One major theme my laboratory work has focused on over the course of the past few months is the idea of competition. We have discussed different psychological principles surrounding competition, as well as different studies and surveys the lab has released in order to dive deeper into this phenomena.
Last week, we had a short “crash course” lesson on the psychology of competition. As a Biology and Spanish student, I cannot say I am the most well-versed when it comes to psychology (much less a niche subject grouping within the field itself) but I was very appreciative and excited to have the opportunity to learn more on a theoretical basis, what we were putting into practice in our lab work each day.
The main takeaway from the short competition lecture was that competition without collaboration will not get you very far at all. That is, if you really want to be competitive, you should seek to collaborate first.
I thought this proved very interesting. Especially at a school like U of M, where competition is basically woven into all that we do and in every classroom and program in which we participate, I had never really thought of the ways collaboration at Michigan played a part in my academic journey.
We went on to discuss how competition can take place either between different groups (intergroup) or within a single group (intragroup). Not surprisingly, intergroup competition (and thus intragroup collaboration) proved the most evolutionarily beneficial according to our short lesson. The more I thought about this, the more it made sense. When we work together with others, we make ourselves a stronger force, complementing each others’ strengths with our own, and making up for each others’ weaknesses with our unique gifts. When we work together, a lot more can be done. However, if we switch to intragroup competition, we are competing against the very people who are supposed to be “on our team”, making it harder for everyone to do as well, and in the long run, actually hurting each of our prospects.
It would be as if the University of Michigan and Michigan State University had a competition to see which school could produce the higher number of 4.0 students after a single semester. If, within the colleges, students competed against each other and tried to sabotage their own teammates, of course that would prove detrimental to their mission. However, if each respective school worked to keep grades up in their own college, helping their peers with tutoring and homework, and instead focusing their competitive efforts on how to outperform the other school’s students, instead of each other, they would be a stronger team, and a much stiffer competition.
So, what does this mean for us? For myself, I have taken this lesson to be sort of a “call to reality” at the necessity of teamwork and collaboration at all levels of life – competitive or otherwise. As students, sometimes it is easy to forget that those around us are not against us in our academic advancements or scholastic strivings, but rather are there as allies and friends, walking the same path we are in pursuit of a similar end goal. If we take a step back in the midst of competition, and remember to lean on those around us, not only will we have a stronger support system, learn more from the experiences of others, and serve as allies ourselves in our peers’ journeys, we will actually prove more competitive in our own journeys, also. The best way to be a strong competitor is to help others be stronger, too.
Competition has always been a big motivator for me–I love when it is integrated in a healthy way. Nice work this summer!