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Report on How Competitive Are You??
Smart girls decide for themselves™.
Are you too aggressive, or just ambitious? Do you have a killer instinct, or are you just a killer? Do you play dirty, or are you just being streetwise? Sometimes it's hard to decide whether it's a good thing or a bad thing to be competitive. When the stakes are high, it's even harder to tell the difference. We'll leave that up to you to decide. What we wanted to know is: how competitive are SmartGirls?
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- Out of 622 total responses, 87% were girls and 9% were boys. The rest didn't say.
- Over half of those who responded were between the ages of 10 and 13. That means most respondents were in middle school. Nearly 1 in 3 respondents were between the ages of 14 and 17.
- How cool is this? Some of you are from Somalia, India, Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Ghana, the Philippines, Uruguay... 59 different countries are represented in this survey! The vast majority of you are from the United States, though, and most of the others from England. Also, 48 chose not to say.
- Two things that go hand in hand: birth order and competitiveness! Of all the respondents, most were the baby of the family (206). However, oldest children were a very close second (195)! Middle children made a good showing (132), and only children also had a decent response (60). Only 29 chose not to answer this hot question!
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| Where are you from? |
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| To read this chart, look at how large the "pie slices" are. Each "slice" stands for a different country that one or more of our respondents were from! Not all country names are on the chart, but you can see all the different slices. |
When you're striving to be the top dog, you've gotta know what you're up against. Then again, when you're 15, it certainly isn't fair to compare how good you are at math to a 6 year old. And when you've got 5 years of soccer experience, it's not fair to compare yourself against a beginner. But is it ever polite to compete against your family and friends? What about people you don't know as well, like cousins? How about complete strangers? When you're really competitive, do you go for the gold no matter who you're up against?
First, we compared siblings against siblings. They had to answer whether it was "true" or "false" that they wanted to be better at things than their siblings. So who's more competitive?
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| Sibling Rivalry |
birth_order
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oldest | middle | youngest | only | No Answer | [row totals] |
betterthansibs
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| True |
68.23% | 76.61% | 73.00% | 8.62% | 81.25% | 66.10% |
| False |
31.25% | 20.97% | 23.00% | 5.17% | 12.50% | 23.22% |
| I don't have any siblings! |
0.52% | 2.42% | 4.00% | 86.21% | 6.25% | 10.68% |
| [column totals] |
32.54% | 21.02% | 33.90% | 9.83% | 2.71% | 100% |
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| To read this graph, look across the headings along the top and pick one of the birth orders. Then, look down the column. You will see what percentage of people with that birth order chose "true" or "false." |
Look at those row totals on the far right column! It's clear that the majority of survey respondents want to do better than their siblings. But what about the breakdown?
Comparing all the birth orders, it looks like a greater percentage of middle children strive to be better than their siblings. Is it to help them stand out in their family? That's something only each individual middle child can answer!
The weird thing is, half of the survey respondents said that they don't even come from competitive families! Whether or not a respondent came from a competitive family had little to do with how much a respondent wanted to be better than a sibling.
Still, coming from a competitive family has to have something to do with how competitive you are. So, we decided look outward and see if it had anything to do with how competitive our respondents were against other families: their cousins!
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| Family Rivalry |
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family2
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Competitive | Not Competitve | [row totals] |
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cousins
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| true |
202 | 148 | 350 |
| false |
80 | 140 | 220 |
| no cousins |
10 | 10 | 20 |
| [column totals] |
292 | 298 | 590 |
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| Read across the top to find if the survey respondent came from a competitive family or not. Then, look down the column to see the percentage of respondents from that type of family who want to be better than their cousins. |
Badabing, badaboom. Jackpot! Look at those numbers. The total number of people in competitive families (292) and not competitive families (298) is almost equal. But even though there are slightly less respondents in competitive families, there are still over 50 more respondents from competitive families than not competitive families who want to do better than their cousins!
It's interesting to see how competitive we are against our families, but friends often seem like a second family. We looked at each age group to see if that had anything to do with whether or not respondents were competitive with their friends.
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| Friendly Rivalry |
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age2
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6-9 [1] | 10-13 [2] | 14-17 [3] | 18+ [4] | No Answer [5] | [row totals] |
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better tests
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| true |
55.56% | 61.56% | 68.54% | 75.00% | 58.33% | 64.45% |
| false |
44.44% | 38.44% | 31.46% | 25.00% | 41.67% | 35.55% |
| [column totals] |
1.50% | 59.63% | 29.57% | 7.31% | 1.99% | 100% |
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| Look across the top row and select the age group you are interested in. Then read down the column to see the percentage of respondents in that age group who said it was "true" or "false" that they liked to compare tests with friends to see who did better! |
It's clear: the older our respondents get, the MORE competitive they are against their friends! In our youngest group, only 55.56% said they compared schoolwork to see how they compared. By the time we get to our 18 and up group, 75% of our respondents said they compare! That's 3 out of every 4 respondents!
