Measuring preferences for competition with experimentally-validated survey questions

Arbeitspapier

We validate experimentally a new survey item to measure the preference for competition. The item, which measures participants' agreement with the statement "Competition brings the best out of me", predicts individuals' willingness to compete in the laboratory after controlling for their ability, beliefs, and risk attitude (Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007). We further validate the explanatory power of our survey item outside of the laboratory, by comparing responses across two samples with predicted differences in their preference for competition: professional athletes and non-athletes. As predicted, we find that athletes score higher on the item than non-athletes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CeDEx Discussion Paper Series ; No. 2019-17

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Design of Experiments: Laboratory, Individual ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: General‡ ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡
• Subject: competition ; survey question ; experiment validation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Fallucchi, Francesco ; Nosenzo, Daniele ; Reuben, Ernesto
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The University of Nottingham, Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx)
• (where): Nottingham
• (when): 2019

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/228363
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET