Self-Development Through Competition: Coopetitive Mindset Intervention Enhances Academic Performance among At-Risk Students

Competition is traditionally viewed negatively within social sciences and is often considered antithetical to cooperation. This perspective may explain the limited focus on strategies that promote adaptive competitive behaviors, which is crucial in educational contexts. Our research introduces a novel theoretical approach and an intervention aimed at reshaping students’ thinking about competition. In a series of studies, we first identified a dominant learning-oriented competitive orientation in a sample that follows the national quota of the Hungarian population (Study 1: N=1,400). Building on this, we implemented a brief, 15-minute online intervention in a randomized-controlled trial (Study 2: N=592), highlighting the importance of self-developmental and collaborative aspects of competitive situations. The intervention successfully fostered both a competition-is-facilitating mindset and a self-developmental orientation among university students. This intervention promoted mastery-oriented behaviors, improved grades in an academically at-risk student sample, and maintained a balance with other-oriented goals. Subsequently, testing on a broader, non-student population (Study 3: N=1,364) confirmed the intervention’s efficacy in enhancing competitive mindsets conducive to learning and cooperation while reducing hypercompetitiveness. Our findings challenge the traditional dichotomy of competition versus cooperation in education, suggesting that adaptive competitive drives can be cultivated to support both personal growth and cooperative learning.