Overview: The Competitiveness Index (CI) is a structured personality instrument consisting of 20 true-false items concerning interpersonal competitiveness in everyday contexts. Research indicates that the CI has high internal consistency (alpha = .90) and contains three stable oblique factors of Emotion, Argument, and Games (Houston, Farese, & La Du, 1992; Smither & Houston, 1992). The CI is significantly correlated with several other measures of competitiveness including the Work and Family Orientation Competitiveness Subscale, the Sport Orientation Questionnaire Competitiveness Subscale, the Hypercompetitveness Attitude Scale, and the Personal Development Competitive Attitude Scale (Houston, McIntire, Kinnie, & Terry, 2000; Houston, Carter, & Smither, 1997; Smither & Houston, 1992). In addition, the CI also correlates with Achievement, Leadership, and Hostility homogeneous item clusters (HICs) from the Hogan Personality Inventory (Smither, Houston, & Dyer, 1993). Laboratory research findings indicate that CI scores are linked to competitive behaviors and task satisfaction in simulated conflict situations (Houston, Kinnie, Lupo, Terry, & Ho, 2000).

Administration: The CI is designed to take approximately 5 minutes to complete and can be administered privately or in a group setting. To avoid the potentially biasing effects of priming and labeling, the instrument should be administered using a generic title such as "Attitude Questionnaire." Respondents should be asked to answer all the questions and to avoid spending too much time on any one item. Respondents should also be encouraged to go with their first or dominant response (T or F) for items that elicit an "it depends" reaction.

Scoring: The CI is scored by adding up the items that correspond to the keyed competitive responses. Since all items have equal weighting, scores range from 0 to 20. Based on a sample of approximately 500 undergraduates, the mean CI for women is 9.52 (SD = 4.62) and 12.06 (SD = 4.88) for men. Although no firm cutoff scores have been established, CI scores of 14 or above can be considered high scores for women and 15 and above are high for men. Low scores start at 6 for women and at 7 for men.

References:

Houston, J. M., McIntire, S., Kinnie, J., & Terry, C.  (2002). A factor analysis of scales measuring competitiveness.  Educational and Psychological Measurement, 62, 284-298.

Houston, J. M, Kinnie, J., Lupo, B., Terry, C., & Ho, S. (2000). Competitiveness and conflict behavior in simulation of a social dilemma.  Psychological Reports, 86, 1219-1225.

Houston, J. M., Carter, D, & Smither, R. (1997). Competitiveness in elite professional athletes. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 84, 1447-1454.

Houston, J. M., Farese, D., & La Du, T. J. (1992). Assessing Competitiveness: A validation study of the Competitiveness Index. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 10, 1153-1156.

Smither, R. D., & Houston, J. M. (1992). The nature of competitiveness: The development and validation of the Competitiveness Index. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 407-418.

Smither, R. D., Houston, J. M., & Dyer, P. (1993, August). Why competitive people disrupt groups. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Division 8, Toronto, Canada.

Directions: Use the following response scale in answering the items below: T=True F=False

1. I get satisfaction from competing with others. T F

2. It’s usually not important to me to be the best. T F

3. Competition destroys friendships. T F

4. Games with no clear cut winners are boring. T F

5. I am a competitive individual. T F

6. I will do almost anything to avoid an argument. T F

7. I try to avoid competing with others. T F

8. I would like to be on a debating team. T F

9. I often remain quiet rather than risk hurting another person. T F

10. I find competitive situations unpleasant. T F

11. I try to avoid arguments. T F

12. In general, I will go along with the group rather than create conflict. T F

13. I don’t like competing against other people. T F

14. I don’t like games that are winner-take-all. T F

15. I dread competing against other people. T F

16. I enjoy competing against an opponent. T F

17. When I play a game I like to keep scores. T F

18. I often try to out perform others. T F

19. I like competition. T F

20. I don’t enjoy challenging others even when I think they are wrong. T F

Scoring Key*:
Items 1,4,5,8,16,17,18,19 = T
Items 2,3,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,20 = F

*(Corrected 6/29/99)