Personality Traits and Winning: Competitiveness, Hypercompetitiveness, and Machiavellianism

Pursuing success is an important social activity linked to both adaptive and maladaptive personality traits. While competitiveness, hypercompetitiveness, and Machiavellianism all represent widely-used personality characteristics associated with the desire to win, the pattern of relationships among these three personality traits has not been systematically investigated. Part of this neglect may stem from conceptual and empirical links between competitiveness and hypercompetitiveness which raise questions about the usefulness of distinctions in the construct and operational definitions of these traits. Fletcher and Nusbaum (2008), while acknowledging that competitiveness and hypercompetitiveness are assessed using different measures, argue that they represent aspects of the same construct and can be combined into a composite variable termed competitiveness. Echoing the call for parsimony, Newby and Klein (2014) propose merging current scales into a unified measure of trait competitiveness with psychometrically derived dimensions. Although merging specific traits into more global composite variables may have some utility in exploring broad personality factors, this approach potentially blurs important theoretical and empirical differences when examining personality characteristics at a more detailed level of analysis. Conversely, creating new dimensions or subscales of competitiveness adds to the proliferation of measures assessing the construct and generates potentially redundant lines of research. To clarify some of the conceptual confusion surrounding competitiveness, hypercompetitiveness, and Machiavellianism, this study investigated the relationships among these three personality traits. Research on competitiveness, as an individual difference variable, can be traced back more than 100 years to the work of Triplett (1897) on competitive instincts in sports. However, current personality research generally relies on the more recent conceptualization of competitiveness as the desire to win in interpersonal situations developed by Helmreich and Spence (1978). Since this construct definition of competitiveness draws on a theoretical framework based on achievement motivation research, competitiveness is a potentially adaptive trait across a range of social domains, including work and recreation (Houston, Carter, & Smither, 1997). While competitiveness is related to other adaptive traits, such as need for achievement (Smither & Houston, 1992), in situations requiring cooperative interaction, for example driving, competitiveness may be socially dysfunctional (Houston, Harris, & Norman, 2003). The study of hypercompetitiveness stems from research by Karen Horney (1937) who viewed hypercompetitiveness as a dysfunctional form of extreme competitiveness linked to neurosis and representing an indiscriminate need to win at all costs. In contrast to normal competitiveness, hypercompetitiveness is associated with heightened self-worth fluctuating with underlying low self-esteem, high levels of neuroticism, decreased need for others, and interest in admiration and recognition from others (Ryckman, Hammer, Kaczor, & Gold, 1990; Ryckman, Thornton, & Butler, 1994). Hypercompetitiveness is also related to a broad spectrum of unhealthy behaviors and social interactions, including eating disorder symptoms (Burckle, Ryckman, Gold, Thorton, & Audesse, 1999), body dysmorphic disorder symptoms (Woodie & Fromuth, 2009) and problematic romantic relationships and relationships with peers and family (Thorton, Ryckman, & Gold, 2011). Despite these links with unhealthy traits and behaviors, hypercompetitiveness is positively related to personal development (PD) competitiveness, a psychologically healthy orientation to competition (Houston, Edge, Anderson, Lesmana, & Suryani, 2012; Mudrack, Bloodgood, & Turnley, 2012). Unlike hypercompetitive individuals, those high in healthy competitiveness view competition as an opportunity for personal development and growth (Ryckman, Hammer, Kaczor, & Gold, 1996). …