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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 01 September 2015
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01282
Edited by:
Guy Dove,
University of Louisville, USA
Reviewed by:
Eldad Yechiam,
Technion – Israel Institute
of Technology, Israel
Caroline Di Bernardi Luft,
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
*Correspondence:
Brynne C. DiMenichi,
Department of Psychology, Rutgers
University, 101 Warren Street,
Newark, NJ 07102, USA
bdimenichi@psychology.rutgers.edu
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Cognitive Science,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Received: 27 March 2015
Accepted: 11 August 2015
Published: 01 September 2015
Citation:
DiMenichi BC and Tricomi E (2015)
The power of competition: effects
of social motivation on attention,
sustained physical effort,
and memory.
Front. Psychol. 6:1282.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01282
The power of competition: Effects of
social motivation on attention,
sustained physical effort, and
learning
Brynne C. DiMenichi*and Elizabeth Tricomi
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, USA
Competition has often been implicated as a means to improve effort-based learning and
attention. Two experiments examined the effects of competition on effort and memory. In
Experiment 1, participants completed a physical effort task in which they were rewarded
for winning an overall percentage, or for winning a competition they believed was against
another player. In Experiment 2, participants completed a memory task in which they
were rewarded for remembering an overall percentage of shapes, or more shapes than a
“competitor.” We found that, in the physical effort task, participants demonstrated faster
reaction times (RTs)—a previous indicator of increased attention—in the competitive
environment. Moreover, individual differences predicted the salience of competition’s
effect. Furthermore, male participants showed faster RTs and greater sustained effort
as a result of a competitive environment, suggesting that males may be more affected by
competition in physical effort tasks. However, in Experiment 2, participants remembered
fewer shapes when competing, and later recalled less of these shapes during a post-test,
suggesting that competition was harmful in our memory task. The different results from
these two experiments suggest that competition can improve attention in a physical effort
task, yet caution the use of competition in memory tasks.
Keywords: competition, social motivation, learning, memory, attention, sustained effort
Introduction
Social motivation has been defined as a drive for a particular goal based on a social influence (Hogg
and Abrams, 1990). Although research has examined correlative relationships between competition
and learning (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Zimmerman, 1989; Oldfather and Dahl, 1994; Wentzel,
1999), few studies have examined how the presence of a competitor directly influences motivation,
effort, and memory. In Burguillo (2010) found that implementing competition-based games in a
classroom improved course performance. One might therefore assume that competition may directly
improve some aspect of the memory process; yet, it is unclear whether competition directly affects
attention, effort, or memory.
Recent research has shown that the presence of a competitor can increase physical effort over
both short (Le Bouc and Pessiglione, 2013) and long durations (Kilduff, 2014). Competitiveness
has also been shown to increase physical motivation, such as motivation to practice a sport
(Frederick-Recascino and Schuster-Smith, 2003). A better understanding of how competition
improves performance may help shed light on how to improve cognitive performance (e.g., memory
in the classroom). For example, if the presence of a competitor affected attention, we may
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
expect to see an effect at encoding, since attention is one of
many necessary components for accurate encoding (Craik et al.,
1996; Anderson et al., 2000; Fernandes and Moscovitch, 2000).
However, if the presence of a competitor is affecting memory
retention, we may expect a difference regarding long-term
memory, but not short-term memory. Furthermore, competition
could affect components of memory without affecting attention
at all.
There may also be individual differences in the magnitude
and direction of competition’s effect on performance. Individual
differences exist in a variety of domains, especially those
involving motivation (Duckworth et al., 2007; Maddi et al.,
2012). For example, previous research has found that individual
differences in normative goals—i.e., wanting to perform better
than others (Grant and Dweck, 2003)—have been shown to
predict performance on ostensibly difficult tasks (Swanson and
Tricomi, 2014), suggesting that individual differences may be at
play when examining competition’s effect on effort, attention,
and memory. Also, competition may affect elements of effort and
elements of memory in different ways. For example, if competition
does indeed have an effect on attention, competition could have
a varying effect depending on attentional load. In accordance
with the Yerkes and Dodson (1908) law, one might expect that
competition may improve performance in situations requiring a
low attention load, but not in learning environments requiring
high attentional load.
Additionally, research has yet to examine the potential social
stigma associated with competition, or in other words, whether
being competitive is viewed as a negative personality trait.
Moreover, previous research regarding illusory superiority
has found that individuals tend to rate themselves as having
significantly more positive personality traits than the rest of the
population, including traits such as trustworthiness, honesty,
good-humor, and patience (Hoorens, 1995). Furthermore,
previous research has found that the majority of individuals rate
themselves as significantly less likely to act selfishly than the
rest of the general population (Pronin et al., 2002), as well as
drive better (Horswill et al., 2004) than the rest of the general
population. Since individuals tend to have unrealistically positive
reflections of themselves, participants may tend to rate themselves
as having less competitive behaviors—if competitive behavior is
viewed as a socially negative trait—in order to continue to view
themselves in a positively-skewed light.
Experiment 1 examined the effect of social motivation on a
physical effort task. Experiment 2 examined the effect that the
presence of a competitor can have on working memory and long-
term memory. We hoped to gain insight regarding competition’s
effect on effort, attention, and memory, as well as individual
differences in competitive performance and the likely possibility
of a social desirability bias regarding competitive habits.
Experiment 1
Experiment 1 examined whether competition affects physical
effort. Specifically, we wondered if competition would affect
sustained effort on an isolated, simple physical task, or if
competition affects some other mechanism necessary for
successful performance regarding physical effort, such as
attentional control. Le Bouc and Pessiglione (2013) found that,
when participants believed they were competing, they increased
physical effort, suggesting that social factors often increase
motivation. However, research has yet to parse the mechanisms
at play in social motivation and physical effort. For example,
does competition increase effort at the attentional level, or does
the presence of a competitor increase sustained effort over time?
Previous research has suggested that reaction times (RTs) are
indicative of an individual’s level of selective attention (Eason
et al., 1969; Stuss et al., 1989; Prinzmetal et al., 2005), while
sustained press rates have been regularly implicated as a means
for measuring sustained effort over time (Maatsch et al., 1954;
Treadway et al., 2009). We also wanted to examine the possibility
of individual differences in physical effort in the presence of
a competitor, and the possibility of gender differences in the
saliency of social motivation.
Method
Participants
One hundred and twenty-nine undergraduates from Rutgers
University’s Newark campus participated in the study, which
was approved by the Rutgers IRB. Participants received course
credit for their participation, and were told upon arriving they
would be eligible to earn $1–3 in bonus money in addition to
course credit. Participants entered the lab and were introduced
to a fellow “participant” they would later be interacting with—a
same or opposite sex confederate. After obtaining written
informed consent from the participant, the experimenter brought
the confederate into a testing room and waited for about
5 min, the expected time for the confederate to complete the
practice session of the task. Participants then completed a
practice version of the task, the actual task, and a battery of
surveys, including demographic information. After completing
the surveys, participants were probed about whether or not they
believed they were actually competing against another individual
and if they believed the confederate was a real participant.
Then, participants were debriefed about the confederate and real
purpose of the task. Seven participants were removed for not
believing the manipulation, and two participants were removed
for failing to complete the task in its entirety. Analyses were thus
performed on the remaining 120 participants.
Effort Bar Task
Participants completed an effort bar task in the form of a
computerized carnival water gun game. Participants saw a fixation
cross with a 3–7 s jitter, then were required to press the “x” key to
move the effort bar (in this case, in the form of a “water tube”). If
participants pressed the “x” key before the water tube appeared,
the jitter reset. Participants were required to press between a
randomly generated requirement of 5 and 30 times to fill the
effort bar in order to win the trial. Participants had to press at an
average rate of 150 ms to fill the tube with water in time to win
the round, with an extra 350 ms to account for the expected first
press time. This time amount was decided due to the results of a
pilot study that found that participants had an average first press of
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
350 ms and press rate (excluding the first press) of one press per
150 ms. Titrating the task at this rate led to the expectation that
participants would win an average of 50% of trials. We analyzed
participants’ first press RTs as a measure of their attention to the
task (Eason et al., 1969; Stuss et al., 1989; Prinzmetal et al., 2005),
as well as their sustained press rate over the span of the task, which
provided us a measure of sustained effort (Maatsch et al., 1954;
Treadway et al., 2009).
“Self” condition
In the “self” condition, participants were told they were playing
against the clock, and that if they could win 2/3 of the games
(trials) played in this round, they would be granted $1 in addition
to their course credit. There were 100 trials per condition (200
trials total). Participants were given immediate feedback after each
trial as to whether they won, and were immediately told at the end
of each self and each competition condition if they won the bonus
money. Conditions were counterbalanced across participants to
prevent order effects.
“Competition” condition
In the competition condition, participants were told they were
playing against the other “participant” they met earlier (again, a
confederate), and would be granted an additional $1 if they could
beat their competitor in more of the games. At the end of each
game, they were told whether they or the other player won the
game, and were told who won the bonus at the end of each self
and each competition condition. If participants won 2/3 of the
games in a particular condition, they were granted the bonus.
Each participant completed both conditions, and conditions were
counterbalanced across participants to account for possible order
effects. Task depiction is illustrated in Figure 1.
Surveys
We administered several surveys to investigate potential
individual differences and their relationship to task performance.
Hypercompetitive Attitude Scale (HAS)
The HAS examines individual differences in general
hypercompetitive attitude (Ryckman et al., 1990). The HAS
asks participants to reflect on habits and traits that may be
associated with a competitive personality (e.g., “I can’t stand to
lose an argument.”).
Personal Development Competitive Attitude Scale
(PDCAS)
The PDCAS examines if individuals regard competition as a
means of improving personal development (Ryckman et al.,
1996) The PDCAS reflects on preference for situations in
which competition may improve their performance (e.g., “I
enjoy competition because it gives me a chance to discover my
abilities.”).
