FRIENDLY RIVALS AND THEIR ASSOCIATED MOTIVATIONAL AND ETHICAL BENEFITS

Abstract

Rivals are traditionally defined as people against whom we attach greater importance to the outcomes of competitions. Competing against them increases motivation and performance (Kilduff, 2014), but increases unethicality (Kilduff et al., 2016). However, reframing rivals to emphasise their benefits (labelled “friendly rivals”) might encourage people to perceive rivalries as being cooperative. Because cooperation can reduce unethical behaviour (Pierce et al., 2013), I hypothesised that friendly rivals would enhance motivation without increasing unethicality. Four experiments supported these hypotheses. Participants retrospectively reported greater motivation (Study 1) and reported being less willing to behave unethically (Study 2) against friendly rivals than non-rivals. In ostensibly real competitions, participants gave up on fewer anagrams (Study 3) and solved more anagrams (Study 4) when imagining that their opponents were friendly rivals. They also sabotaged opponents less (Study 3). Meta-analyses of these studies revealed a reliable small-to-moderate effect of friendly rivals on motivation and an unreliable minute effect on unethical behaviour (vs. non-rivals). Together, these results suggest that friendly rivals retain the motivational benefits of rivalry without incurring ethical costs. In doing so, these findings preliminarily support the viability of using friendly rivalry as a motivational enhancer in practical settings such as school, athletics, or work.