If you look at the row that says "column totals," you will see a bunch of different percentages. Remember when we told you that mostly middle schoolers and high schoolers took this survey? This column is just telling us 59.63% of all respondents to the survey are between the ages of 10-13 and 29.57% of all the respondents who took this survey were between the ages of 14-17.
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So which comes first, how competitive you are or how awesome the prize is? That is to say, are you more competitive when there are great prizes, or are the best prizes only available to the best competitors?
We asked our respondents about lot of things, from sports to school to music to art. We wanted to see if how badly you want to be Numero Uno says anything about how much you gloat about it afterward!
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| #1 Sports Player |
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coach
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true | false | no sports | [row totals] |
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win
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| true |
61.96% | 50.85% | 55.11% | 58.76% |
| false |
38.04% | 49.15% | 44.89% | 41.24% |
| [column totals] |
59.62% | 10.14% | 30.24% | 100% |
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| To read this graph, look across the column to see whether it's "true" or "false" that the respondent wanted their coach to praise them. Then, look down the column to see if it's "true" or "false" that they definitely let you know it if they win! |
| #1 in the Class |
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first_finish
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true | false | [row totals] |
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win
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| true |
66.06% | 54.79% | 59.01% |
| false |
33.94% | 45.21% | 40.99% |
| [column totals] |
37.39% | 62.61% | 100% |
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| The top row says whether or not the respondent says it's "true" or "false" that they want to finish tests first in class. Then, look down the column to see if those respondents say it's "true" or "false" that they will let you know it if they win! |
| 1st Chair! |
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firstchair2
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I want first chair! | I don't really care. | I'm not in band/orchestra. | [row totals] |
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win
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| true |
60.61% | 47.92% | 60.13% | 59.18% |
| false |
39.39% | 52.08% | 39.87% | 40.82% |
| [column totals] |
11.32% | 8.23% | 80.45% | 100% |
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| Read across the top row to see if the respondent wants first chair or not. Then, look down that column to see if respondents think it's "true" or "false" that when they win, they definitely let you know it! |
| #1 Artist! |
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artwork
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true | false | no art | [row totals] |
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win
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| true |
60.21% | 51.77% | 62.65% | 59.21% |
| false |
39.79% | 48.23% | 37.35% | 40.79% |
| [column totals] |
32.87% | 24.27% | 42.86% | 100% |
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| Read across the top column to see if it's "true" or "false" that the respondent wants to be better at art than classmates. Then look down the column to see if it's "true" or "false" if they'll tell you they're the best! |
As you can see, whether you want to be the best at sports, the top in the class, get first chair in band/orchestra, or be the most brilliant artist, you all have one thing in common: if you want to be the best, you're more likely to boast about stuff that you're good at! Two out of every three respondents who said they wanted to be #1 said that they would gloat if they won, as opposed to only half of those who don't care.
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It's not enough just to dream. You've got to know what you've got to work with so you know what to work on. We asked our respondents to tell us what other people think about them.
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| Too Competitive? |
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| We asked whether it was "true" or "false" that people tell our respondents not to be so competitive. Look at the numbers on top of the bars to see how many respondents chose "true" or "false". |
Most of our respondents said that people don't tell them not to be so competitive. Hey, SmartGirls! Maybe that means you should kick things up a notch! How will ever know what you can achieve if you don't set goals and work for them?
Than again, maybe you're not setting goals by comparing yourself to others. Set goals by comparing yourself to... yourself! Make sure you're always improving.
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* No! You will hurt yourself if you compare yourself to other people. Trust me, I know!
* People comment to me already about how talented I am on certain things. I just like making people happy.
* I do compare myself to other people because nowadays, all teens do is watch TV and go on the computer. Instead, I make sure that I am very active and competitive. I found that I do have a talent: for sports!
* I don't really compare myself to others because I don't like to brag.
* It makes me feel proud of myself and gives me a sense of accomplishment when I compare myself to others.
* I don't really compare myself to others. Grandparents always think their grandkids are more talented than other people's grandkids. I don't care as long as someone loves me for me.
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Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts
with us!
Please remember that all web-based polls
are not scientific because the pollsters cannot randomly select the
respondents to participate in the surveys.
All our surveys are anonymous; check out our privacy
policy. All data copyright 1996-2007.
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