Marlow-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS)
We included the SDS (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960) to measure
possible bias in responding, whether it be because participants
have unrealistic representations of their own traits, or because of
a desire to please the experimenter. This questionnaire examines
the extent to which a subject may positively skew their survey
responses to represent themselves in a positive manner, and
requires a “true or false” response to items such as “I am always
courteous, even to people who are disagreeable.” The SDS has
been previously used to detect the tendency of participants
to have unrealistically positive representations of their own
traits (Zerbe and Paulhus, 1987; Paulhus, 1991; DiMenichi and
Richmond, 2015). Because Ryckman et al. (1990) found that
HAS was also correlated with high aggression, we were unsure
whether participants would be likely to admit the extent of their
competitive natures. Furthermore, research has yet to examine
whether or not individuals view competition as a negative
personality trait, and a correlation with the HAS and SDS would
suggest this.
Analyses
Main analyses
A within-subjects t-test examined differences between the first-
press RTs in the self condition and the first-press RTs in
competition condition. A within-subjects t-test also examined
differences between the sustained press-rates in the self condition
and the sustained press-rates in the competition condition.
Individual differences analyses
Pearson correlations examined the relationship between trait
competitive tendencies (HAS and PDCAS), first-press RTs, and
sustained press-rates from the competition condition and the
self condition. Pearson correlations also examined relationships
between survey scores and scores on the SDS in order to
examine possible biases in participants’ responding, as well as if
competitive habits are viewed as a socially-negative trait. We used
a Bonferroni corrected significance threshold of p=0.017 (0.05/3
scales) and interpreted correlations with p-values between 0.018
and 0.05 with caution.
Gender differences analyses
Between-subjects t-tests examined gender differences in
performance and on the survey measures (HAS, PDCAS, and
SDS) used in our experiment. Two-way analyses of variance
(ANOVAs) also examined the effects of the factors gender and
confederate gender on competitive first-press RT (first-press
RT in the competition condition minus the first-press RT in
the self condition) and competitive press rate (press rate in the
competition condition minus the press rate in the self condition).
Within-subject t-tests for each group individually also examined
differences in performance across conditions (30 participants per
group).
Results and Discussion
A paired-samples t-test revealed that participants’ first presses—
i.e., immediate RTs on the task—were significantly faster in the
competition condition (M=339.43 ms, SD =72.96) than in the
self condition [M=352.89, SD =86.84; t(119) =−2.62, p=0.010,
Cohen’s d=0.24], suggesting that participants demonstrated
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FIGURE 1 | Experiment 1 task depiction. Participants saw a preparation screen (Slide 1) for 2 s, then a fixation jittered for 1.5–3 s (Slide 2). Participants pressed
the x key repeatedly when they saw the effort bar appear; time was varied by the number of required presses (Slide 3). Participants were told if they filled the effort
bar in time (Slide 4) and were given feedback regarding their performance (Slide 5).
FIGURE 2 | Results from Experiment 1. Participants’ first press reaction
times (RTs) were significantly faster in the competition condition than the self
condition. Error bars reflect standard errors of the means. *Significant at
p<0 .05.
greater attentional focus on the task when they believed they
were competing against another participant (Figure 2). There
were no other significant findings regarding press rate, score, and
condition, suggesting that competition affected attentional focus
on the task, but not sustained physical effort over time.
Scores on the SDS were significantly negatively correlated with
scores on the HAS (r=−0.367, p<0.001), suggesting that
overt competition may be implicitly viewed as a negative personal
quality by most individuals. There was no significant relationship
between scores on the SDS and scores on the PDCAS, suggesting
that the PDCAS may be immune to participants’ tendencies
to paint themselves in a positively-skewed manner. Scores on
the PDCAS were significantly correlated with faster RTs of the
first press in competition condition (r=−0.239, p=0.008),
suggesting that individuals who view competition as a means
for personal development may have greater attentional focus in
the presence of a competitor. However, there was no significant
relationship between scores on the PDCAS and first press RT
in the self condition, which is consistent with the idea that
competitive personality traits should not affect performance in an
environment with no competition.
Men also scored significantly higher on the PDCAS (M=51.59,
SD =9.65) than women [M=46.62, SD =11.68; t(118) =2.53,
p=0.012, Cohen’s d=0.46], suggesting that men may
view competition as a greater motivation for improving
skills pertaining to personal development. Additionally, male
participants demonstrated significantly faster first press RTs in
the competition condition than female participants’ first press
RTs in the competition condition [male M=323.23, SD =71.44;
female M=335.09, SD =71.53; t(118) =−2.44, p=0.016,
Cohen’s d=0.17] Furthermore, male participants also had faster
sustained press rates in the competition condition (M=128.36,
SD =16.01) when compared to females participants’ press
rates in the competition condition [M=138.26, SD =11.98;
t(118) =−3.84, p<0.001, Cohen’s d=0.70]. However, there
were no significant gender differences involving first press
RT in the self condition or press rate in the self condition.
Furthermore, when examining male participants’ sustained
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
FIGURE 3 | Gender differences from Experiment 1. Males had
significantly faster first press reaction times and significantly faster press rates
in the competition condition compared to female’s first press reaction times
and press rates in the competition condition. However, there was no
significant gender difference in the self condition. Error bars reflect standard
errors of the means.
press rate performance, there was no significant difference
between press rate in the competition and self conditions.
See Figure 3 for gender difference results across conditions.
