by Janavi Kanagasundaram
We’re all innately competitive beings. Be it fighting for a spot at a crowded mall parking lot, racing to purchase deals on Black Friday, or our very own GW craze for the most prestigious-sounding internships. We thrive off of the feelings of recognition and success: when a professor singles us out in front of the class for exceptional work or when we get higher grades than our peers. But what good does that feeling actually do? And how does it impact us and those around us in the long-run?
A new study from the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making finds that the type of feedback that we receive from work can significantly impact the behavior we exhibit in the future. Researchers experimented with groups of individuals, comprised of both experienced and less-experienced workers, placing them into scenarios where they were given a set number of “points” to work with and invest in both a personal situation and a group situation. They were rewarded in different ways depending upon the scenario, and the members were then given varied types of feedback and observed in subsequent rounds to see whether performance leaned more towards competitive or cooperative behavior.
The types of feedback ranged from individual feedback, given to a single person in a separate setting, to joint outcome feedback, given to the entire group as a whole, to ranking feedback, given as a statistic or number comparing individuals with the work of others. At the conclusion of ten rounds, researchers saw clear trends in the data: individual feedback made people more competitive in the personal scenario but made them retain a cooperative stance in the group scenario, group feedback made people more cooperative in both scenarios, and the ranking feedback made them increasingly competitive in both scenarios. Additionally, they identified that the competition due to ranking feedback proved detrimental to those individuals in the long-run as people made choices aimed at expanding the losses of others even if it meant increasing one’s own losses. This idea could be compared to driving around and swerving into a spot that someone else is trying to park in, not because the individual wants or needs to park there, but for the sole reason that it causes someone else to not reach their goal, even though they are exerting unnecessary and unproductive energy in the process. This last conclusion demonstrates that people acting competitively does not just sacrifice the good of the whole but often the good of the individual as well.
Ranking feedback has been incorporated into society at large in many ways. One of the biggest indicators of work success has traditionally been found in awards like ‘Employee of the Month’ which seek to promote motivation and reward hard work. This award comes with a whole host of problems which have been debated and analyzed, including the increased probability of someone using unethical methods to try and get ahead. Another study from the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management found that awards and programs like these “do not sustain improved performance, and may even have detrimental effects.” The researchers suggested that the organization’s best performers may be continuing their high performance as a direct result of such awards, but it works only at the expense of the company’s collective success. Basing one’s merit on the merit of others is problematic.
Is this reminiscent of anything in your daily life? Let’s take this finding to a parallel situation, one that we’re all intimately familiar with: school. The types of feedback that we receive from our professors, advisors, and peers can be similarly significant in determining our future behavior related to work. Utilizing a joint outcome feedback style or an individual feedback style is far better than the ranking system. But we need to remember that rank is not necessarily limited to the typical numbers that are associated with students GPAs; grades, when openly revealed to an entire class or population, is also a form of ranking. Professors who single out certain students either for high or low grades as a form of motivating other students need to see that the effects are far too negative: the benefits are not as high as the costs.
And on an individual basis, if you see the papers of your class graded and lying on a desk waiting to be picked up, try your best to just find yours instead of glancing at those of other people. Temper your curiosity and your desire to focus on yourself instead. You might be surprised at how much the lack of a competitive feeling helps you out in the long-run.
Janavi Kanagasundaram is a freshman from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, majoring in International Affairs with a concentration in International Economics. Her past research projects have centered on studying the influence of beauty product advertisements on the perception of different skin shades. She currently works as an administrative assistant in GW’s Anthropology Department, writes for GW Scope, and is a member of the University Honors Program and South Asian Society.
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