Competition in Friendship 219college setting, and although a few studies have included middle- age adults in their
samples, virtually no developmental research exists examining competition and
friendships in later life.
Research findings regarding competition in adult friendship tend to mirror those
found among children and adolescents. Research looking at college- age friends and
nonfriends in competitive and cooperative video game environments showed that
when playing with friends under a cooperative goal structure, players who were
friends had a stronger commitment to game goals than nonfriends, but friends and
nonfriends behaved similarly in a competitive goal structure (Peng & Hsieh, 2012).
Along the same lines, Crouse Waddell and Peng (2014) showed that cooperative
game structures (versus competitive game structures) increased trust between both
friends and nonfriends, but neither type of game structure increased state hostility
in participants regardless of the relationship between players. Interestingly, physi-
ological research looking at brain wave activity among college students during com-
petition with friends and strangers showed that although concern about one’s own
outcomes consistently outweighed concern about others’ outcomes, individuals’
motivation to win was more robust when competing against a stranger (Wang et al.,
2014). These researchers speculated that the investment of empathy, reciprocity,
and altruism is usually high during friendship development and maintenance, and
that concern for the well- being of a friend is likely activated alongside self- interest
when competing against friends. These kinds of findings are consistent with the idea
that because of perceived threats to the friendship, individuals’ levels of competi-
tiveness are likely higher with members of the “out- group” (i.e., strangers) than with
members of the “in- group” (i.e., close friends; e.g., Bornstein, Budescu, & Zamir,
1997; Harris & Miller, 2000). However, as with the adolescent research, the pic-
ture may be more complicated. For example, Tesser and Smith (1980) examined
whether the threat to an individual’s self- esteem was greater when outperformed
by a friend rather than a stranger on a competitive task and whether the relevance
of the task played a role. They found that when the task relevance was low, partici-
pants were more competitive with strangers, but when the task relevance was high,
participants were more competitive with friends. Such findings lend support to the
idea that the specific competitive domain may moderate the influence of competi-
tive motivations and behavior among friends.
Other research has not examined adult friendships per se, but the findings seem
to align with the friendship research. For example, Ryckman, Thorton, Gold, and
Burckle (2002) found that hypercompetitiveness was unrelated to romantic rela-
tionship satisfaction or commitment among emerging adults, but it was associ-
ated with fewer positive relationship features (e.g., trust, honest communication)
and more negative features (e.g., conflict, control). Ryckman and colleagues have
also found associations between hypercompetitiveness and low benevolence and
altruism (Ryckman, Libby, van den Borne, Gold, & Lindner, 1997), trait aggres-
sion (Ryckman et al., 1996), and endorsement of the value that “violence is manly”