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The link between social comparison orientation and domain-specific risk-taking: exploring the mediating role of two dimensions of trait competitiveness - PubMed

  • ️Mon Jan 01 2024

The link between social comparison orientation and domain-specific risk-taking: exploring the mediating role of two dimensions of trait competitiveness

Yuqian Wang et al. Front Psychol. 2024.

Abstract

Introduction: Our recent research has demonstrated that social comparison orientation of ability (SCO-ability) is an antecedent of trait competitiveness (TC), and TC mediates the relation between SCO-ability and domain-specific risk-taking. TC is a multi-dimensional trait, therefore we sought to expand on prior research by examining whether SCO-ability predicted two distinct dimensions of TC: hypercompetitive orientation (HCO) and self-development competitive orientation (SDCO).

Methods: We investigated how these different dimensions of TC mediated the relation between SCO-ability and both overall and domain-specific risk-taking in two correlational studies of 622 college students (313 males, mean age = 22.10, SD = 2.35) and 717 adult workers (368 males, mean age = 27.92, SD = 5.11).

Results: We found that SCO-ability positively predicted HCO. Together, SCO-ability and HCO predicted overall risk-taking and risk-taking in the recreational and ethical domains in both samples. HCO mediated the relation between SCO-ability and both overall risk-taking and risk-taking in the recreational and ethical domains. Additionally, SCO-ability positively predicted SDCO. SCO-ability and SDCO mainly predicted risk-taking in the recreational domain in both studies. SDCO mediated the relation between SCO-ability and risk-taking only in the recreational domain.

Discussion: Collectively, the findings above advance our understanding of the relation between competition and risk-taking by using differentiated measures of TC (HCO and SDCO). Our findings suggest that HCO is more strongly related to risk-taking than SDCO, thereby refining the possible role of SCO-ability and TC in predicting overall risk-taking and domain-specific risk-taking.

Keywords: HCO; SDCO; domain-specific; risk-taking; social comparison orientation; trait competitiveness.

Copyright © 2024 Wang, Elliot, Derrington and Li.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1

Diagram of Study 1: standardized path analysis for hypercompetitive orientation. Black pathways illustrate findings consistent across all risk-taking categories; blue pathways depict findings specific to each risk category: M1 for total risks, M2 for Social investment risks, M3 for recreational risks, M4 for ethical risks, M5 for gambling risks, M6 for health risks. R2 indicates the variance proportion in each risk type explained by the independent variables in each respective model. Sex was included in the study but not displayed in this figure for clarity. Solid lines represent significant paths (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001). SCO, social comparison orientation; HCO, hypercompetitive orientation.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Diagram of Study 1: standardized path analysis for self-developmental competitive orientation. Black pathways illustrate findings consistent across all risk-taking categories; blue pathways depict findings specific to each risk category: M1 for total risks, M2 for social investment risks, M3 for recreational risks, M4 for ethical risks, M5 for gambling risks, M6 for health risks. R2 indicates the variance proportion in each risk type explained by the independent variables in each respective model. Sex was included in the study but not displayed in this figure for clarity. Solid lines represent significant paths (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001). SCO, social comparison orientation; SDCO, self-developmental competitive orientation.

Figure 3
Figure 3

Diagram of Study 2: standardized path analysis for hypercompetitive orientation. Black pathways illustrate findings consistent across all risk-taking categories; blue pathways depict findings specific to each risk category: M1 for total risks, M2 for social investment risks, M3 for recreational risks, M4 for ethical risks, M5 for gambling risks, M6 for health risks. R2 indicates the variance proportion in each risk type explained by the independent variables in each respective model. Sex was included in the study but not displayed in this figure for clarity. Solid lines represent significant paths (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001). SCO, social comparison orientation; HCO, hypercompetitive orientation.

Figure 4
Figure 4

Diagram of Study 2: standardized path analysis for self-developmental competitive orientation. Black pathways illustrate findings consistent across all risk-taking categories; blue pathways depict findings specific to each risk category: M1 for total risks, M2 for social investment risks, M3 for recreational risks, M4 for ethical risks, M5 for gambling risks, M6 for health risks. R2 indicates the variance proportion in each risk type explained by the independent variables in each respective model. Sex was included in the study but not displayed in this figure for clarity. Solid lines represent significant paths (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001). SCO, social comparison orientation; SDCO, self-developmental competitive orientation.

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Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by STI2030-Major Projects (2022ZD0205100 to YL).

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