Competition a double-edged sword for teen girls
July 7th, 2010 - 5:41 pm ICT by IANSWashington, July 7 (IANS) Is being competitive a good or a bad thing when you’re a teenager?
Well, a bit of both actually: Competing to win is detrimental to girls’ social relationships and was linked to higher levels of depression, whereas this was much less the case for boys.
However, competing to excel is beneficial to the well-being of both genders, says a new study by David Hibbard from the California State University and Duane Buhrmester from the University of Texas, that appeared in Sex Roles.
Competitiveness can be both a virtue and a vice. One person’s win can be another person’s loss and the drive to be better than others, when taken too far, can appear ruthless and selfish.
Indeed, research shows that competitiveness is rated both as more typical of adult males and as more desirable for males than for females.
Hibbard and Buhrmester’s work looks at the effect of two types of competitiveness on teenagers’ psychological well-being and social functioning in late adolescence: competing to win i.e. to dominate and outperform others; and competing to excel i.e. to perform well and surpass personal goals, according to a California State University statement.
A total of 110 twelfth-grade high school students from the Richardson Independent School District in Dallas, Texas, their best same sex friends and their parents completed questionnaires assessing a combination of competitiveness, gender-role orientation, self-esteem and depressive symptoms.
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Tags: adolescence, adult males, both genders, california state university, competitiveness, dallas texas, depressive symptoms, double edged sword, gender role, high school students, independent school district, personal goals, questionnaires, richardson independent school, role orientation, sex friends, sex roles, social relationships, teen girls, virtue