The Trap of Competition (Ed Batista)

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We've evolved to think extensively about other people and to be keenly attuned to competitive dynamics. This gives us a tremendous advantage as a species--but can leave us deeply unhappy as individuals. What can we do about it?

We think constantly about other people and our relationships with them. As UCLA neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman notes in Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, our brains possess a "default network" that is activated whenever we're not consciously preoccupied with a specific task or train of thought, and the focus of that network's activity is "social cognition [which entails] thinking about other people, oneself, and the relationship of oneself to other people." [1]

As a result we spend a significant amount of time observing and reflecting upon our interpersonal environment, which has a profound impact on our behavior as a species. Lieberman explains: "Evolution, figuratively speaking, made a big bet on the importance of developing and using our social intelligence for the overall success of our species by focusing the brain's free time on it... The repeated return of the brain to this social cognitive mode of engagement is perfectly situated to help us become experts in the enormously complex realm of social living... In essence, our brains are built to practice thinking about the social world and our place in it." [2, emphasis original]

This intensive social orientation makes it possible for humans to work in large groups. Lieberman notes a hypothesis that the evolutionary advantage conferred on humans by our larger brains derives not from our enhanced abilities as individual problem-solvers, but from our skill at connecting and cooperating with others. Citing work by anthropologist Robin Dunbar which suggests that among humans "the largest effective, coherent social group...is around 150, the largest [group size] for any primate," [3] Lieberman continues:

Our social nature is not an accident of having a larger brain. Rather, the value of increasing our sociality is a major reason for why we evolved to have a larger brain.

What is so beneficial about living in larger groups? Why would evolution foster an increase in our typical group size by increasing the size of our brains? The most obvious advantage to larger groups is that predators can be strategically avoided or dealt with more successfully... That is a big advantage.

The downside of larger groups is that there is increased competition for food and mating partners within the group. [emphasis mine] If you are on your own and you manage to find food, it's yours. The larger your group, the more likely it is that one of the others in your group will try to poach it. Primates with strong social skills can limit this downside by forming alliances and friendships with others in the group...

When we reach Dunbar's number, a group of 150 individuals, there are more than 10,000 possible relationship pairs to consider. So we can begin to see why a bigger brain might come in handy. While there is tremendous upside to being part of a group, that is true only if you know how to play the odds and form the right coalitions to avoid the downsides of group living. It requires an expansive capacity for social knowledge. [4]

So while our social orientation is critical in enabling our success as a species, it also poses a substantial challenge for each of us as individuals. We must navigate in-group competition, which becomes even fiercer in larger groups. We're hyper-aware of our relative social status and our shifting position within group hierarchies. And in order to accomplish these tasks effectively we're constantly scanning our interpersonal environment for potential threats and opportunities, which necessarily involves comparing ourselves to others--as UC Riverside psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky writes in The Myths of Happiness, "Most of the time, it's impossible not to compare ourselves with others... Social comparisons arise naturally, automatically, and effortlessly." [5]

There's a relationship here with a phenomenon known as social threat, or an interpersonal experience to which we respond as if it posed a literal threat to our physical safety. As I've written previously:

When we encounter [a situation we deem threatening] we undergo a "threat response," commonly known as a "fight, flight or freeze response," triggering a cascading series of physiological and psychological events. When we interpret a situation as threatening on some level, certain neurotransmitters are released (notably adrenaline and cortisol), and our heart rate and blood pressure increase, along with a host of other responses that vary across individuals, and we enter a distressed emotional state which we typically experience as anxiety, fear, or anger.

This heightened state of emotional and physiological arousal serves a useful purpose when we're truly facing a threat to our actual safety--we're primed to make fast decisions and to take rapid, forceful action. But for these same reasons it can result in counterproductive behavior in the face of a social threat. The problem is that when we're in the grip of a threat response we're cognitively impaired, and we don't process information as accurately. We may be primed to act quickly and forcefully, but we're also likely to misinterpret interpersonal cues, misjudge others' motives and intentions, and respond far too strongly than is useful. [6]

Clearly our threat response evolved in order to keep us safe and free from harm by alerting us to potential dangers and mobilizing us to take appropriate action. But our distant ancestors faced existential threats on a regular basis, while today we employ the neurological apparatus we inherited from them in a very different environment. Few of us will ever participate in a competition for resources that we must win in order to survive--although we often invent such scenarios in the form of games and contests in which our threat response serves to heighten our competitive advantage. The problem is that we find it profoundly difficult to turn off these impulses, for all the reasons cited above, and so we constantly imagine that we're engaged in competitive struggles with others and strive to "get ahead" and to avoid "falling behind," even when the stakes are minimal or non-existent (e.g. traffic jams, checkout lines.)

But we also engage in the same behavior when the stakes are much higher, such as in our professional lives, and this can have a corrosive effect on our levels of fulfillment and happiness. As Lyubomirsky continues in The Myths of Happiness:

It's comparisons to other people that are primarily to blame for our feelings of inadequacy and discontent. For most of us, feelings of deficiency or not living up to some lofty standard stem from observing others' successes, real or imagined. Instead of asking ourselves, "Does my career (or productivity or income) meet my needs?" we ask, "How good is my career, my productivity, and my income compared with my neighbor's?" Instead of feeling personally richer and richer, we instead feel that we are attaining new levels of relative poverty. [7]

So what can we do?

A starting point is simply heightening our awareness of these dynamics. Being more mindful of the inevitability of social comparison can help us deal with the feelings of distress that occur when we feel behind or insufficient in some way. We can't control these emotions, nor would we want to--emotions' ability to disrupt conscious thought is what allows them to alert us to threats and opportunities so quickly. But we can be more effective at managing these feelings:

Understand the social comparisons we find particularly triggering and prepare ourselves for experiences that will bring them to mind or take steps to avoid them.
Recognize the signs of a threat response and act in the moment to down-regulate our distress (e.g. take slower breaths, get up and take a walk, or--most importantly--talk about our feelings with others). [8]
Build our capacity for self-regulation through such practices as meditation [9], regular exercise [10], and sufficient sleep [11].

Further, we can ground ourselves in personal sources of meaning and accomplishment. As Lyubomirsky notes, "[W]hen we ask ourselves the question, 'How good (successful, smart, affable, prosperous, ethical) am I?' those of us who typically rely on our own internal, objective standards are happiest. Such habits render us less likely to be buffeted by the winds of external judgments and outside realities... By contrast, those of us who base our self-evaluations on comparisons with others are the unhappy ones... The goal...is to rely a little less on others when determining our self-worth and to rely a little more on our personal standards." [12]

And perhaps at the most fundamental level, we can acknowledge that the competitive drive that has served us so well as a species has also created a series of traps for each of us as individuals. In The Courage to Be Disliked philosopher and psychologist Ichiro Kishimi and his student Fumitake Koga offer an introduction to the work of the pioneering psychotherapist Alfred Adler, a contemporary (and rival) of Freud. Kishimi and Koga provide a vivid critique of the impact of competition on our social relationships and our experience of the world:

When one is conscious of competition and victory and defeat, it is inevitable that feelings of inferiority will arise. Because one is constantly comparing oneself to others and thinking I beat that person or I lost to that person... Before you know it, you start to see each and every person, everyone in the whole world, as your enemy... This is what is so terrifying about competition. Even if you're not a loser, even if you're someone who keeps on winning, if you are someone who has placed himself in competition, you will never have a moment's peace. You don't want to be a loser. And you always have to keep on winning if you don't want to be a loser. The reason so many people don't really feel happy while they're building up their success in the eyes of society is that they're in competition. Because to them, the world is a perilous place that is overflowing with enemies... [13]

This is the trap of competition, one we may stumble into over and over again as a result of our default network's focus on other people, our keen awareness of relative social position, and our misperception of social threat. But rather than resign themselves to such a fate, Kishimi and Koga offer an alternative worldview:

Once one is released from the schema of competition, the need to triumph over someone disappears. One is also released from the fear that says, Maybe I will lose. And one becomes able to celebrate other people's happiness with all one's heart. One may become able to contribute actively to other people's happiness. The person who always has the will to help another in times of need--that is someone who may properly be called your comrade... Now we come to the important part. When you are able to truly feel that "people are my comrades," your way of looking at the world will change utterly. No longer will you think of the world as a perilous place, or be plagued by needless doubts; the world will appear before you as a safe and pleasant place. [14]

The challenge, of course, is how to release ourselves from "the schema of competition," and there's certainly no simple solution--this may be one of the most difficult tasks we face in life. But reading The Courage to Be Disliked has made me see that much of my work in recent years has explored this very topic and provides some provisional suggestions: Cultivate gratitude, set goals wisely, and live my values; truly acknowledge the shortness of life; and take nothing for granted.

Footnotes

[1] Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, page 18 (Matthew Lieberman, 2013)

[2] Social, pages 19-22

[3] Social, page 32

[4] Social, pages 33-34

[5] The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn't, What Shouldn't Make You Happy, but Does, pages 131-132 (Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2014)

[6] How Leaders Create Safety (and Danger)

[7] The Myths of Happiness, page 132

[8] Talking About Feelings

[9] Don't Just Do Something, Sit There! (Mindfulness for Busy People)

[10] Get Moving! (Exercise for Busy People)

[11] A compilations of readings on sleep