The influence of competition on the psyche. Punchy character and psychology of competition

Women's competition: how to win and where does it come from?

Competition: is it like war?
What is more important for women and what for men?
Envy - why?
Envy test.
6 steps from envy to success!
In what area do women really compete?

In the summer I visited Riga, and there is a legend about the Ladies of Rosena Street. They say that a long time ago, two ladies in wide dresses collided on Rosen Street and argued about which of them should give way. Both were of noble family and each wanted to go first. So they remained standing here, and if you dig up the pavement of the 17th century, you can see them continuing the old dispute...

In war it’s like in war. Goal at any cost! Nothing pleases a woman more than the ugliness of her friend!

Does the problem of female competition concern you personally? Is there really no such thing as female friendship? What interferes with women's happiness?

Women are focused on cooperation, men are focused on competition. There is only one area in which women truly compete. Which? I'll tell you at the end of the video.

“For women, communication is more important, for men, achievement is more important. Boys play with objects, girls with each other.When does it break? Why are women not happy with their achievements? Boys compete, girls cooperate. Women value relationships, men value work." Barbara Pease.

Conversations. The girls talk about who loves whom, who is angry with whom, play in small groups, and share secrets about others, thereby forming an alliance among themselves. Girls talk about boys, their weight, clothes and girlfriends. Women talk about diet, personal relationships, marriage, children, lovers, acquaintances, clothing and the actions of other people, form relationships and are interested in everything that can be called the human factor. The boys discuss things and activities: who did what, who managed to cope with what, and how this or that device works. Young men are interested in sports, mechanics and the principle of operation of devices. Men - sports, their work, news, what they have done and where they have been, technology, cars, mechanical devices and devices.

A man aims to achieve a goal, win a certain social status and power, win the competition and successfully reach the “bottom line.” The focus of women's interests is communication, cooperation, harmony, love, mutual understanding. The differences between them are so great that you can’t help but wonder how they can get along together.

Through envy we acutely experience our imperfection!

An envy test that will help you understand whether it is around you:

"She has everything, and I have nothing."
“What does she have that I don’t have?”
“She succeeds, but I don’t.”
“Why does everyone else get the best?”
"Compared to her, I'm not very beautiful or smart."
“Why are others always lucky, but not me?”
“Of course, she has model looks/rich dad/good job, and I don’t.”
“I can’t/can’t do it like she does.”
"If I were like..."
“I’m clearly inferior in appearance/clothing/education...”
"I'm worse than her..."

If you are familiar with these phrases, there is envy in life.

And as a result - competition - dissatisfaction with oneself - a feeling of guilt and uselessness...

What to do?

Fierce competition requires special character traits. Not everyone can boast of fighting qualities, but practical advice from the authors of the book by Poe Bronson and Ashley Merriman will allow you to emerge victorious from the most difficult situations.

What distinguishes winning behavior from losing behavior? Why do we sometimes happily accept a challenge, but then quickly give up? Can we even become more competitive?

Drawing on scientific evidence, Poe Bronson and Ashley Merriman's King of the Hill reveals what lies behind every victory and defeat and offers new insight into the nature and psychology of competition.

During the Olympics, held in the 4th century BC, the wrestler Eupolos was caught bribing his opponents. According to historian Nigel Spivey, this is the first-ever example of cheating during the Olympic Games.

A fine was collected from the culprits, and the proceeds were allocated to order ten life-size bronze statues - each depicting an angry Zeus, and at its base the name of the culprit and what he had done wrong were inscribed. These bronze statues were placed at the entrance to the Olympic Stadium and became an enduring source of shame for both the perpetrators and the cities they represented.

“Victory must be won by the speed of the feet and the endurance of the body, and not by money,” warned Pausanias.

There were a few more cases of cheating in the following centuries, but overall the Olympic Games were run fairly and according to the rules. Perhaps this heightened sense of justice is the reason why the Olympic Games have existed for so long.

Professor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Marta Fülöp has conducted research showing that our reaction to competition depends primarily on the fairness of the competition.

In most cases, an inadequate response is caused by unfair competition, and not by the character of the opponent. Even good people begin to act badly if they are treated unfairly.

The winner of an unfair competition experiences shame, fear and gloating, which leads to emotional distance from the loser. The victim of an unfair competition does not feel any joy for the winner. The loser cannot accept his defeat and is unable to move on. He is overcome by a feeling of anger and disgust, and sometimes helplessness, which is why he loses the desire to continue the fight.

In the case of fair competition, both victory and defeat cause an adequate reaction. In a fair fight, the winner may feel sympathy for the loser because there is an emotional connection between them. And the loser, in turn, agreeing with the result, is able to experience joy for the success of the winner. The result of such a competition is not only victory, but also mutual respect between the competitors for each other for a fair and beautiful game.

Everyone's emotional reaction to victory and defeat is the same. Märta Fülöp has studied attitudes toward winning and losing in traditionally collectivist cultures such as Japan and China, as well as in individualistic, competitive Western cultures such as Canada.

After her research, she came to the conclusion that the most common reaction to victory is joy and satisfaction with the level of one's skill. Three-quarters of respondents in her sample reacted to the victory this way.

According to Marta Fülöp, there are four types of reactions to victory:

Joy, triumph, inspiration, excitement.
A feeling of satisfaction with your high professionalism.
Denial of the importance of victory - guilt; fear of a possible retaliatory strike, an urgent need to hide joy.
Narcissistic self-overestimation is an angry feeling of superiority over the loser.

There are also four types of reactions to defeat:

Chagrin, disappointment, after which comes recognition of defeat without hostility and accusations.
Aversion to losing – indifference, fatigue, boredom, emotional detachment.
Self-deprecation: “I’m really bad, I’m responsible to the team,” self-hatred, severe mental turmoil.
Aggression towards the winner - envy, anger, hatred.

How you react to winning will say a lot about how you will react to losing, and vice versa. In particular, Marta Fülöp came to the conclusion that someone who reacts to victory with narcissistic superiority, in case of defeat, is likely to react with aggressive attacks against the winner.

Anyone who denies the importance of victory will also deny the importance of defeat or will berate themselves for failure. Such a person will bring his reaction - both to victory and to defeat - into line with the reaction of other people.

An inadequate response deprives people of their inner driving force. A competitive participant with narcissistic tendencies does not consider it necessary to put more effort into the next stage. On the contrary, he believes that victory is rightfully his. In this case, fairness does not play any role - which is why narcissists are more likely to achieve victory through dishonest means.

An inadequate reaction of a competitor is a wrong choice both in case of victory and in case of defeat. Compare it with the appropriate reaction that occurs in response to fair competition. A winner who experiences joy or satisfaction with a positive outcome is more likely to accept defeat gracefully.

Of course, if he loses, he feels sad and even bitter, but he gathers all his inner resources and is determined to work even harder to win next time. For such people, both joy and grief become motivating factors.

To console the loser, we too often use the old aphorism: “It’s not winning or losing that matters—it’s playing the game.” Has anyone ever heard of these words being used to address a winner? But you shouldn’t look for a consolation prize in losing. Losing is an opportunity to understand yourself, your fighting methods and find a way to play better next time.

Why does this toy break the others?
- It is programmed to destroy competitors.
- How is Microsoft?

The Simpsons

Competition as a personality quality is the tendency to compete, to fight with someone to achieve better results, greater benefits, advantages.

One day two frogs fell into a jug of milk. One stuck its paws together and sank, while the other floundered and knocked off a piece of butter. And she didn’t drown, but sat on it and jumped out. Then the frogs fell into the same unlucky jug again. This pair of frogs, however, could not stand each other. To such an extent that, once in the jug, they immediately began to push, and then grappled for real. And thus they quickly knocked down a hefty piece of butter. True, along the way, several small frogs drowned, accidentally ending up in the same jug - but who’s counting them? And those two frogs, having crawled out into the oil, continued to fight, and in the end one threw the other out of the jug, and then jumped out herself to finally deal with the scoundrel. From such shocks, the jug fell on its side and broke. Here the frogs, looking at the shiny oil and considering all the circumstances, decided to postpone disassembly until better times. They took the oil, stole it, and sold it at a good price.

So the frogs got rich, went out to the Toads and bought themselves diamond warts. When they were asked how they rose so high, both Toads said, “Competition! Oh, this life-giving competition!” Evil tongues, of course, spoke of “collusion,” “mutual PR,” and so on. What evil tongues didn’t say. But the toads only grinned - they knew the truth. That there was no collusion, no mutual PR, but only pure anger. Well, greed, which defeated her in time. And only when they were left alone, they glared at each other with hatred in their eyes and each thought about the other: “All this, of course, is good... But what a pity that I didn’t drown this reptile then...”

There is a large group of people who cannot live without competition. Bette Davis says: “I always wanted to win. Even when I was baking cookies. My cookies were sure to be the best ones ever made.”

When competition becomes a manifest quality of personality, this means that a person is completely under the influence of the energy of passion, and in severe cases - the energy of ignorance and degradation. Competition is an objective reality of a society living according to the laws of passion. No one can cancel it, and there is no need to do so. There is no hiding, no hiding from the spirit of competition, its fire. And you don’t need to run away from him like the devil from incense. But you don’t need to poke your head into it, you don’t need to cultivate competition in yourself. Tom Peters wrote: “Don't run a race with competitors. You have to set your own race and run alone.” Compete only with yourself!

Let's say a leader is being elected. There are a number of candidates. The spirit of competition is present. A true leader, like a valiant warrior, will demonstrate and cultivate leadership qualities in himself, while treating other contenders for leadership generously, without hatred or malice. He knows that strength wins. Among leaders, he behaves like a leader. Irvine Welsh writes: “When you swim with sharks, the only way to survive is to become the sharkiest of all sharks.” Everyone sees that he has more leadership qualities than others. He doesn’t need to push, to climb, to jump out of his pants, to tear his vest. Everyone already sees that it is useless to compete with him, that he is the unconditional leader.

Let us remember V.I. Lenin. You can treat this person differently, but in the context of our question this is an eloquent example. There were many leaders in the communist movement. The competition is huge. Who will say that V.I. Did Lenin compete unfairly with other party members? Even a biased historian will say: “Nobody.” Everything was decided by his leadership qualities, his knowledge, and personality. No one dared to think of putting themselves above the leader. But V.I. Lenin did not put any effort into this. He did not pay any attention to the spirit of competition, either positive or negative. I realized, of course, that to compete means to quarrel, to fight small wars. Competition is always envy, the desire to overtake someone, to get around someone. IN AND. Lenin lived at other heights. It’s just that everyone understood that there was no one stronger than V.I. Lenin in the party.

Valor does not understand what competition is, because it does not know what hatred, meanness, and dishonesty are. Strength is not in competition, but in indifference. Competition is preoccupied with weakness and anger, dishonesty and hatred, self-interest and envy.

The director of one service station was the envy of all his competitors because in a short period his income increased fivefold. One of the competitors found out what was going on. - Well, this guy is cunning! - he says. - He found four dazzling girls who serve his clients, and hung slogans everywhere: “Every time the price of gasoline rises, our skirts become shorter.”

Defendant, tell the court about your plan to rob a bank. - I can’t, there are many competitors in the room.

Those who walk through the narrow gate usually do not meet competitors. Charles de Gaulle also said: “Always choose the most difficult path - you will not meet competitors on it.” Competition is inherently evil. Stas Yankovsky states: “If someone appears ready to move mountains, others will definitely follow him, ready to break his neck. If no one is catching up with you, then you are behind.”

The master spoke about the evil of competition. “Doesn’t competition bring out the best in us?” “It brings out the worst in you, because it teaches you to hate.” - Hate what? - Yourself, because you are giving control over your life not to your own needs and aspirations, but to your competitor. It also teaches you to hate others because you want to get ahead at their expense. “But without competition there will be no growth and progress will wither,” someone objected. - There is only one progress - the progress of love. There is only worthy development and that is the development of the soul.

In the competitive struggle, if we examine the long term, it is not greed that wins, but piety. If a person produces goods with the goal of lining his pockets, deceiving consumers, taking advantage of their ignorance one-time, this may work for a short time. A year, two, so what? Greed and uncleanliness will inevitably be punished by the same competition. At the same time, when a person sets the quality satisfaction of people’s needs as the goal of his production, his desire for money in this case is pious.

