Why do people like competition? The motivation for winning, putting forth effort, improving oneʹs performance, performing well, being instrumental, and expressing forceful/aggressive behavior

Some people appear to be motivated by competition, whereas others are not. We hypothesized that people who are motivated by competition are motivated for at least three reasons: competition allows them to satisfy the need to win, competition provides the opportunity or reason for improving their performance, and competition motivates them to put forth greater effort that can result in high levels of performance. The purpose of this study was to see if it is possible to psychometrically identify these three types of motivation. A secondary purpose of this study was to see if it is possible to differentiate between having a preference for difficult tasks and simply liking to perform well. Factor analysis of a 27-item scale designed to identify these different motives or constructs produced five distinct factors corresponding roughly to the five hypothesized motives/constructs. The five factors were named: (1) “satisfaction that comes from improving oneʹs performance” (IP); (2) “desire to win” (WIN); (3) “motivation to put forth effort in competitive situations” (MPFE); (4) “satisfaction that comes from performing well” (PW); (5) “preference for difficult tasks” (DIFF). A second-order factor analysis of these five scales produced two factors that roughly correspond to the distinction that has been made between ego-orientation and task-orientation. Task-orientation was found to be positively related to instrumentality, whereas ego-orientation was found to be negatively related to expressivity.