Comparisons Can Make You Fitter!

A little friendly competition never hurt anyone, right? It turns out that a little friendly competition can actually provide big benefits. Psychologists have long known that when we perform next to someone, it can lead to better performance. This effect, called social facilitation, is so basic that it shows up across many species, including cockroaches! The simple idea is that for well-practiced and relatively easy tasks, performing next to someone or in front of an audience can enhance performance. This effect is amplified in situations in which we are actively engaging in comparison. The drive to do as well as, or better than, someone else can be very motivating. Like the song says "Anything you can do, I can do better".

This natural instinct towards competition has been used by everyone from teachers to parents to companies to motivate behavior. In elementary school classrooms, it is is not unusual to find charts showing how many books students have read, or other laudable behaviors. In the workplace, sales figures and productivity are often made public. Recently, however, companies have begun to use comparison and competition to motivate employees to be healthier.

As highlighted in a recent Business Week article, employers everywhere are getting into wellness games. In such games, employees form teams, then compete for points by eating healthier, losing weight, logging workouts, and learning about the healthful behaviors. These programs, which have teams from across the country and around the world competing to be the most fit, have successfully increased the physical activity levels of their employees.

But, such programs do not work just because people are competing. It isn't always about being better than others. Instead, comparison others can just tell us what is possible. Ladd Wheeler and Jerry Suls call this the proxy-model. According to their research, if we see a similar other do well on a task, and we know that their success was the result of effort (as opposed to luck), then we are encouraged to try the task ourselves and feel that we are more likely to be successful. In this way comparisons make us fitter because seeing what similar others have accomplished helps us feel like we can do the same thing, and gets us moving.

As we head into the weeks of the Olympics, its a great time to couple the inspiration of our athletes with a little local competition. Think global, act local, and get a training partner on board!