Ford, of course, thought about money when he set up car production. But his dream was to give every American a high-quality and, at the same time, cheap car. That is, the mission of his enterprise was pious, to some extent selfless. It is difficult, and even impossible, to compete with such piety if the thought in your head is about people and not about money. In competition, everything is decided by piety, the chosen mission. If there is no piety, it is impossible to stay afloat for long.

Many entrepreneurs who are faced with problems of survival of their business know this. If the goal of production is only profit, then it’s lost. No organizational measures, no crisis managers will save the matter. You need to think about the mission of your business. You need to understand that business is a way of serving people. Business must be environmentally friendly. If you only think about how to fill your pocket, you are doomed in the competition. It’s worth pointing the direction of your business towards people, that is, thinking about the quality of your products, their affordability, and everything magically changes before your eyes. The forces of the universe will protect piety and make his cause competitive.

There is no strength in competition. There is strength in godliness. It protects a person from any attacks. Oleg Torsunov states: “If the army has strength, naturally there will be some kind of politics, chaos, etc. around it, but this does not mean that this saves it. What will save her? The unity of the warriors, the belief in the justice of what they are doing, i.e. their piety will save them. So it is in the activities of the company. What ruins a company the most, what ruins a company the fastest? Problems within the company. Swearing, trouble, “I don’t want to do anything for this person,” formal fulfillment of one’s duties. All. There are no normal relationships, discord within is falling apart - this means that the leader does not have enough piety to support. Discord begins - gradually everything collapses, good employees leave after achieving some qualification, it is impossible to train personnel. This means that the leader lacks piety. Competition doesn't help here, it only gets in the way. It is there, but it doesn’t help at this moment.”

Competition is a phenomenon that occurs extremely often in the modern world. It permeates all layers of society and all areas of human activity. Business, study, art - perhaps it will be difficult to find a field of activity that excludes elements of competition.

But what is competition? How important is it? What distinguishes winning behavior from losing behavior? Why do we sometimes happily accept a challenge, but then quickly give up? Can we even become more competitive?

I asked myself these questions By Bronson and based on the results of his research he wrote a book “King of the Hill: disruptive character and the psychology of competition”, in which he carefully analyzed what lies behind every victory or defeat - be it an Olympic gold medal or a good result in an exam.

Here are some of the author's more interesting remarks:

Why is competition needed?

"Competition makes the world go round. It is the driving force behind evolution. Competition drives innovation and drives the world's markets. It is the reason we have our livelihood."

The main advantage of competition

“Not a victory, but an increase in efficiency. Competition releases hidden reserves and helps to make more efforts. Participants in the competitive struggle find additional strength in themselves. And with the right approach, this happens even in cases where it is not possible to win. This improves oneself.”

The 10,000 hour rule won't work.

The 10,000 hour rule states: To be successful in a particular field of activity, you need to spend 10 thousand hours on that activity!“In real life, a person will have to “dance” against equal specialists who, like him, have practiced for years. The winner is not the one who has more experience. The winner is the person who knows how to compete better - the one who maintains the presence of mind when The orchestra is playing, the lights are sparkling and the judges are watching."

Types of competition

The author proposes to distinguish between two types of competition: adaptive And non-adaptive. Adaptive competition involves a person choosing a certain area in which he is strong enough (competent), then choosing a worthy opponent who is approximately equal in strength ( because It is not interesting to compete with someone who is too weak, but it is useless to compete with someone who is too strong.). In this case, it is desirable that there are few rivals, otherwise the so-called " N-effect“: if there are too many rivals, then the desire to compete disappears in principle. This approach makes it possible to obtain the maximum benefit from competition both for individual participants and for society as a whole.

The second type of competition is less constructive - maladaptive competition this is the desire to compete with everyone, and, as they say, out of the blue. At the same time, absolutely anyone can be chosen as targets, even completely unrelated to the individual’s area of interest and knowledge, and as rivals - both those who are too weak and those who are obviously much stronger. Thus, non-adaptive competition rarely brings any positive results and, in general, is rather destructive.

Gender characteristics

When it comes to gender differences in competition, the main difference between men and women is that men are more prone to taking reckless risks. They “accept the challenge” and begin to actively compete, even when their chances of success are negligible. Women, on the other hand, get involved in competition only when they are completely confident of victory, and in other cases they prefer to avoid direct competition.

) I was looking forward to it.

I'm very conflicting attitude towards competition. On the one side, competition- one of the great driving forces, which in many ways created Western civilization. Almost all the benefits of modern consumer society appeared solely due to the competition for the consumer’s wallet between producers of goods and services. (In a market society, the metaphor of competition is generally universal and can be projected onto ANY relationship between people).

On the other hand (if you rely on the basic principles of self-development) competition is bad. If only because comparing yourself and competing with someone, you can very It's easy to "not be yourself". In the heat of competition, you can easily chase goals/values that are not yours. You can spend a lot of time and effort on this pursuit, and then end up with nothing. Even if you win and “prove something” to someone, this does not always save you from disappointment...

Actually, I really hoped that the book would help me understand all these issues and contradictions associated with competition. What useful did I learn?

First, about the personal:) I was raised from childhood in the spirit of anti-competition:Why compete? Everyone is good in their own way! Why do you need to prove anything to someone? And if you have to compete, then winning is not important - participation is important!:)

It is very interesting to see what factual material the book “King of the Hill” was written on - what examples are given there, in what situations was competition studied? There are basically two types of competitive situations: sports competitions and testing(exam).

And then I start scratching the back of my head thoughtfully... Because Being an absolutely non-competitive person, I, for example, somehow managed to get a “honorable diploma” from a decent university and sports ranks in two sports. I always perceived competitions as a game; and exams are like some kind of ritual that doesn’t make much sense, but you have to go through it :) In such situations, I never thought that I was competing with someone. The presence of other participants in the event did not “turn me on” much, but, nevertheless, I achieved fairly good results. Why is that???

The book "King of the Hill" quickly answers this question. To participate or not to participate in competition is ours personal motivational choice. The choice in favor of competition is a conscious desire to defeat the enemy (i.e. prove that you are "better") or at least not lose in the fight ( prove that "no worse").

The desire to defeat the enemy is limited" threshold of pleasure"How much pleasure will I get if I prove that I am better than this opponent? But if I am already good enough, and the opponent seems frivolous to me, then we get " indifference to competition".

The desire not to lose in the fight is limited" pain threshold"How unpleasant will it be for me if I lose if I cannot prove that I am no worse than a given opponent? If the opponent seems too strong to me, and the subjective cost of losing is high, then we get " aversion to competition".

Our motivational choice in favor of competition lies on the spectrum between “indifference to competition” (when the pleasure of the competitive process is lost) and between “aversion to competition” (when losing causes too painful damage to our self-esteem).

Remembering myself in my youth, I begin to understand that in specific situations my anti-competitive behavior was associated with “indifference to competition”, and in some with “rejection”. At the same time, I understand perfectly well that “indifference” in many situations was illusory, based on inflated self-esteem and obvious underestimation of rivals:) But, oddly enough, it is precisely this excessive self-confidence ( "audacity second happiness")))), apparently helped me not to experience stress in competitive situations.

Competition is very closely related to stress. The book devotes many pages to this issue. Competition- in itself very powerful psychological stress factor, which is impossible to get used to.

By the way, this is why the authors of the book claim that the “10,000 hour rule” does not work! ( Let me remind you that the rule was proposed by M. Gladwell; According to the rule, to learn how to do something masterfully, you need at least 10,000 hours of training in this skill). More precisely: even if you spend more than 10,000 hours training a skill, and learn to perform this skill flawlessly in training conditions, this does not at all guarantee that you will not screw up in competition conditions :)

Competition as a stress factor affects different people differently. There are people whose full potential is revealed only at competitions; and there are people who, in a competitive environment can not show half of your potential. Exists two types of people, react differently to “competitive stress”, and there are many differences between them, both at the physiological and at the personal level.

