Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Under Pressure: The Effects Of Competition On Performance, G. Ben Maxwell

Undergraduate Psychology Research Methods Journal

The present study was conducted in order to assess sex differences in scores on word search puzzles in which participants are given information intended to incite competitive emotions. Forty participants—18 men and 22 women—were recruited from the Lindenwood Participant Pool. Participants were randomly assigned into four groups designed to prompt two different kinds of competitive emotions: one which put the participants against the other sex, and one which put them against all other participants. It was hypothesized that men would do better than women under all competitive conditions, and that the overall scores of participants would increase in all experimental …