Competition

Further information: Competition (biology) and Competition (economics)

A competition or contest is an event where people get together to see who is the best at something. Someone who takes part in a competition ("enters for a competition") is called a competitor. The competitors compete against one another. The person who wins may get a prize. The prize might be a trophy or money.

Competitions can be for lots of different things, for example, sport, writing, music, dancing, science, or chess.

Some competitions need a referee. The referee will make sure that the game is played fairly and that the competitors obey the rules. In events like music competitions there will often be an adjudicator who will decide which person they think is the best.

Horse training for competition.

Biology and ecology

Main article: Competition (biology)

Competition within, between, and among species is one of the most important forces in biology, especially in the field of ecology.

Competition between members of a species ("intraspecific") for resources such as food, water, territory, and sunlight may result in an increase in the frequency of a variant of the species best suited for survival and reproduction until its fixation within a population. However, competition among resources also has a strong tendency for diversification between members of the same species, resulting in coexistence of competitive and non-competitive strategies or cycles between low and high competitiveness. Third parties within a species often favour highly competitive strategies leading to species extinction when environmental conditions are harsh (evolutionary suicide).

Competition is also present between species ("interspecific"). When resources are limited, several species may depend on these resources. Thus, each of the species competes with the others to gain access to the resources. As a result, species less suited to compete for the resources may die out unless they adapt by character dislocation, for instance. According to evolutionary theory, this competition within and between species for resources plays a significant role in natural selection. At shorter time scales, competition is also one of the most important factors controlling diversity in ecological communities, but at larger scales expansion and contraction of ecological space is a much more larger factor than competition. This is illustrated by living plant communities where asymmetric competition and competitive dominance frequently occur. Multiple examples of symmetric and asymmetric competition also exist for animals.

Consumer competitions - games of luck or skill

Further information: Game of chance

In Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, competitions or lotto are the equivalent of what are commonly known as sweepstakes in the United States. The correct technical name for Australian consumer competitions is a trade promotion lottery or lotto.

Competition or trade promotion lottery entrants enter to win a prize or prizes, hence many entrants are all in competition, or competing for a limited number of prizes.

A trade promotion lottery or competition is a free entry lottery run to promote goods or services supplied by a business. An example is where you purchase goods or services and then given the chance to enter into the lottery and possibly win a prize. A trade promotion lottery can be called a lotto, competition, contest, sweepstake, or giveaway.

Such competitions can be games of luck (randomly drawn) or skill (judged on an entry question or submission), or possibly a combination of both.

People that enjoy entering competitions are known as compers. Many compers attend annual national conventions. In 2012 over 100 members of the online competitions community of lottos.com.au from around Australia met on the Gold Coast, Queensland to discuss competitions.

Competitiveness

Main article: Competition (companies)

Many philosophers and psychologists have identified a trait in most living organisms which can drive the particular organism to compete. This trait, called competitiveness, is viewed as an innate biological traitwhich coexists along with the urge for survival. Competitiveness, or the inclination to compete, though, has become synonymous with aggressiveness and ambition in the English language. More advanced civilizations integrate aggressiveness and competitiveness into their interactions, as a way to distribute resources and adapt. Many plants compete with neighboring ones for sunlight.

The term also applies to econometrics. Here, it is a comparative measure of the ability and performance of a firm or sub-sector to sell and produce/supply goods and/or services in a given market. The two academic bodies of thought on the assessment of competitiveness are the Structure Conduct Performance Paradigm and the more contemporary New Empirical Industrial Organisation model. Predicting changes in the competitiveness of business sectors is becoming an integral and explicit step in public policymaking. Within capitalist economic systems, the drive of enterprises is to maintain and improve their own competitiveness.

Education

Competition is a major factor in education. On a global scale, national education systems, intending to bring out the best in the next generation, encourage competitiveness among students through scholarships. Countries such as England and Singapore have special education programmes which cater for specialist students, prompting charges of academic elitism. Upon receipt of their academic results, students tend to compare their grades to see who is better. In severe cases, the pressure to perform in some countries is so high that it can result in stigmatization of intellectually deficient students, or even suicide as a consequence of failing the exams; Japan being a prime example (see Education in Japan).This has resulted in critical re-evaluation of examinations as a whole by educationalists. Critics of competition as a motivating factor in education systems, such as Alfie Kohn, assert that competition actually has a net negative influence on the achievement levels of students, and that it "turns all of us into losers" (Kohn 1986). Economist Richard Layard has commented on the harmful effects, stating "people feel that they are under a great deal of pressure. They feel that their main objective in life is to do better than other people. That is certainly what young people are being taught in school every day. And it's not a good basis for a society."

However, other studies such as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking show that the effect of competition on students depends on each individual's level of agency. Students with a high level of agency thrive on competition, are self-motivated, and are willing to risk failure.Compared to their counterparts who are low in agency, these students are more likely to be flexible, adaptable and creative as adults.

Economics

Main article: Competition (economics)

Merriam-Webster gives as one definition of competition (relating to business) as "[...] rivalry: such as [...] the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms". Adam Smith in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations and later economists described competition in general as allocating productive resources to their most highly valued uses and encouraging efficiency. Later microeconomic theory distinguished between perfect competition and imperfect competition, concluding that no system of resource allocation is more efficient than perfect competition. Competition, according to the theory, causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater selection typically causes lower prices for the products, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly).

However, competition may also lead to wasted (duplicated) effort and to increased costs (and prices) in some circumstances. For example, the intense competition for the small number of top jobs in music and movie-acting leads many aspiring musicians and actors to make substantial investments in training which are not recouped, because only a fraction become successful. Critics have also argued that competition can be destabilizing, particularly competition between certain financial institutions.

Experts have also questioned the constructiveness of competition in profitability. It has been argued that competition-oriented objectives are counterproductive to raising revenues and profitability because they limit the options of strategies for firms as well as their ability to offer innovative responses to changes in the market. In addition, the strong desire to defeat rival firms with competitive prices has the strong possibility of causing price wars.

Forms

• In nature, animals compete with one another for the best food, the best nesting places, etc. According to Charles Darwin, the competition in nature results in evolution.
• In business, firms that make the same things or offer the same services are in competition with one another (see market forms).

The adjective of 'competition' is competitive.

• If persons are "competitive" it means that they like trying to compete with other people.
• Businesses often say that they sell things at "competitive prices". This means that their prices are lower than those of other businesses which sell similar things.

Examples of competitions

There are a lot of different kinds of competitions, for example:

• Eating competitions, where people try to eat the most food
• Running competitions, where people see who is the first to run from one place to another
• Sport competitions, where sports teams try to beat each other to win a trophy
• Singing competitions, where someone decides which person sang the best

or see the gallery of images below:

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Related pages

• Music competitions
• Spelling bee