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Positive and negative effects of competition
Positive and negative effects of competition
Negative effects of competition
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Two best friends are torn apart. A man meticulously plots revenge on the person who got the job he was dying for. A nation is full of rage and fear because another country beat them in the race to walk on the moon. Sadly, all of these situations were caused by one thing, competition. In Alfie Kohn’s essay, “Competition Is Destructive”, he describes competition as having a “toxic effect on our relationships”(11). Although competition has many positive effects in this world, when talking specifically about relationships, whether it be between best friends, two strangers, or even entire nations, it fuels negative feelings and attitudes that transform people into monsters.
Close relationships often have their ups and downs. When one spends enough time with a person it is inevitable that they will have an argument. Best friends, for example, share everything with each other. They laugh together, cry together and trust one another completely. Yet throw a boy that they are both interested in into the picture and they are lying and backstabbing their way into his arms. Or perhaps they are both dying to play Juliet. Suddenly they view each other as enemies who will stop at nothing for the part. One might spread rumors about the other or sabotage her audition. Even something as innocent as grades can turn into a knockdown, drag-out, fight to the finish. They resort to cheating, or anything that will give them a leg up from the other. These crazy situations are just a few of the many examples that show how competition can create feelings of resentment, bitterness and even hatred between people who at one point were inseparable.
Competition between good friends is not the only instance in which negative feelings can occur. Surprisingly, the exact same feelings of resentment and hostility can happen between two perfect strangers. With no valid reason, children and adults alike can work up an enormous grudge against a person that they have never spoken to, or possibly never even seen. Take for instance a boy on a high school football team. Off the field he is a respectable student who is always considerate of others. Yet the second he steps on that field he transforms into a monster who is out to “get” the other team, to “show them who’s boss.” He has never met these people before and has no reason to feel such anger towards them other than the fact that they are standing in the way of his team winning the game.
I have learned that, interpersonal relationships are difficult to maintain. I often ask myself why, relationships require so much work. Why do I, stay in a relationship where the bad outweighs the good? The social exchange perspective argues, according to Monge & Contractor, as cited by West & Turner that “People calculate the overall worth of a particular relationship by subtracting its cost from the rewards it provides.”
In some situations, people become violent because of their emotions. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Junior leaves his school on the reservation to go to an all white high school. His Indian friends feel betrayed. He joins the basketball team at his new school and the first game is against the reservation team. The Indian crowd throws things at him and he needs stitches on his forehead. During the game, as Junior jumped into the air, he “heard the curses of 200 Spokanes, and saw only a bright light as Rowdy smashed his elbow into my head and knocked me unconscious”. (pg 146) After Junior left the Reservation, Rowdy felt betrayed, and became violently angry. His emotion of betrayal caused him to turn on Junior and act more evil. This is especially hard on him because Junior was his best friend.
parents?strife. The sincere and strong love of Romeo and Juliet contrasts with the extreme, petty grudges held by their parents. The love between Romeo Montague and Juliet Capuletnd their love through their deathsrought
Kohn’s claim about the nature of competition is true to the extent that being better than someone will never be enough and it is destructive to base one’s success on another person’s failure. However, competition could potentially serve as a drive to push someone to their fullest potential,
Although we do enjoy seeing people succeed, there is something in our human nature that often enjoys the failure of others more. “In this view, by taking someone down a notch, we feel better about ourselves and elevate our own social standing” (Shaffer 79). He uses the German word “schadenfreude”, meaning enjoyment obtained from the suffering of others, to describe the emotion we feel. Even though we don’t sit around rooting for the members of our society to kill others, like they do in the Hunger Games, we still often have the tendency to feel better about
In the novella Anthem, this can be seen building up in the main character, Equality. As the story progresses, you can see Equality 7-2521, harbour a growing hatred for his fellow brothers. When Equality goes to show his creation to the world council, they reject his idea and shun him, possibly generating that feeling of rage. After Equality gets his idea rejected, he seems to now show the malice that was pushed away all of his life spent in the Community. The novella Anthem shows us that even though hate is a bad emotion, keeping all of those negative feelings felt towards others locked away can expand them and make them even worse.
Every person feels rivalry or competition towards others at some point in their lives. This rivalry greatly affects our ability to understand others, and this eventually results in paranoia and hostility. It is a part of human nature, that people coldly drive ahead for their gain alone. Man's inhumanity towards man is a way for people to protect themselves from having pain inflicted on them by others, and achieving their goals and desires without the interference of others. This concept of man's inhumanity to man is developed in A Separate Peace as the primary conflict in the novel centres on the main character, Gene, and his inner-battles with feelings of jealousy, paranoia, and inability to understand his relationship with his best friend Phineas. Competition is further demonstrated by the occurrence of World War II. It is shown that, "There were few relationships among us (the students) at Devon not based on rivalry." (p. 37) It is this rivalry and competition between the boys at Devon that ripped their friendships apart.
