Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both (2 page)

Do I earn enough money? Do I need to redo my kitchen? Are my kids doing well in school? Do I need to lose weight?

It is nearly impossible to reflect on these questions in a vacuum. Inevitably, we find ourselves looking to others for answers. Other people provide a benchmark to help us figure out where we are in the world and how we fit in.

Consider your weight. Do you weigh too much or just the right amount? To answer this question, we often, consciously or not, think about our friends and their weight. When researchers at Harvard Medical School repeatedly measured the weight of 12,067 people over a period of 32 years, they found that when one's friends gained weight, it increased that person's own chances of becoming overweight by 57 percent! Why? Because our brains tell us it's okay to reach for that second doughnut as long as we don't weigh much more than Monica or Brad! Our own weight gain doesn't look so bad if our friends have put on a little themselves.

A particularly poignant example of the role that social comparisons play in weight gain involves pregnancy. Women's bodies undergo an amazing transformation during pregnancy. As a woman carries a child, she naturally gains weight. This is hardly a surprise; she is eating for two, after all. But what we find really interesting is what happens to
men's
bodies when their wives are pregnant.

There is no biological reason for an expecting father's body to change. His initial contribution to the process notwithstanding, there is absolutely no biological function that he needs to perform as the mother carries his baby during pregnancy.

In practice, however, research shows that expectant fathers gain considerable weight during their wives' pregnancies. In one study, a full 25 percent of expectant fathers claimed the need to buy a “paternity” wardrobe to accommodate their weight gain. We believe that social comparisons powerfully drive these effects. How? Bit by bit, as the expecting mother gains weight, the expecting father loses just a bit of motivation to maintain his own weight. And before he knows it, this lost motivation has led to quite a few packed-on pounds. In very extreme cases, men even develop pregnancy symptoms that match those of the expectant mother. This diagnosis is both common and real enough to have earned its own diagnosis: Couvade syndrome.

Whether it is our weight, our salary, or our kitchens, comparisons help us make sense of how we are doing. But it's not just a matter of how you compare, but
with whom
you compare, that can determine whether the comparison motivates you to work harder or simply feel worse.

“Two households, both alike in dignity.” In this opening line of
Romeo and Juliet,
Shakespeare introduces the now iconic competition between the two noble families by describing how similar they were to each other.

Although we constantly compare ourselves to others, not all social comparisons are created equal. Some social comparisons matter more than others. In the weight-gain study, same-sex friends influenced each other's weight gain more than opposite-sex friends. The more similar the peer, the more our comparative instincts kick into high gear.

This is precisely why it was so painful for David Miliband to lose the election to his brother. And indeed, few people are as similar as siblings—people who share the same parents, the same DNA, and most often the same upbringing. For David and Ed Miliband, they also shared similar ambitions. David and Ed both went to Oxford. Both became members of Parliament. Both vied for leadership of the Labour Party. And both were serious contenders to be prime minister of England. It is the full weight of all these similarities—and coming up short—that made his defeat too much for David to endure.

In the Milibands' case, their similarity fueled an intense rivalry that ultimately derailed David's career. But other times, sibling rivalry can intensify motivation, propelling us to new heights. Let's consider another pair of siblings, the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena have dominated women's tennis for over a decade. At different times in their careers, each sister has been ranked No. 1 in the world. But early in their professional careers, it was the older sister Venus who was most lauded by critics and most feared on the court.

Reflecting on those early years, Serena recalled that she “always felt like the underdog.” Yet instead of accepting her fate as number two, Serena drew inspiration from it: “Venus was the big star. When we were growing up, it was a lot about Venus—it needed to be about Venus, because she was an incredible player. And that actually, being the little sister, the one that wasn't as strong, wasn't as good yet, gave me encouragement and the fight I have in my game.”

Today it is Serena who has since eclipsed her big sister to dominate women's tennis. In their 24 head-to-head finals meetings, Serena has won 14 to Venus's 10. Serena has won 18 Grand Slam titles. Venus has claimed seven. As of this writing, Serena is ranked No. 1 in the world, while Venus is ranked No. 18. Serena can no longer be considered the “underdog.”

But as we've seen, competition and cooperation can be simultaneous. This is why the Williams sisters have shown such a remarkable ability to put aside any sibling rivalry and succeed as a team, racking up a gaudy 21–1 record in women's doubles finals, including three Olympic gold medal performances in the 2000, 2008, and 2012 Summer Games.

Time
columnist Josh Sanburn explained, “The Williams Sisters' rivalry is highly unusual and utterly remarkable. They are two of the greatest tennis players of all time and from the same family playing in the same era. And with all of their fiery competitiveness on the court, they're still incredibly close off of it.” Their relationship exemplifies how siblings can be our closest friends…
and
simultaneously our most intense rivals.

Yet the social comparison phenomenon goes beyond just sibling rivalry. Any similarity can intensify competition. Take shared history, for example. Ever notice how colleagues who start working in the same industry at the same time often become ready rivals? This was the case for Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who entered the NBA in the same year, 1979. From that point on, they would always compare themselves to each other. As Larry Bird admitted, “The first thing I would do every morning was look at the box scores to see what Magic did. I didn't care about anything else.”

College roommates and childhood friends also have a shared history, which may explain why nothing produces as much social comparison agitation as a high school or college reunion. Because the people you will see at the reunion are the people you grew up with, every single person in the room serves as a salient point of comparison.

