ANN ARBOR—Whether Oxford versus Cambridge or the Hatfields versus the McCoys, rivalries are all about competition.

Recent findings from a University of Michigan study, however, reveal that ranking information can have a powerful impact on the intensity of such rivalries. Rivals become less willing to maximize joint gains when highly ranked than when intermediately ranked.

“Our results suggest that people with high rankings are less willing to cooperate with each other, even when such collaborations have the potential to maximize profit,” said lead author Stephen Garcia, an assistant professor at the U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

A sample of 572 University of Michigan students and full-time employees enrolled in a part-time MBA program participated in one of eight simulations.

In one simulation, for example, participants imagined being the chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company and decided whether to enter a lucrative joint venture with a rival company. If they entered the joint venture, their profits would increase by 6 percent and their rival’s by 6 percent. If they did not, their profits would only increase by 5 percent and their rival’s by 1 percent. Results showed that when both companies were highly ranked (ranked No. 3 and No. 4) on the Fortune 500 only 39 percent chose to enter the profitable joint venture. However, 79 percent of the participants entered the lucrative joint venture when their company and rival were intermediately ranked (ranked No. 103 and No. 104).

“Rankings near a qualitative threshold also make it difficult to maximize profit,” said co-author Avishalom Tor, assistant professor of law at the University of Haifa, pointing to the finding that only 50 percent of the participants entered the lucrative joint venture when they were at the very bottom of the Fortune 500 list (ranked No. 500 and No. 501″ just off list).

In another simulation, people imagined being the head of a nonprofit organization and simply expressed how competitive they would feel toward a rival nonprofit. People reported harboring more competitive feelings toward a rival nonprofit if both of them were highly ranked (ranked No. 9 and No. 10) than intermediately ranked (ranked No. 209 and No. 210).

Co-author Richard Gonzalez, chair and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, emphasizes that people were randomly assigned to different rankings and that” these ranking effects are likely even more dramatic in the real world, where highly ranked people will tend to be competitive by nature.”

In today’s ranking culture, this study shows how rankings can ironically prevent progress on the performance dimensions they seek to improve, Garcia said.

The findings are published in the July issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Related Links:

• Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
• Stephen Garcia
• Avishalom Tor
• Richard Gonzalez