Friday, 25 November 2011

The taste for competition peaks at age 50

No wonder parents' races at school sports days are such fraught affairs. A new study finds that far from us mellowing as we age, our inclination for competition increases through life, peaking around the age of 50.

Prior to their data collection, Ulrich Mayr and his colleagues had several reasons for expecting that preference to compete would peak in youth and fade thereafter. They cited reductions in testosterone with age; the documented shift with age to a more prosocial orientation (older people give more money to charity); an age-related shift to a mastery (rather than comparison) approach to skills; and age-related falls in confidence, perhaps based on actual cognitive declines with age.

The researchers set up a stall at a shopping mall and invited volunteers to solve mental arithmetic equations (e.g. "true or false: 7 + 2 + 3 - 6 = 5") as quickly as possible in return for points. Points were exchanged for modest cash prizes. The 543 participants (aged 25 to 75), in private booths, completed one round lasting 30-seconds in which they earned more points the more equations they solved. They then completed a second "competitive" round, in which they only earned points for solving more equations than a randomly chosen rival. Participants didn't get feedback on their performance until the experiment was over. Finally - and this was the crucial round - the participants could choose for the final round whether to play solo (known as "piece-rate"), like they had in the first round, or whether to compete once again against another randomly chosen participant. Afterwards participants estimated how well they thought they'd done, as a measure of their confidence.

There were some clear gender effects, consistent with past research. Women were far less likely than men to opt for the competitive version in the final round (correction: 36 per cent vs. 56 per cent). And there were clear age effects across both genders: the taste for competition against others increased with age, levelling off at about the age of 50. For example, nearly 70 per cent of men aged 45 to 54 opted to compete versus just over 50 per cent of men aged 25 to 34.

What lies behind the gender effects? Men and women performed equally well at the task under piece-rate conditions, but the women's performance did drop slightly in the competitive version. Women were also less confident than men. Women's confidence, unlike men's, was also related to their choice of whether to compete or not (men chose to compete without consideration of their likelihood of winning!). However, none of these factors was sizeable enough to explain the size of the gender difference in choice to compete.

What about the effects of age on preference for competition? There was no difference in actual performance with age. Changes in confidence also couldn't explain the age-related change. A potential explanation comes from a recent meta-analysis, which found that the trait of "social dominance" increases with age until the 50s. Said Mayr and his team: "Successfully engaging in competitions is critical for establishing social dominance and therefore it is plausible to assume that with such an increased interest in social dominance comes an increased 'taste for competition."

One important caveat needs to be mentioned. Because this was a cross-sectional study, it's possible that it's not age that's related to competitiveness but rather the era that the participants grew up in - or something else to do with their particular generation. To get around this problem, participants would need to be followed up throughout their lives, to see if their taste for competition changes as they age. However, the researchers can't see any reason why the fifty-somethings' upbringing should have led them to be more competitive than the 30-somethings. Yes, Baby Boomers are known for their competitiveness but 30-year-olds grew up in a prolonged economic downturn that might have increased their competitive tendencies.

What about you - have you found that your taste for competition has altered as you've aged? Or looking at your friends and family, do these results fit with your own experiences of their competitiveness? Please use comments to let us know.

ResearchBlogging.orgMayr, U., Wozniak, D., Davidson, C., Kuhns, D., and Harbaugh, W. (2011). Competitiveness across the life span: The feisty fifties. Psychology and Aging DOI: 10.1037/a0025655

NB. Percentages for men and women's preferences were quoted incorrectly before but have now been corrected.

Post written by Christian Jarrett for the BPS Research Digest.


  1. Would it not be Gender Stereotype Threat affecting women's participation in the competative condition ?
    A replication with a non-maths test might be a good idea..

  2. Hi Lisa - yes, I think that's highly likely and I think the researchers mentioned that possibility in their paper.


    Hasn't there just been a lot of discussion in the media about the selfishness of the "Baby Boom" generation? I just looked at the article and to be fair, they acknowledge this possibility, but they also state that: "a priori one might have also expected that the prolonged economic downturn that has shaped the 30-year-olds' upbringing might have increased their competitive tendencies."
    This is a common misconception. But as I understand it, there is plenty of research out there (sorry, I don't have references :() that indicates that as resources grow scarcer, individuals actually get more cooperative (at least with in-group members) rather than more competitive. It's superficially counter-intuitive, but makes sense from a theoretical point of view because natural selection works on reproduction, not just survival. So in a land grab type of situation, there is great potential for investing differentially acquired resources in offspring; whereas in a famine, it's not much good hoarding up loads of food for yourself if the rest of the village dies around you.

    This is an interesting finding, and I'm not saying that age, rather than culture, isn't the driving factor. But whenever age differences are more than a few years the age effects definitely need to be verified by examining them longitudinally (and cross-culturally) as well as cross-sectionally.

  4. Hi Gordon - interesting point about the effects of scarce resources, thanks. For clarity, I've added in an extra sentence to the post about the researchers' speculations.

  5. Richard Harris10:35 am

    If 73 per cent of men, overall, opted for competition, then how come, in the most competitive age group, nearly, (& only), 70 per cent of men aged 45 to 54 opted to compete?

  6. Hi Richard - thanks, well spotted. I'm sorry, I quoted the gender difference percentages from an earlier study by mistake (cited in this study). I've inserted the correct percentages now.

  7. Anonymous5:03 pm

    I think it would be a useful exercise to overlay "age-group" triathletes into this study. The anecdotal evidence shows the competitive age groups best times peaking in the male 40-45 group (they are significantly faster than 20-25, 25-30 and 30-35 age groups)

  8. Danielle R.2:37 am

    This reminds me of the active theory of aging. It's when life satisfaction in late adulthood is highest when people maintain the level of activity they displayed in earlier life. They want to have responsibilities and have a busy life style. Everyone wants to feel confident, even when they are older! Women ususally find it from friends, while men find it from their spouse. Men and women in later ages are pretty much the same. They want to know that they fufiled everything in their life that they could have. This is called ego interity. Both genders also like to take care and help younger people so they can help influence them with their age. Excersise is also great for elderly. They want to do physical activity even when they are sick or have limitations. Old people are just like us! They still want to feel good about themselevs and make sure their life is complete!

