The right kind of competition can be a direct path to happiness.

Healthy competition and toxic competition can look identical.

Workplace envy is a silent driver of anxiety, isolation, and depression.

If you are like us, you probably spent several recent evenings watching an exceptionally fun (mostly) 2026 Winter Olympics. Tara’s son was obsessed with the spoken word track that Ilia Malinin skated to. As a result, he repeated the phrase, "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" at least 7,000 times while they were on a family vacation. Ed’s son was more interested in watching people go downhill at high velocities.

All the feel-good moments got us wondering: why does this kind of competition make us feel so happy? And why do other competitions feel so awful? And how does competition affect our overall well-being? Curious social scientists that we are, we decided to do a little investigating.

It turns out that researchers have quite a lot of interesting things to say about competition, especially at work.

Competition has a way of bringing people together. Inter-team competition tends to knit individuals into a community with a shared goal. This shifts attention away from internal differences and negative individual comparisons. Instead, the........

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