The most intense comparisons often occur when we are similar to others in ways that are “self-relevant.” These are the skills or traits we care most about. Think for a moment about what really matters to you. Is your primary goal in life to make money? If so, you're probably prone to comparing yourself to others based on the size of their bank accounts.

Of course, the traits most self-relevant to one person may be of little or no importance to another. For an engineer, winning a coveted engineering prize may matter most. For gardening enthusiasts, the ability to grow prize-winning petunias may be critical. And for triathletes, their finishing time for a recent race may be an intense point of pride. For others, the success of their children may be the most important measure of their own accomplishment. Are you driven to climb to the top of the corporate ladder? Or grow the biggest tomato in your neighborhood? The areas that matter most to you are the same areas where you are likely to feel most threatened—and most motivated—by competition from others.

The most intense social comparisons are rivalries. Rivals, like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, emerge in meaningful domains, among closely matched competitors who are similar (or “psychologically close”) in any number of ways.

Individuals can be rivals, but so too can teams, companies, and organizations. For example, in collegiate basketball, the quintessential rivalry is between Duke University and the University of North Carolina (UNC). Both colleges share a similar history, identity, and location. The college teams play each other frequently, are only nine miles apart, and are closely matched. As a result, their successes can powerfully motivate one another.

After Duke won the national championship in 1992, UNC won it the following year. Then, after UNC won the national championship in 2009, it was Duke's turn to win the title the next year. Of course, it takes many ingredients to win a national championship, but motivation is a critical one, and social comparisons fuel motivation in the workplace, on the basketball court, and beyond.

Scott Crabtree had worked his way up the ladder at a tech company. He was happy with his company and his work—until a new hire arrived. The new hire negotiated a salary that was just a few thousand dollars short of Scott's current one. In Scott's words, “I realized he was going to get a salary right out of school that took me decades to reach.” The salary of this new recruit ruined his own experience. He
had
been blissfully happy with his salary and his job. But now he grew frustrated with this ever present comparison. Eventually, not unlike David Miliband, he became so upset by the situation that he left the company.

One reason comparisons are so pernicious is that we are hardwired to make them. Frans de Waal of Emory University demonstrated this with capuchin monkeys. In one clever study, de Waal trained his monkeys to use stones as a form of currency and trade them with the experimenter for food. The exchange worked like this: The experimenter would hold out an open hand, the monkey would drop a stone into the open hand, and the experimenter would then offer the monkey a slice of cucumber.

Is a stone a fair price for a slice of cucumber? To these monkeys, it was—as long as every other monkey was getting the same deal. When a solitary monkey exchanged a stone for a piece of cucumber, he ate it with delight and would happily repeat this exchange over and over. However, de Waal also ran a condition in which two monkeys in neighboring cages participated in the exchange simultaneously. In one cage, the monkey received the usual cucumber slice for a stone. But in the other, the monkey received a sweet, juicy grape for his stone. Monkeys, just like humans, value grapes more highly than cucumbers…actually, it turns out that monkeys value grapes a lot more than cucumbers!

Upon seeing this inequity, the monkey who was offered the regular cucumber deal went, well, apeshit. Not only did the monkey who saw his neighbor get a better deal stop “paying” stones for the cucumbers, but some refused to accept the cucumber, even throwing it back at the experimenter. In one case, after receiving the cucumber, a monkey who saw the adjacent monkey receive a grape for the same “price” threw the cucumber on the cage floor and sulked in the back of the cage. The other monkey reached into the first monkey's cage, snatched the cucumber, and eagerly consumed both the grape
and
the cucumber. What this experiment demonstrates is that our evolutionary ancestors did not evaluate their outcomes in isolation; rather, they evaluated outcomes in a comparative process.

Just as monkeys eating cucumbers care about comparisons, so too do modern humans. And no area demonstrates this innate competitive instinct more than the world of business. Consider what happened in 2003, as American Airlines faced the prospect of bankruptcy. To save the airline, the management team asked the unions to accept steep concessions. Through difficult negotiations, American Airlines convinced the unions to agree to $1.8 billion in annual labor concessions, including $660 million from the pilots, $620 million from the mechanics and ground workers, and $340 million from the flight attendants.

In accepting these terms, the unions choose cooperation over competition…until they learned new information.

The day after the unions agreed to these concessions, details of American Airlines' 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission came to light. In these filings, the unions learned that, eager to keep top management, American Airlines had offered the top 45 executives large retention bonuses if they stayed with the airline through 2005.

Imagine, for a moment, being one of the pilots. Your union leaders have just convinced you to give up $660 million. A day later, you learn that many executives would be earning retention bonuses, some as high as $1.6 million!

With this comparison information, the unions shifted to competition. They withdrew their concessions and fired their negotiator. Not unlike the monkeys, the unions had thought that they were getting a fair deal until they found out that others were getting something better.

This is essentially the same situation in which Scott Crabtree found himself. The comparison to the salary of his new colleague caused him to resent not only his colleague but, more broadly, his work. Scott was affected by the same psychological force as the monkeys who were happy eating their piece of cucumber…until they saw a peer eating a grape. For Scott, the comparison silenced his cooperative spirit and fired up his competitive impulses. So Scott left his job and started his own company. His new title? Chief Happiness Officer.

Both Scott's former company and the management team at American Airlines failed to understand the power of social comparisons. Often, in our zeal to achieve one objective, like retain senior management or hire that hotshot new employee, it is easy to overlook how our actions create social comparisons. So whether we're hiring a new employee, closing a deal with a client, negotiating the sale of our home, or deciding what clothes to buy for one of our children, we need to think about how powerfully social comparisons can shift people's attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions.