More Competitors = Less Competition

In a forthcoming research paper in Psychological Science, a series of studies by Stephen Garcia, adjunct assistant professor of management and organizations and assistant professor of psychology and organizational studies, and Avishalom Tor, assistant professor of law at the University of Haifa, find that increasing the number of players in a competition can decrease competitive motivation. Garcia and Tor conducted several studies that show evidence of what they dub the N-effect. That is, when the number (N) of competitors in a competition increases, the motivation to compete decreases, even when the probability of winning remains constant.