In Steve’s example, one person’s success can in effect exclude someone else’s, on the face of it the fewer the people there are the greater the likelihood of success and therefore the greater competitive urge.

When it comes to something like standardised tests the intuition isn’t immediately obvious to me, as me doing well doesn’t prevent someone else in my class doing well.

Maybe the distinction is how you define success, is it relative (i.e. compared to your class mates) or absolute (i.e. how you do on a national scale)? I think Ruaparaha’s logic suits situations where relative success is more important.

Apologies if I’m not making sense, I need more coffee….