People who enjoy outshining romantic rivals share distinct psychological traits across cultures

A recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior suggests that people who enjoy outshining same-sex rivals in the dating world also tend to exhibit a distinct set of psychological traits, regardless of their cultural background. By exploring these patterns across three different countries, the research provides evidence that the ways humans compete for romantic partners share deep psychological roots across diverse societies.

In the context of evolutionary psychology, intrasexual competition refers to the ways individuals compete with members of their own sex to attract and retain romantic partners. People typically navigate this rivalry using two main strategies. They either promote their own desirable qualities or attempt to diminish the perceived value of their competitors.

“Intrasexual competition, the tendency to compete with same-sex others for romantic and sexual opportunities, is a central concept in evolutionary psychology,” said Norbert Meskó, a full professor in the Department of Cognitive and Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Pécs in Hungary.

Meskó, who is also the director of the Evolutionary Psychology Lab, noted that previous research often focused on a single geographic area. “However, most previous studies have examined it within a single country, making it difficult to know whether the observed patterns reflect universal aspects of human mating psychology or culture-specific phenomena,” he explained.

The researchers also wanted to explore how competitive drives break down into specific feelings. “We were also interested in a more recent development in the field,” Meskó said. “Research has suggested that intrasexual competition is not a single construct but may consist of at least two distinct components.”

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“One reflects enjoyment of outperforming same-sex rivals, while the other reflects frustration when encountering rivals perceived as more attractive or desirable,” Meskó continued. “We wanted to examine whether these two components show different psychological correlates and whether those associations would replicate across culturally different countries.”

By gathering data from diverse populations, the researchers aimed to see if these psychological connections hold up internationally. “To address these questions, we collected data from participants in Canada, Hungary, and Indonesia and examined links between intrasexual competition and sensation seeking, aggression, appearance-enhancing behavior, openness to cosmetic surgery, sexual motivation, and sociosexuality,” Meskó said.

These behaviors include sensation seeking, which involves the pursuit of novel and intense experiences. People high in intrasexual competition might also show greater aggression and an unrestricted sociosexual orientation. Sociosexuality refers to a person’s willingness to engage in sexual activity outside of a committed relationship. A person with unrestricted sociosexuality is generally more comfortable with casual, uncommitted sexual encounters.

Investing in physical beauty can also serve as a strategy to stand out when physical attractiveness is heavily weighed by potential mates. Certain physical cues signal health and vitality, making appearance a major factor in reproductive competition. Because of this, highly competitive individuals may show a stronger drive to enhance their physical appearance. In some cases, this drive can manifest as a willingness to undergo cosmetic procedures to gain an advantage.

To conduct the research, the scientists recruited 661 adults ranging in age from 18 to 67 years old. The sample included 124 participants from Canada, 272 from Hungary, 96 from Indonesia, and 169 international students from various other countries. The vast majority of the participants, roughly 75 percent, identified as women. Participants completed an online questionnaire that was provided in both English and Hungarian, depending on the respondent’s primary language and location.

The survey assessed a variety of psychological traits through self-report measures. The researchers measured intrasexual competition by breaking it down into the two distinct components mentioned earlier. The first component, superiority enjoyment, captures the pursuit of social dominance and the pleasure derived from being better than same-sex rivals. The second component, inferiority frustration, reflects the negative emotions and frustration a person feels when encountering a rival perceived as more desirable.

The questionnaire also measured participants’ levels of sensation seeking and their tendencies toward physical and verbal aggression. The survey evaluated sociosexual attitudes, such as how often participants fantasized about or engaged in casual sex. The researchers also asked participants about the specific time they spend on beauty-enhancing routines. This included activities like applying makeup, styling hair, or following a specific diet to improve their attractiveness.

To gain a more complete psychological profile, the survey evaluated participants’ openness to cosmetic surgery. It also explored their personal motivations for engaging in sexual activity. These motivations were categorized into different areas, such as seeking personal experience, comforting a partner, or coping with emotional stress. By analyzing these diverse measures, the authors aimed to build a comprehensive picture of how mating competition influences daily life.

The researchers found that the superiority enjoyment component of mating competition showed consistent positive links with almost all the measured psychological variables across the three countries. Individuals who scored high in superiority enjoyment were more likely to report a desire for intense and thrilling experiences. They also tended to exhibit higher levels of physical and verbal aggression, as well as general hostility.

“Our findings suggest that people who enjoy competing with same-sex rivals tend to show a broader pattern of mating-related attitudes and behaviors,” Meskó said. “They reported higher sensation seeking, greater aggression, stronger appearance-enhancing efforts, more openness to cosmetic surgery, stronger sexual motivations, and a more unrestricted sociosexual orientation.”

“Importantly, these patterns appeared remarkably consistent across countries,” Meskó added. “Although average levels of some traits differed between societies, the psychological links themselves were often very similar.”

This competitive enjoyment predicted a much stronger focus on physical appearance. Those who wanted to outshine their rivals spent significantly more time on daily beauty-enhancing behaviors. They also expressed a greater willingness to undergo cosmetic surgery for both personal and social reasons. This suggests that people who enjoy social dominance are more willing to invest heavily in strategies that boost their visible value as a mate.

