Patterns of Competitiveness and Non-competitiveness: Similarities and Differences

Competition, being competitive and non-competitive have different meaning for different individuals and in different societies. The notion of competitiveness is shaped by the history and culture of a society. In the social psychological literature competition has been typically contrasted with cooperation and being competitive has been related to several negative mental and somatic health outcomes.

The research presented here aimed to reveal not only how the competitive person is perceived and conceptualized in four different societies, but also what non-competitiveness means. While competitiveness is targeted and researched, what being non-competitive exactly means, what kind of person is the one who is non-competitive is rather obscure. It is just implied that this person lacks all the hypothesized negative consequences of competition.

The research presented here reveals how competitiveness and non-competitiveness are conceptualized and perceived in four different societies, the Hungarian, the Canadian, the Japanese and the Chinese. More specifically the goal is to reveal the nature and content of the prototype of the competitive and non-competitive person in economically and culturally different societies.

University students of four countries: Hungary (n=245), Canada (n=168), Japan (n=149), China (n=225) participated in the research. The method to reveal the prototype was elaborated by Azuma and Kashiwagi (1987). Respondents had to describe a person whom they know personally and consider competitive/non-competitive. The free descriptions were content analyzed. Free descriptions were categorized in terms of their valence (positive, negative, mixed, neutral), and the characteristics of the described person. Results show in each group there is an overall positive and an overall negative psychological pattern provided for both the competitive and the non-competitive person. In each group certain (very similar) characteristics are seen positive and negative, but the distribution of these patterns differs across the groups. (The research was supported by the OTKA K-111 789 grant.)