A two-way ANOVA with the factors participant gender and
confederate gender did not reveal a significant main effect of
confederate gender [F(3) =0.48, p=0.695] or interaction of
gender by confederate gender [F(42) =0.63, p=0.825 Cohen’s
d=0.08] on competitive first-press RTs. Also, a two-way
ANOVA with the factors participant gender and confederate
gender did not reveal a significant main effect of confederate
gender [F(3) =0.75, p=0.528] or interaction of gender by
confederate gender [F(42) =1.25, p=0.209, Cohen’s d=0.10]
on competitive press rate. Overall, these findings suggest that
men were significantly more socially motivated in the presence
of another competitor, at least in terms of attention in a physical
effort task.
Our findings from Experiment 1 suggest that competition
had an effect on participants’ attention to our task. We did not
find a significant relationship between competition and sustained
physical effort in our task, suggesting that competition may have
a more cloudy relationship with physical effort than our task was
able to provide. Furthermore, our results suggest that there are
predictable individual differences in competition’s influence on
attention, although reflection on these individual differences may
be vulnerable to a bias of individuals to paint themselves in an
overly positive light, whether implicitly or explicitly (e.g., due to
task-demand characteristics or the presence of an experimenter).
Also, our findings show that men’s attention on a physical effort
task may be more influenced by the presence of a competitor than
women’s.
Experiment 2
Because Experiment 1 found that competition increased attention,
Experiment 2 examined whether the presence of a competitor
enhanced working memory as well as memory retention,
mechanisms that both rely heavily on attention. Specifically, we
examined whether competition would inspire greater performa-
nce on a memory task and, if so, what mechanisms are responsible.
Method
Participants
One hundred and twenty-four undergraduates from Rutgers
University’s Newark campus participated in the study, which
was approved by the Rutgers IRB. Participants received course
credit for their participation, and were told upon arriving they
would be eligible to earn $1–3 in bonus money in addition
to course credit. Experiment 2 followed the same laboratory
format as Experiment 1: upon entering the lab, participants
were introduced to another “participant” they would later be
interacting with—a same or opposite sex confederate. After
obtaining written informed consent from the participant, the
experimenter brought the confederate into a testing room and
waited for about 5 min, the expected time for the confederate
to complete the practice session of the task. Participants then
completed a practice version of the task, the actual task, a surprise
recall task, and a battery of surveys, including demographic
information. After completing the surveys, participants were
probed for task believability and debriefed about the confederate
and real purpose of the task. Four participants were removed from
the sample for not believing that the confederate was a participant.
Analyses were performed on the remaining 120 participants (60
females).
Working Memory Task
Our working memory task was adapted from (Redick et al.,
2012). Participants decided if a matrix was symmetrical or not,
and then were presented with a line drawing of an abnormal
shape, along with a number (1 through 3). See Figure 4 for
task depiction. They were asked to memorize the association
between the shape and the number. Novel shapes were taken
from Endo et al.’s (2001) Novel Shape database. After three
different matrices and shapes were shown, participants were
shown a recall screen with the shapes from the trial, and
asked to recall the numbers associated with the shapes they
were just shown. Each condition contained 12 rounds with 18
novel shapes randomly assigned to each condition, and each
round was shown twice because of a later recall task. Each
participant completed both conditions, and shapes in the “self”
condition were not repeated in the “competition” condition (and
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
FIGURE 4 | Experiment 2 task depiction. (A) Participants were shown a matrix for 2 s (Slide 1) and asked to decide if the shape was symmetrical (Slide 2).
Participants were then shown a novel shape paired with a number (1, 2, or 3) for 2 s, and were asked to memorize this association (Slide 3). After three rounds (of
Slides 1–3), participants were asked to recall the numbers associated with the shapes. (B) Subjects were given immediate feedback for 6 s regarding their
performance on the previous round. In the self condition (left), subjects were informed about how many shapes they recalled correctly. After a 2 s delay, they also saw
the number of symmetry errors they made on this trial, and the total percentage of symmetry problems answered correctly throughout the condition (top right
corner—subjects were required to answer at least 85% of symmetry problems correctly in order to receive the monetary bonus). In the competition condition (right),
subjects were also given feedback about the number of shapes their “opponent” remembered correctly—a randomly generated number from 0 to 3. After a 2 s
delay, they were also given feedback about their symmetry performance.
vice versa). Conditions were counterbalanced across participants
to prevent order effects, and shapes in each condition were
counterbalanced across participants, in case shapes in one
condition were somehow more difficult than shapes in another
condition.
“Self” condition
In the self condition, participants were given feedback about
their performance directly after the recall screen: they were
told how many shapes they recalled correctly out of three, as
well as how many symmetry problems they answered correctly.
They were also given the running total percentage of correct
symmetry problems for the entire condition. Participants viewed
feedback for 6 s after each round, and were told that if they could
remember a total average of 2/3 shapes across all rounds for this
condition, they would be given a $1 bonus in addition to their
course credit. They were also told that in order to receive the
bonus, they were required to complete the task with a symmetry
matrix accuracy of at least 85%. Inclusion of the symmetry task
also allowed us to examine if effort on the task varied across
conditions, since this section of the task did not have a memory
component.