They had each become a single unit. Eventually, the two companies met each other and were told they would compete against one another in the pursuit to win an overall competition. During this phase, there was obvious prejudice present. The youngsters of opposite teams had begun to bully one another for no apparent reason. The only reasonable explanation for their actions were because the competition between the two teams was introduced. Had there been no prize to win or team to beat, the two groups likely would have gotten along and become friends with one another. Since the competitiveness and friction was between the two teams, their personalities and actions were altered due to the atmosphere. This conclusion not only applied during the 1950s when this experiment was conducted, but also today. Every person can say that their attitude or thoughts of someone had been changed in a negative way towards someone while placed in a competitive situation. Humans are naturally selfish people, and want what is best for themselves. Therefore, they will try and do their best to obtain something they want, even if someone else is in the way of their
In Harrison, competition is looked at as a major cause of destruction. The handicaps are put in place to try to prevent the Dark Ages again by making sure nobody can compete with each other. The General shoots Harrison as an attempt to stop him from encouraging competition and destroying the system they put in place . Due to the extreme measures the government took, everyone attempts to take away the competition. An example of this is shown when Hazel’s encourages a stuttering news reporter by saying “at least he tried”. In today’s society, signs that competition is a major cause of destruction are beginning to show. One example is that some people believe the wrong person was chosen for president and are trying to prevent him from taking office. Today, people will go to extremes to please themselves. Cheating is a good example, seeing how some people will try to disable others to win. Competition is becoming less important, however. At some sports with younger kids, no trophies are given or, in other instances, they will reward everyone with a
“Relational aggression is defined as behaviors that harm others by damaging (or threatening to damage) or manipulating one’s relationship with his/her peers, or by injuring one’s feelings of social acceptance.” (Ophelia Project, “Issues” par 3). This type of aggression is mainly directed toward the emotions rather than physical behavior. Some examples of relational aggression include:
In the classic romantic tale of The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, the main characters, Romeo and Juliet are deeply in love with each other, but from the beginning of the play we know that they would never be able to be together because of family disputes. When reading the prologue, it says “Two households, both alike in dignity, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean” (Shakespeare Prologue.1-4). Before the play even starts, we know how much these families hate each other and that blood is involved with a bad ending for all. Romeo comes from the Montague’s, and Juliet comes from the Capulet’s. These two families were in war with each other from the beginning of the story and these family disputes play a huge role in the death of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo has a passion for love that is unbreakable and he will do anything to get who he wants no matter the consequences that might follow. An example of this is
Behavioral jealousy are actions that occur between an individual who is experiencing envious thoughts and how they internalize and react to the stimuli. Pfeiffer and Wong (1989) “conceptualize jealous behaviors as the detective/protective measures a person takes when relationship rivals (real or imaginary) are perceived. Detective actions include questioning, checking up on the partner, and searching the partner’s belongings” (p.183). Research suggests that behavioral jealousy is used to maintain relationships. Relationship maintenance refers to either positive or negative behaviors that occur between two individuals in order to maintain a healthy communicative balance.
The Microsoft Encarta dictionary defines greed as "an overwhelming desire to have more of something such as money than is actually needed." This definition cannot be argued with for it is plain and simple, giving the essence of the word. But to millions, perhaps billions of people, greed is something else. Some people portray greed as being qualities of the evil, selfish, and corrupt. Although these viewpoints may be partially true, greed cannot be condemned as solely being an escapee of Pandora's Box. Let us agree that greed is pursuing actions guided by rational self-interest. This means that anything outside food and water acquired at the cost of anyone else, no matter little they are affected can be defined as greed. Greed is a driving force of the world's wellbeing; all attempts to eliminate greed from humanity have ended up as disasters. Nearly all inventions of today and days past are the offspring of greedy people. Most jobs and societies are created because of greed since it is a motivator and pushes people to try and do their best. It is greed that encourages the consumer to purchase the best product at the cheapest price, thus creating market forces that help in eliminating inefficiency and waste. Greed is an asset to humanity, a tool that some are able to embrace and prosper by better than others.
What leads someone to lie? What influences a person to steal? Could it be someone’s personality that causes someone to cheat? Enclosed inside every piece of literature exists a remarkable amount of conflict. Whether it be a small, nonessential problem between the characters or a gargantuan, immeasurable issue within the main character, majority of readers would quickly lose interest if these conflicts did not exist. As a result, authors add such conflicts to rise the excitement to their literature. Similarly, enclosed inside every person lies a dark side usually involving something they purposely try to hide or conceal. Deep within me exists my jealous side. Jealousy is known to twist human emotions and is known to lead to harm and revenge towards others. On the other hand, the type of jealousy I possess is manifested only in relationships and I have a hard time shutting it out. This jealous dark side of mine adds conflict to majority of my relationships resulting in many arguments that eventually lead to separation.
Hostility amid early adolescence isn't considered important and is frequently viewed as a piece of growing up. To comprehend this, one needs to inspect the focal subject of animosity, individual versus social-social parts of forceful conduct, and the importance of hostility.