenomenon for understanding the associations between inequality and students’ affective, relational, and achievement outcomes. First, competitive motivations explain why economic inequality predicts negative achievement emotions like test anxiety. However, as competition evokes not only concern about losing, but also hope about winning, we suggest that inequality may also predict positive achievement emotions like pride. Second, competitive motivations explain why economic inequality predicts antisocial behaviors like cheating, but also prosocial behaviors like tactical cooperation. Indeed, competition can lead students to use either of these behaviors strategically to improve their relative performance (i.e., cheating or cooperating to outperform others). Third, competitive motivations explain why economic inequality does not consistently predict achievement, but may widen the gap between students from wealthier and poorer backgrounds. The reason is that competition does not universally increase or decrease performance, but rather has opposing effects (beneficial for some, detrimental for others). Finally, we suggest that future studies could prioritize longitudinal designs and investigate mechanisms, moderators, and different segments of the inequality distribution. We conclude by highlighting the integrative nature of economic inequality research and calling for more conceptual and empirical work to better understand how inequality shapes the minds of younger generations.

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Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

Sommet,

Claes,

Elliot

2024

Motivation Science

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“…Absolute thresholds are not all that matters; in social species like humans, agents must assess where they stand relative to others in a local ecology before acting. This reflects the functional reality that fitness itself (and, psychological attention to proxies of fitness, like mates, status, resources and reputation) is necessarily relative [11]. In other words, desperation thresholds must be informed by an agent's relative state , which is an appraisal of one's competitive dis/advantage relative to others in a local ecology [3,12].…”

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The psychology of relative state, desperation and violence: a commentary on de Courson et al. (2023)

Barclay,

Mishra

2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Why does violence persist when the apparent incentives for violence decline? A recent paper by de Courson et al. [1] offers answers based on agent-based fitness modelling, making two integrative claims about incentives to violence. First, factors increasing desperation will lead to more violence; second, communities can become trapped in violence long after the desperation subsides, as agents must demonstrate they are not easily victimized. The model's compelling insights may be particularly useful for guiding research into the relevant psychology of relative state, which describes dis/advantage calibrated within a competitive landscape. Here, we summarize the model, review the evidence linking the psychology of relative state to ecologically derived deprivation, and speculate on the policy implications of the model.De Courson et al.'s model has numerous agents interacting in a population. Each agent has some resources which convert into fitness, but each is subject to a 'desperation threshold'-agents who fall below that threshold suffer greatly in fitness terms. Agents choose one of three social strategies: (i) take resources from others through crime (exploit); (ii) do not take but react violently to perceived exploitation (violent); or (iii) passively let others take from oneself (submit). The model addresses when each of these strategies predominates.The model makes two important assumptions about incentives to violence. First, violence is a risky way to extract resources from others: successful violence provides easy resources, but unsuccessful violence incurs great costs. If an individual is desperate-below a minimal acceptable threshold with no safe way of meeting that threshold-the model shows they will take risks, like engaging in violence, as a desperate ploy to meet that threshold, consistent with risk-sensitivity theory (reviewed in [2,3]). The more desperate agents there are, the more violence there will be. This claim is consistent with empirical evidence indicating that such conditions as high economic inequality, poverty and a preponderance of single males are associated with elevated violence (e.g. [4][5][6]). Second, violence deters exploitation: others are less likely to exploit someone with a violent reputation, for fear of suffering the costs of that violence [5]. This observation is consistent with traditional models of partner choice (e.g. [7]), except that agents are choosing whom to exploit rather than ally with. De Courson et al.[1] combine these two explanations in a single model that explains both the high variation observed in violence rates and the persistence of violence even after conditions improve.Importantly, de Courson and colleagues show that both poverty and inequality lead to exploitative crime and violence, through three key mechanisms. First, as poverty or inequality rises, more agents will fall below the desperation threshold and thus become exploitative as a desperate attempt to get above the threshold. Second, when more individuals are desperate, there are more potentia...

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Competition and Risk-Taking

Cited by 2 publications

References 6 publications

Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

The psychology of relative state, desperation and violence: a commentary on de Courson et al. (2023)

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