“Competition” condition
In the competition condition, after each recall screen, participants
were given feedback about how many shapes they correctly
recalled out of three, as well as feedback about their “competitor’s”
performance. Competitor performance was randomly generated
out of 3, and averaged out to be 2/3 across the entire condition,
making the task goal equivalent across both the self and
competition conditions. After a 2 s delay, participants were also
given feedback about symmetry matrices errors for the round.
This delay was issued in order to present the same amount of
information across conditions, therefore making cognitive load
on working memory more equal across conditions. Total recall
viewing time was 6 s after each round. Participants were told if
they could recall more associations than the other participant on
the most rounds—as well have a symmetry matrix accuracy of at
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
FIGURE 5 | Results of Experiment 2. (A) Participants remembered significantly more shapes during the task in the “self” condition than the “competition”
condition. (B) Participants later recalled more shapes learned in the “self” condition than the “competition” condition. (C) “Competitive performance scores” (score on
“self” condition subtracted from score on “competition” condition) significantly predicted “competitive recall scores” (shapes from the “self” condition successfully
recalled on the post-test subtracted from shapes from the “competition” condition successfully recalled), suggesting that our working memory task produced
significant immediate long-term learning. In this graph, a positive score signifies more competitive score. Error bars reflect standard errors of the means.
least 85%—they would get a $1 bonus at the end of the condition.
Condition feedback is depicted in Figure 1B.
Recall task
In a surprise recall task that followed the working memory task,
participants were again asked to recall each number associated
with each shape. Shape order was randomized to prevent order
effects.
Analyses
Main analyses
A within-subjects t-test examined differences between the
number of shapes remembered in the self condition and
the number of shapes remembered in competition condition of
the working memory task. A within-subjects t-test also examined
whether there were differences in subsequent memory between
the two conditions, i.e., whether there were differences between
the number of shapes originally learned in the self condition
and the number of shapes originally learned in the competition
condition that were correctly recalled on the surprise recall
posttest. To compare any differences in immediate attention
across conditions, a within-subjects t-test examined RT to the
first symmetry problem between the two conditions. We also
subtracted each participant’s total number of shapes remembered
during the self condition of the working memory task from
their total number of shapes remembered during the competition
condition of the working memory task, and deemed this score
each participant’s “competitive performance score.” A positive
number would indicate better performance on the competition
condition of our task. We also repeated the process for post-test
scores. A linear regression examined if competitive performance
scores predicted competitive recall scores, in order to examine if
recall scores on the post-test were the result of learning during
the working memory task. If there was no significant relationship
between competitive performance scores and competitive recall
scores, we would assume that competition increased effort on
our task, but not immediate long-term memory. Self scores were
subtracted from competition scores in order to account for general
memory ability on the task.
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
FIGURE 6 | Gender differences in Experiment 2. Male and female participants performed worse in and recalled fewer shapes at post-test when they believed
they were competing against female competitors. There were no significant differences for participants who believed they were competing again male competitors.
Error bars reflect standard errors of the means.
Individual differences analyses
Pearson correlations (Bonferroni corrected for multiple
comparisons, α=0.017) examined the relationship between trait
competitive tendencies (HAS and PDCAS) and working memory
scores from the competition condition and self condition,
as well as recall scores. Pearson correlations also examined
relationships between survey scores and scores on the SDS in
order to examine possible biases in participants’ responding, as
well as if competitive habits are viewed as a socially-negative
trait. A partial Pearson correlation also examined relationships
between trait competitive tendencies and performance while
controlling for scores on the SDS.
Gender differences analyses
Between-subjects t-tests examined gender differences in
performance, recall, and on the survey measures (HAS, PDCAS,
and SDS) used in our experiment. Two-way ANOVAs also
examined the effect of the factors gender and confederate gender
on competitive performance and competitive recall scores.
Furthermore, within-subject t-tests for each group individually
examined differences in performance across conditions (30
participants per group). Partial Pearson correlations controlling
for SDS also examined the relationship between trait competitive
tendencies (HAS and PDCAS) and working memory scores
from the competition condition, self condition, and recall
conditions in order to examine if the presence of a same- or
opposite-sex confederate is salient enough to override state
tendencies.
Results and Discussion
A paired-samples t-test revealed that participants performed
significantly better in the self condition (M=28.78, SD =6.87)
than the competition condition [M=26.72, SD =6.24;
t(119) =3.85, p<0.001, Cohen’s d=0.31] during the working
memory task. There was no significant difference between
symmetry error rates across conditions, as well as no significant
difference in RT to the first symmetry problem across conditions,
suggesting that competition did not affect participants’ expended
effort on the task, but specifically affected working memory
performance. Furthermore, a paired-samples t-test revealed that
participants later recalled more shapes on the post-test learned in
the self condition (M=10.61, SD =4.40) than in the competition
condition [M=8.76, SD =3.34; t(119) =4.06, p<0.001,
Cohen’s d=0.37]. A linear regression revealed that competitive
performance scores significantly predicted competitive recall
scores [β=0.25, t(119) =3.34, p=0.005], and competitive
performance scores also explained a significant proportion of
variance in competitive recall post-test scores [R2=0.09,
F(1,118) =11.15, p=0.001], suggesting that recall scores on
the post-test were the result of learning during the working
memory task. If there was not a significant relationship between
competitive performance scores and competitive recall scores, we
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DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
would assume that competition increased effort on our task, but
not immediate long-term memory.
