Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 4, 2025

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Winning isn't everything: Guilt proneness and competitive vs. non-competitive motivation
Uriel Haran1, Dina Van Dijk2, Michal Barina2
1Department of Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Objective:
Guilt proneness is associated with both high motivation to succeed and enhanced concern for others. However, in competition, achieving success requires harming others' interests, which demotivates guilt-prone individuals. Given the prevalence of competition in social and professional life, we examine the relation between guilt proneness, general motivation, and competitive motivation.
Method:
Two experiments and two laboratory studies (N = 1735) measured guilt proneness, general motivation, and competitive motivation, and their effects on competitive preferences and choices. Study settings included students' choice of playing a game individually vs. competitively (Study 1), physicians' likelihood to seek residency in medical fields characterized by high competitiveness (Study 2), amateur athletes' preferences between inclusive and win-oriented team strategies (Study 3), and online workers' evaluations of a hypothetical scenario (Study 4).
Results:
Guilt proneness was related positively to general motivation, but negatively to competitive motivation. Guilt proneness, indirectly through lower competitive motivation, predicted a lower likelihood of pursuing competitive paths and preference for non-competitive strategies. Emphasizing prosocial aspects of competitiveness attenuated these effects.
Conclusions:
Guilt proneness is related to high general motivation but to a lower desire to win. Guilt-prone individuals strive for excellence, but through non-competitive paths, whereas people with lower guilt proneness prefer competing.
Related Concept Videos
Secondary Motives: Affiliation Motivation and Aggression Motivation
Secondary Motives: Power Motivation and Achievement Motivation
Power motivation is characterized by the desire to influence, control, or have an impact on others. It is shaped by an individual's experiences, social environment, and cultural context. People with high power motivation are...
Fundamental Attribution Error
Incentive Theory: Pull Theory of Motivation
The theory differentiates between...
Drive-Reduction Theory: Push Theory of Motivation
Egoism and Altruism

