do you have the "competitive gene" ? Only way I can describe it.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

I have often thought that it would be interesting for a psychology expert to
define this. Sure there are "in-betweeners" but I see two distinct groups:

One group of people love competitive sports - get so involved it affects them personally. They love games. They love contests - elections.

The other group couldn't care less who wins a game. Wouldn't play Trivia Pursuit, for example. Would never stay up all night to see election results.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I like games, but I don't think competition between people is important in most ways any more.

You should be competing against yourself, not other folks. Just trying to be your best, not to be 'better' than other people.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. So when you play games you aren't trying to win and beat the other people?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Nope.

First off, I mostly play MMO's these days. I suppose 'beating other people' would mean getting on leaderboards, if they exist, and I don't try to do that. I explore, I build, I simply work on making my characters better. My preferred MMO's have complex crafting systems. The Star Wars Galaxies game had a pretty decent setup, for instance. You had to seek out pockets of resources of varying qualities, set up harvesters to collect them, remove your harvesters when veins ran dry, select which resources to use for various crafted items based on the stats of whatever you'd collected, and so on. There were stashes of resources I hoarded for years, to use for very specific (and pricey) projects, others I simply blew through in crafting things that would be used up quickly. I basically only fought things when I needed money or to clear out a spot to set up harvesters, spent all my time collecting resources and crafting.

[tblue37]

6. I don't like competitive games and avoid them as much as possible. nt

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. just curious...are your parents/family the same way? like my entire family

is sports crazy - for the Yankees and Giants. My sister sometimes sits in the kitchen because one time - someone hit a homerun when she was in there. My brother punched a door down at work - hitting it so hard when a player he loved got killed in a wreck.

so, thinking it's genetic in some way.

[tblue37]

13. No, some are competitive, some not. Both my kids (and their father) are, one sister

and both brothers are, also. But my oldest sister and next to youngest sister are not. Mom wasn't, but Dad was. I think kids can go either way when the family line has a mix. Both my kids are super successful because their ambition and competitiveness cause them to reach high.

Oddly enough, though, spectator sports and competitive individual sports have never interested anyone in my nuclear birth family, or my kids or their dad (my ex). That is not where our interests lie.

Both my kids (one is 34, the other will be 36 next month) are athletes, but not involved in competition. My daughter climbs rocks, runs marathons (only against her own times, though, not against others in the race), swims, bikes, scuba dives, and earned a brown belt in Tae Kwando.My son runs half marathons--again, focused only on his own times, not on beating the other runners. He has a third degree black belt in Tae Kwando, and he lifts weights. As a young teen he did enter a Tae Kwando tournament to please his teacher, and he did very well in it, but never bothered to compete again. He did TKD for the pleasure of the moves and to keep improving his own skill, not to compete.

All their competitiveness has been directed toward being the best they could be in their academic careers, and now in their professional careers. Even though they had to "compete" in a sense to win their academic honors and professional positions, in reality they were not trying to "defeat" anyone else, but rather just to prove their own abilities.

For example, my daughter won a Fulbright Fellowship, and competition for those is fierce, but she didn't think of it as a competition. She just put together the best application and proposal she could. They both succeed by pushing themselves to be as good as they can, but I never get the sense that they are competing against anyone but themselves.

I will say, though, that if they get roped into competitive games, they do not let themselves lose. They don't seek out competition, but if competition comes to them, they both push to be winners.

I think people who take competitive sports seriously do so because their family culture emphasizes such things. My ex and I never did, nor did my birth family or his, so those in our families with a competitive drive direct that impulse toward other things than competitive sports. I think for our families that competitive spirit has mostly been directed toward professional ambition and a drive to continually best their own previous performance.

[yeoman6987]

7. I think completion can be healthy

I know when running a marathon, seeing someone in front of me makes me motivated to try and catch up and closer to the finish line try to beat anyone in front. The same can be in acedemics. If you are behind someone in grades, you would study harder to try and get a better score on the next test.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. You just made me think of one of my college professors. His theme was always - NEVER BE

MEDIOCRE.

I will always remember that.

When he was in college, his roommate knew he wouldn't be #1 in the class. So, instead of being in the horrid "middle", he calculated what he needed to get on finals to be LAST in his class.

But, he had to study and study to know everything to know how many to get right and wrong. One wrong answer too many - and he wouldn't graduate.

And...he pulled it off.

[el_bryanto]

3. It's an interesting concept.

For the most part i am not competitive; prefer getting along with other people. But in certain situations I get very competitive; not involving sports, but like games for example or arguments on some subjects.

Bryant

[tblue37]

5. No competitive element in my nature, but both my kids are very competitive. nt

[frogmarch]

8. I don't like anything competitive, whether it's

sports, games or anything else. I am interested in presidential election results because who wins is important, not because I like contests.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. In-betweener here

I like a competitive tennis match. A blowout loss or win just doesn't satisfy, but if the match is close, if I'm standing in a puddle of my own dripping sweat at the end, it's great. Win or lose.

Elections are different. They have consequences. My tennis matches don't have consequences.

[Arugula Latte]

11. I hate competition.

If it had been up to me, every single game my kid played in in high school would have ended in a tie.

I DO care about election results, though, and I am "competitive" if there is a candidate or issue on the ballot that I am invested in. I do stay up late on election night.

[Shandris]

14. I CAN enjoy competition games...

...but typically don't. I'm a Yoshi/Mario/Nintendo and TTRPG type person. Not a whole lot in the way of competition going on there. Generally speaking, competition is a sucker's game.

[smirkymonkey]

15. It's funny, I was raised in a very competitive family (athletes, academics, etc.) but I don't feel

like I am naturally competitive. Through training I have been competitive, but it really isn't me. Sure, I like to win a board game sometimes, but really I don't care if it means risking harmony. Winning is not more important to me than getting along with people.