A Pearson correlation on our survey data revealed a marginally
significantly positive association between scores on the PDCAS
and performance in the competition condition (r=0.17,
p=0.061), but not in the self condition. Because scores on
the SDS were again relatively high in our sample—participants
answered an average of 55.25% of questions in a “socially
desirable” manner—we conducted a partial correlation that
revealed that, when controlling for SDS, PDCAS scores were
marginally significantly associated with performance during the
competition condition (r=0.18, p=0.048). However, after
adjusting for multiple comparisons, this finding was no longer
significant.
As predicted, SDS scores were again significantly negatively
correlated with scores on the HAS (r=−0.367, p<0.001),
replicating our findings from Experiment 1 and again suggesting
that our participants’ self-reflections of their own competitive
habits may be skewed. Since HAS contains questions pertaining
to direct competitive tendencies, overt competitiveness may
be considered a negative personality trait by most individuals.
Furthermore, although HAS scores were significantly associated
with PDCAS scores (r=0.304, p<0.001), PDCAS scores were
not significantly associated with SDS scores, again suggesting that
competition as a means for personal development may be viewed
more positively than overt competitive behavior and beliefs.
Although the men in our sample again scored significantly
higher on the PDCAS (M=56.03, SD =13.26) than women
[M=49.27, SD =14.76; t(118) =2.87, p=0.005, Cohen’s
d=0.48], there were no significant differences regarding gender
and task performance or recall. We also examined the results with
respect to the gender of the confederates. A two-way ANOVA
with the factors participant gender and confederate gender did not
reveal a significant main effect of confederate gender [F(3) =1.48,
p=0.229] or an interaction of gender by confederate gender
[F(42) =1.09, p=0.735, Cohen’s d=0.36] on competitive
performance scores, nor did a two-way ANOVA with the factors
participant gender and confederate gender reveal a significant
main effect of confederate gender [F(3) =2.28, p=0.088] or
an interaction of gender by confederate gender [F(42) =1.73,
p=0.066, Cohen’s d=0.45] on competitive recall scores.
Furthermore, pair-wise t-tests revealed that neither men nor
women who competed against male confederates showed any
significant difference in self vs. competitive performance. Yet,
male participants who competed against female confederates
performed significantly worse [t(29) =3.54, p=0.001, Cohen’s
d=0.65] and female participants who competed against female
confederates performed marginally significantly worse [females:
t(29) =1.91, p=0.066, Cohen’s d=0.35] while they believed
they were competing than when they were not competing.
Furthermore, both male and females participants who competed
against female confederates later recalled significantly fewer
shapes learned in the competition condition [males: t(29) =3.38,
p=0.002, Cohen’s d=0.62; females: t(29) =3.00, p=0.006,
Cohen’s d=0.55]. All groups contained equal n’s of 30
participants in each group. Although one could suggest that
a significant difference among participants who believed they
were competing against females may have resulted because these
participants were exerting less effort against female competitors,
there were no significant group differences regarding symmetry
errors, suggesting that effort on the task was equal across groups,
while memory on the task was hindered in those participants who
faced female competitors. Details regarding group differences are
depicted in Figure 5.
When controlling for social desirability bias, scores on the
PDCAS were significantly positively correlated with performance
in the competition condition (but not the self condition) for
female participants who believed they were competing against
female confederates (r=0.49, p=0.009). This suggests that
the more these participants viewed competition as a way to
improve their skills, the better they performed in a competitive
environment. However, given the small sample of female
participants who competed against female confederates (n=30),
this finding may be very speculative. Furthermore, although one
would then expect the PDCAS to be correlated with the number
of shapes recalled from the competition condition, this finding
was not significant. However, competitive performance scores
(score during self condition subtracted from the score during
the competition condition) did not predict competitive recall
scores for females who believed they were competing against
other females, suggesting that, although competition may increase
performance for individuals who prefer competition as a means of
improving performance, competitive performance does not very
often translate to an increase in immediate long-term memory.
Overall, our results suggest that competition hindered working
memory performance and immediate long-term memory for
most groups in our task. The finding that competition may
hinder memory is surprising; one explanation for this finding
could be that the presence of a competitor could invoke high
anxiety among participants, and high levels of anxiety have been
shown to decrease working (Darke, 1988; Ashcraft and Kirk, 2001;
Miller and Bichsel, 2004) and long-term memory (Rosenfeld,
1978; Cassady, 2004; Miller and Bichsel, 2004). Specifically,
research has found that adolescents raised in high normative
goal environments report the highest rates of competitive anxiety
(White, 1998), which may lead to decrements in performance.
Perhaps even more unanticipated is that the finding that the
presence of a female competitor, but not a male, was most
likely to hinder performance on our memory task. An alternative
explanation for this finding would be that participants exerted less
effort on the task because of the presence of a female competitor.