In terms of sexual behavior, superiority enjoyment was linked to a greater desire for uncommitted casual sex. Competitive individuals also reported a wider variety of motivations for having sex. They were more likely to use sex to achieve a personal goal, to connect with a partner, or to cope with emotional difficulties. This indicates that highly competitive people might view sexual behavior as a flexible tool for navigating social and emotional challenges.

“In everyday terms, this suggests that competitive motivations in the mating domain are connected to a broader constellation of behaviors and attitudes that help people attract, pursue, or retain romantic partners,” Meskó explained.

The associations involving the second component, inferiority frustration, were generally weaker and less consistent across the board. While feeling frustrated by rivals did predict some behaviors, such as a desire for uncommitted sex, it lacked strong ties to other traits. For example, inferiority frustration was not reliably linked to sensation seeking or daily beauty enhancement.

“One of the most interesting findings was how differently the two components of intrasexual competition behaved,” Meskó said. “We expected both superiority enjoyment and inferiority frustration to be related to many of the examined variables. Instead, the superiority enjoyment component emerged as the much stronger and more consistent predictor.”

“In contrast, inferiority frustration showed weaker and less reliable associations,” Meskó noted. “This suggests that actively enjoying competition may be psychologically quite different from simply feeling threatened by attractive rivals. Although both experiences are often grouped under the label of intrasexual competition, they may represent distinct psychological processes.”

When looking at international differences, the authors found that average levels of superiority enjoyment were practically identical in Canada, Hungary, and Indonesia. This provides evidence that the active drive to outcompete romantic rivals might be a relatively universal human trait.

“Another interesting finding was the cross-cultural consistency,” Meskó said. “Given the substantial cultural differences between Canada, Hungary, and Indonesia, we expected more variation in the observed associations than we actually found.”

However, cultural differences did emerge regarding inferiority frustration. Canadian participants reported significantly lower levels of frustration when facing desirable rivals compared to participants in Hungary and Indonesia.

While the statistical numbers varied, the overall trends remained steady. “The effects were generally modest to moderate rather than large,” Meskó clarified. “This is typical in personality and social psychological research, where human behavior is influenced by many interacting factors.”

“What makes the findings noteworthy is not the size of any single association but their consistency,” he added. “The same component of intrasexual competition, superiority enjoyment, showed positive relationships with a wide range of mating-relevant variables across multiple cultural contexts. When a psychological trait repeatedly predicts different but theoretically related outcomes, it suggests that the trait may reflect a meaningful underlying dimension of human mating psychology.”

As with all research, there are some limitations to consider. The study relied on a cross-sectional design and self-reported questionnaires, meaning it captures a single snapshot in time.

“One important point is that our study does not imply that people who score higher on intrasexual competition are better or worse than others,” Meskó said. “Intrasexual competition is a normal aspect of human social and mating behavior. Everyone competes to some extent, although people differ in how strongly they do so.”

Because of the study’s design, the data can only highlight associations and cannot prove that competitive drives directly cause these specific behaviors. “Another caveat is that the study is correlational,” Meskó noted. “We found that these traits tend to occur together, but we cannot determine causal direction. For example, we cannot say whether competitive tendencies lead people to become more appearance-focused, or whether people who invest more heavily in their appearance become more competitive,” he explained.

The sample also featured a strong gender imbalance, with women making up three-quarters of the participants. This imbalance prevented the scientists from running reliable statistical models to see if these patterns differ significantly between men and women. The number of participants from Indonesia was also relatively small, which might have influenced the statistical stability of those specific national comparisons. “Finally, although we included participants from multiple countries, future research should examine additional cultural contexts and more representative national samples,” Meskó said.

Future research could explore cultural variables, such as national income inequality, which might help explain why certain aspects of dating rivalry fluctuate between societies. Tracking participants over time could provide evidence about how competitive dating strategies develop and change across a person’s lifespan.

“One of our goals is to better understand how intrasexual competition fits into a broader network of mating-related psychological traits and behaviors,” Meskó said. “Future studies could examine its connections with relationship maintenance, mate retention, social media use, body image, self-presentation, and modern online dating environments.”

“We are also interested in understanding why superiority enjoyment appears to be a more powerful predictor than inferiority frustration,” he added. “Future work may explore whether these dimensions have different developmental origins, personality correlates, or social consequences.”

Identifying these patterns could help psychologists better understand the social pressures that drive extreme appearance enhancement and risky sexual behaviors. “More broadly, we hope to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how competition operates in human mating psychology across different cultural settings,” Meskó noted.

“One aspect of the study that we believe is particularly important is its cross-cultural design,” he continued. “Much of psychological science still relies heavily on data from Western populations. By including participants from Canada, Hungary, and Indonesia and carefully addressing measurement equivalence across languages and cultures, we were able to test whether these relationships generalize beyond a single cultural context.”

“The results suggest that some aspects of intrasexual competition may reflect relatively robust features of human mating psychology, even though cultures differ in many other ways,” Meskó concluded. “That combination of universality and cultural variation is one of the most fascinating challenges in contemporary psychological research.”

The study, “A Cross‑Cultural Examination of Intrasexual Competition: The Links Between Mating Competition, Aggression, Appearance Enhancement, and Sexuality,” was authored by Norbert Meskó, Adam C. Davis, Steven Arnocky, Fanni Őry, Katalin Orsolya Burghardt, Dóra Eszter Kiss, Kevin Efrain Tololiu, Juneman Abraham, and Hyemin Han.