Monday, December 26, 2011

MIDDLE-AGE CUTTHROATS

The fire of competitiveness doesn't dwindle after age 25 along with brain mass and steroid levels, it appears.
Psychologists had 543 men and women in a mall, ages 25 to 75, take a test that involved quickly evaluating whether a series of arithmetic problems had been properly solved. Participants had the choice of being compensated 25 cents per correct answer or getting 50 cents per answer if they beat the score of a randomly chosen fellow participant—but nothing if they lost.
As expected, the researchers found that men were more competitive than women—a pattern unaffected by age—and that the gap couldn't be explained by ability. Just over half of the men chose the competition track, versus just over a third of the women. But for both sexes, the will to compete climbed from the youngest ages up to 50, when it finally began to decline.
The authors urged more studies, to nail down whether the pattern was general or limited to generations living today.
"Competitiveness Across the Life Span: The Feisty Fifties," Ulrich Mayr, Dave Wozniak, Casey Davidson, David Kuhns and William T. Harbaugh, Psychology and Aging (forthcoming)
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