However, because there was no significant difference involving
gender, competition condition, and symmetry errors, these results
suggest that the presence of a female competitor is more likely
to be hindering processes involved in working memory—and
subsequently, the processes necessary for encoding, as evident by
the results of our recall task. Furthermore, we found significant
differences between conditions for participants who believed they
were competing against female confederates, but there was no
significant interaction of gender by confederate gender. This may
suggest that all participants may have reduced performance in the
competition condition in a similar fashion (see Figure 6), and
therefore not produced an interaction of gender by confederate
gender.
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org September 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 12829
DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
Moreover, disparities in subjective reward could affect the
memory processes required for learning, such as attention:
succeeding in a competitive learning environment could feel
subjectively more rewarding than succeeding in an individualist
learning environment, and therefore distract participants’
attention, thereby disrupting working and long-term memory.
General Discussion
Competition, Attention, and Memory
Our results support the notion that a competitive environment can
affect memory and effort. In Experiment 1, we examined the effect
of competition on attention and effort; we found that the presence
of a competitor increased attention on a physical effort task.
However, we did not find that competition increased sustained
effort on our task—just as competition did not affect the effort
portion of Experiment 2 (symmetry matrices). This result could
have occurred for a number of reasons: first, since RTs tend to be
viewed as an implicit marker of motivation (Glaser and Knowles,
2008), perhaps competition affects effort on an implicit, rather
than explicit, level, especially since our survey results suggest
that participants tend to view overt competitive behavior as a
negative trait. Second, perhaps competition is only salient enough
to increase immediate attention in a laboratory setting, and not
sustained physical effort on a task over time. More likely, however,
competition may only affect performance on a physical effort
task in an environment where competitors compete side-by-side,
which did not occur in our task. Furthermore, Kilduff (2014) has
found that competition tends to increase physical effort on a gross
physical effort task (i.e., running a race). Nonetheless, the finding
that competition may increase attention has crucial real-world
applications for education and the workplace.
In Experiment 2, we examined the effects of the presence of
a competitor on memory. Participants in our sample performed
best on our working memory task in a non-competitive
environment, and also learned more in a non-competitive
environment, as demonstrated by their performance on a later
recall test. These results could have occurred for a number
of reasons. First, competition could be viewed as an anxiety-
provoking threat for most participants: previous research has
suggested that high levels of anxiety could have a negative effect
on both working memory ability (Darke, 1988; Ashcraft and Kirk,
2001; Miller and Bichsel, 2004; Owens et al., 2012) and on learning
(Rosenfeld, 1978; Cassady, 2004; Miller and Bichsel, 2004; Einsel
and Turk, 2011). We would expect that, if participants viewed their
competitor as a threat, this would indeed hinder performance,
as was seen in our results. These findings were even stronger in
our results regarding recall, suggesting that for most individuals,
competition actually hinders memory. Furthermore, our sample
consisted of students already at the undergraduate level of
education, who may already be acclimated to cooperating with
other students in academic settings (as opposed to competing).
Since our sample consisted of U.S. undergraduate students—as
opposed to students from a country such as Japan, in which
competitive learning environments are common (Heine et al.,
2001)—perhaps our participants were not adjusted to learning in
a competitive environment. Competitive learning environments
may have led to improvements in countries which have taught
this way from an early age, suggesting that a competitive learning
environment may be too novel for someone already at a higher
level of education (Sanders, 1987; Smith, 1992).
Although competition improved initial RT in Experiment 1,
the presence of a competitor hindered both working memory and
immediate long-term memory in Experiment 2. Since attention
is likely to increase both working memory (Awh et al., 2006;
Berryhill et al., 2011) and learning (Nissen and Bullemer, 1987;
Cohen et al., 1990; Gottlieb, 2012), why did this finding occur?
It is possible that the difficulty of the task was responsible
for this paradox: Experiment 1 featured a simple, button press
task that required minimal effort. However, the multi-faceted
task from Experiment 2 required more effort to succeed, and
since greater emotional arousal may hinder performance and
motivation on a very difficult task (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908;
Watters et al., 1997; Diamond et al., 2007), it may be that
the presence of a competitor was anxiety-provoking enough
to hinder working memory performance and immediate long-
term memory. In fact, previous research has found that RT
tends to be faster after an increase in arousal, whereas executive
tasks such as those necessary for successful working memory
tend to benefit from a decrease in arousal (Luft et al., 2009).
Furthermore, since competitive performance scores significantly
predicted competitive recall scores, it may be that anxiety affected
memory at the encoding phase—as opposed to affecting retention
or retrieval.
An alternative explanation lies in the reward literature, as
previous research has found that receiving rewards for a task can
sometimes hinder performance, learning, and memory (Spence,
1970; McGraw and McCullers, 1974; Mobbs et al., 2009; Chib
et al., 2012). Perhaps succeeding in a competitive learning
environment was subjectively more rewarding than succeeding in
an individualist setting, despite objective rewards remaining the
same across conditions. If succeeding in a competitive learning
environment is subjectively more rewarding than succeeding in
an individualist setting, competition may be more likely to distract
participants—similarly to “choking under pressure” (Baumeister,
1984; Beilock and Carr, 2001, 2005; Ramirez et al., 2013). This
explanation may be why competition negatively affecting working
memory and immediate long-term memory on our task. There
also may individual differences in preferences for competitive
learning environments. In future research, it would be valuable
to discern participants’ preference for the competition condition,
as this information may provide insight as to the possible
distractibility of competition and memory.
