Date of Award

Spring 2014

Degree Name

Honors Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Sponsor

Dr. John Houston

Committee Member

Dr. Jennifer Queen

Abstract

The relationship between individual’s level of competitiveness and their perception of others is not one that has received research in the field. Highly competitive individuals have different factors that motivate their competitive nature, but all strive to win in interpersonal situations. How does the outcome of a situation, whether they win or lose, affect competitive individuals’ perceptions of their competitors? It is hypothesized that competitive individuals will have a more negative perception of their opponents personality if they lose compared to if they win. Participants in this experiment were led to believe that they played nine rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors against another participant, but actually played against a researcher who controlled the outcome of each round. Although none of the results were statistically significant, the outcome was found to be in the expected direction that highly competitive individuals who lost the game were less likely to describe their opponent in warm trait terms or rate them as warm on quantitative scales. The limitations of the study and future research topics are discussed.

Rights Holder

Kimberly Hojecki

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