There is no point in listing all these differences in this short note - there are many of them, so read the book ;). But I will still write about one fact that surprised me... It turns out that " competition stress"They tolerate it much better... introverts, not extroverts! Those. extroverts perform WORSE in competition than introverts. For me personally, this was a shocking discovery! As an introvert, it always seemed to me that extroverts are the ones who like to compete :). But this is explained quite logically and simply: extroverts are TOO dependent on the opinions of others; are too focused on their assessments and behavior; too concerned about the impression they make... ( It turns out that their “pain threshold” is too low?).

Have you suddenly realized that competitive situations are causing you too much stress? And that in competition you demonstrate much lower results than without such struggle? What to do then?

The authors provide answers to these questions. And, I must say, very sensible answers! First, they propose to distinguish adaptive and non-adaptive competition. Adaptive competition begins with choice" of his war"You need to choose a field of activity where you are strong enough (competent) and where your self-esteem is high enough and stable.

You need to choose a worthy one ( approximately equal in strength; because It is not interesting to compete with someone who is too weak, but it is useless to compete with someone who is too strong.) opponent. In this case, it is desirable that there are few rivals, otherwise the so-called " N-effect": the more potential rivals, the lower the chances of success, and the less the desire to compete with them. The "crowd" suppresses competition in the bud.

Adaptive competition begins with acceptance" call" - a task that generally corresponds to your core competencies, but which requires maximum effort from you. A "challenge" is a task "at the limit" of your current capabilities. ( As a remark, I note that the right competitive “challenge” is one of the reliable ways to enter a state of flow - according to M. Csikszentmihalyi).

A “challenge” is a task that you can solve not with 100% probability, but with 50% probability, or even less! That is why an important element of adaptive competition is love of uncertainty, a positive emotional reaction to risk and the unknown. This is also not given to everyone - there is a type of people who tolerate uncertainty extremely poorly.

If speak about maladaptive competition, then three opposing criteria can be used here: a) this is the desire to compete “out of the blue,” i.e. not only in the chosen field of activity, but in everything at once; b) this is the desire to compete with everyone indiscriminately; c) any tasks are selected as a “challenge”, regardless of the probability of their achievement ( there is often ugly cheating here, when ostentatious “competition” is started with an obviously weaker opponent).

I would like to add that the topic of maladaptive competition is extremely interesting, and it is a shame that there is not enough information about it in the book. In my life I have come across very often hyper-competitive people who are clearly inadequate :) You know, there is such a joke: " Nudists are exactly those people whom you least want to see naked". That's how it is with competition: you can easily be chosen as a rival by people with whom you would least like to compete :). Of course, you should ignore them, but this is not always possible for a number of objective reasons. For example, a competitive challenge was public, and it cannot simply be “ignored.” Or competitive rivalry is unfolding over some indivisible resource, etc.

According to the authors, non-adaptive competition is based on various psychological problems hyper-competitive comrades - inflated self-esteem, narcissism, neurotic pride (here is a brief definition, and here is a chapter from K. Horney - the author of the term), etc. and so on. In short, all inadequate competition lovers should go to a psychotherapist (or be treated with electricity))).

What's important about this thought? Genuine competition is possible only when the participants in competitive relations are nearby, do a common job, have similar goals and competencies, communicate with each other. Those. there is a certain common space for the exchange of ideas and information.

In Russia, competition (especially in business) is often understood as " war of annihilation". Under no circumstances should you communicate with your “enemy” competitor! What if he steals some valuable information from me?! It’s impossible to hold joint events (or collaborate in any other way) - what if he gets all the glory?! As a result, the competitor becomes mythologized - he turns into some kind of fictional monster :)

And then events take on the character of non-adaptive competition (see above). If I don’t communicate with a competitor, then how can I know the level of his competencies (to compare with my own)? Only by some very indirect indicators...

If I don't communicate with a competitor, how can I agree on a competitive "challenge" with him? Otherwise, it may turn out that we seem to be competing, but in fact we are competing in completely different disciplines - he is in breaststroke swimming, and I am in biathlon. At the same time, everyone proudly believes that he is cooler than his opponent :)))

If we are not working shoulder to shoulder with a competitor on the same task, in the same project, then can I more or less objectively evaluate the result obtained? For a clear understanding of who won and who lost, general criteria are needed evaluation of this result. And such criteria can only be developed through joint efforts...

As an example of such cooperation-rivalry, the authors cite creation of the Linux operating system. More than 13,000 people participated in the development of the code for this operating system, but as a result, the code of only 350 programmers entered the system! Linux is an open system, anyone can make amendments and additions to it... But in the last few years, 60% of all changes are made by only 10 people! Although the exchange of opinions and open discussion of code (i.e. collaboration) occurs constantly, as a result only the best ideas are selected (competition).

In fact, the secret to the success of all outstanding teams and organizations is maintaining the inextricable harmony of Yin and Yang, the balance between cooperation and competition.

There is a lot of information in the book ( almost 25% of the text) about sexual differences, i.e. About, how men compete and how women compete. The authors tried to find their answer to the traditional question for gender studies: “Why are there so few people with high social status among women? Politicians, heads of large enterprises, top managers, etc. Are women really not able to compete?”

How capable! :) I will not retell the results of all the studies, and all the arguments that the authors give, I will write only one of the most important. Above I already wrote about the “challenge” as subjective assessment of the likelihood of success in a specific situation. The main difference between men and women is that men - mostly crazy idiots :) Those. they accept the “challenge” and begin to actively compete, even if their chances of success are negligible.

Women are much more rational (more precisely, their mechanism works much better probabilistic forecasting- here is a conceptual proof on the topic;)). According to the data cited by the authors, women get involved in competition only when their chances of success are at least 40-50% ( and that's a LOT! for example, if we are talking about political elections in which a dozen competitors participate).

Women enter into competition much less often than men, and that is why there are so few of them “at the top”. But if they decide to enter into competition, they achieve success MORE often than men.

There are many more interesting points in the book, for example:

About how to properly use competition (for example, between sellers) as work motivation;

About how the difference in the length of the index and ring fingers can predict the business success of men and women :)

The fact that a person’s readiness to compete is largely determined by the ratio of his motivation to achieve success and motivation to avoid failure(but in fact, success in any joint activity requires a balance of both types of motivation);

About the fact that “positive thinking” and “visualization of success” are complete bullshit :) Because they essentially form a powerful cognitive distortion that disrupts the perception of oneself, others, the situation, and kills motivation in the bud;

What role do hormones play in competition?

About how artists, musicians, and poets challenged each other to a “creative duel”; how competing with each other was a kind of “creative dope” for them ( ...I immediately remembered I. Severyanin: “I have been chosen as the king of poets...” :)). And Leonardo finally defeated Michelangelo; and Bach - Louis Marchand!

The strongest impression was made by the chapter, which tells how, after the unification of the two Germanys, the West Germans (wessi) taught competition ( and other "basics" of a market economy) eastern (ossi). I was amazed how much the ossi were able to “Russify” during the existence of the GDR :(

/By the way, all ossi “re-education through labor” projects ended in failure. Their labor productivity reached only 50% of Wessi's labor productivity. And after this we are talking about some kind of competitive economy in our country?!?! :(/

The places where the authors talk about some kind of ideal “fair” competition that should shape our entire society made a very funny impression. In their opinion, the prototype of such competition is ancient Greek democracy, the Olympic Games and refereeing at them.

In fact, the authors say that the last word in assessing ANY competition belongs to special experts - “judges”, and in the modern world - lawyers. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh here... Firstly, the authors have a very naive idea of ancient Greek democracy ( where there was more than enough lawlessness and savagery- at least read Joseph Heller). Secondly, there is now little left of the former noble Olympic spirit of competition. Moreover, there was little left precisely because of the American “victories” at the last Olympics, which they achieved exclusively through litigation, and not at all in the sports arena...

As an afterword. After reading the book, I realized that I was extremely naive, considering myself a non-competitive person :) There is enough competition in my life, although it cannot be said that I really like to compete and compete.

The book helped me better understand the differences between adaptive and maladaptive competition. And also better understand the conditions and rules, under which competition becomes a truly constructive motivator that helps you better achieve your own goals.

If you liked / found this text useful, be sure to!