Individual and Gender Differences
In Experiment 1, we found that the PDCAS predicted how
competitive an individual was at an effort bar task. In Experiment
2, the PDCAS predicted how competitive an individual was in
a memory task, although this finding did not remain significant
after correcting for multiple comparisons. Competitiveness in
a learning setting is likely to be contingent on more factors
than can be grasped from one survey measure. Furthermore, we
found that men scored significantly higher on the PDCAS,
suggesting that men may value competition as a means
Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org September 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 128210
DiMenichi and Tricomi Social motivation and learning
for improving personal development more than women. Men
also exhibited a more competitive performance in our physical
effort task in Experiment 1, in line with recent research
that suggests men tend to both prefer and perform better in
competitive physical environments more so than women (Gneezy
et al., 2009; Niederle and Vesterlund, 2011). However, men
did not outperform women in our repeated memory task in
Experiment 2. Competition may affect performance on memory
tasks differently than competition traditionally affects effort and
attention. Furthermore, since previous studies [such as Gneezy
et al. (2009)] have typically utilized effort tasks to compare
preference for competitive environments, future research studies
may want to further examine gender differences in preference for
competition in memory tasks specifically, since these are typically
utilized in educational settings.
We also found high rates of social desirability in our sample,
which was negatively correlated with the HAS—but not the
PDCAS—suggesting that the PDCAS may be a superior survey
measure when tapping an individual’s true trait competitive habits
and preferences. Furthermore, because the HAS contains blatant
questions regarding competition, its negative correlation with
social desirability may suggest that competition may be viewed as
a negative personality trait by most individuals.
In Experiment 2, we found significant differences in
performance on a memory task when a participant believed
they were competing against a female participant. However, this
result was not the case in Experiment 1 in a physical effort task.
Although some research has found that females tend to excel
at tasks involving episodic memory (Herlitz et al., 1997; Davis,
1999) and object identification memory tasks (Voyer et al., 2007),
which were strong skills necessary to succeed at the type of
task used in Experiment 2, whether this gender advantage was
known by our participants remains unknown. Research suggests
that increased attention drawn to one’s own performance can
result in performance decrements or “choking under pressure”
(Baumeister, 1984; Beilock and Carr, 2001, 2005; Ramirez et al.,
2013), so the presence of a female competitor may increase
pressure in a learning environment if participants have had
previous experience with an object identification memory tasks
and a female rivals, such as in a classroom learning setting. Yet, it
is unclear whether the performance differences we found among
participants who believed they were competing against female
competitors were due to increased pressure due to the presence
of a female competitor, or the opposite view: that females did not
appear to be strong opponents in a learning setting, so they did not
cause their competitors to devote more attentional resources to the
task. However, although we found significant differences between
conditions for participants who believed they were competing
against female confederates, there was no significant interaction
of gender by confederate gender, suggesting that all participants
may have reduced performance in the competition condition.
Limitations
It may be difficult to generalize our experiment to competition
and memory in a real-world sense. Our task in Experiment 1
examined how social motivation’s effect on a simple physical
effort task, but competition may affect gross physical effort (e.g.,
running, team sports, etc.) on a more complex level. Additionally,
our task from Experiment 2 was a specific, short memory
task that did not offer any realistic long-term gains. Future
research should include a longer period before administering
a recall task, as a longer delay before recall would more
realistically illustrate how learning occurs in a classroom setting.
Furthermore, although individual preferences in competition
were obtained, individual differences in intrinsic vs. extrinsic
reward preference were not accounted for, and an additional
sum of a few dollars may not have been enough motivation for
some individuals to increase performance. Future research should
examine how competition may influence long-term memory in a
true educational setting.
Because our study examined the effect of competition on
memory in two tasks that also featured gains and losses, our
findings may have been driven by the effect of gains and
losses on attention and performance, moderated by the saliency
of a competitor. Since previous research has suggested that
losses can increase both attention and performance (Yechiam
and Hochman, 2013), future research studies should attempt to
distinguish whether or not competition merely moderates this
affect, especially since most competitive learning environments
incorporate some type of gains and losses, such as in educational
settings.
Conclusion
In sum, our research suggests that social motivation—specifically,
competition—can have strong effects on attention and memory,
although significant individual and gender differences exist.
Competition in a physical effort setting may increase attention,
while the presence of a competitor may have detrimental effects
on memory and performance. These findings present strong
implications for education, the workplace, and other real-world
settings involving social interaction.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Zana J Hanini, Joe Melon, and Tanasia
Hall for their help as experimenters. We would also like to thank
Holly Sullivan Toole with design of the effort bar task, and James
Bradley, Frank Nick, Ahmet Ceceli, Christina Bejjani, Samantha
DePasque Swanson, Jamil Bhanji, Onaisa Rizki, Kiranmayee
Kurimella, and Stuti Prajapati for their help as confederates.
This work was supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation (BCS 1150708) awarded to ET.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was
conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org September 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 128213
