Is Winning an Unfair Game Better Than Loosing a Fair One?

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Winning is a concept which has various meanings to different people. Some may believe that it is better to win and it doesn’t matter how, while others may believe that playing a fair game is more beneficial than winning a game played unfairly.
The first belief is acquired by people with a certain personality type, mostly individuals who are competitive and self-critical. They aim towards goals without feeling accomplishment in their efforts but only in their achievement of the final goal. To them, winning cannot be a game played by oneself, it has to be a comparison between them and the other competitors. One can only win if one is better in comparison to someone else. A study was conducted by a team from Carnegie Mellon, Harvard. This study proposed that winning and losing trigger distinct thought processes in the brain. One of their findings stated, “happiness increases when we get a raise but someone else doesn’t (in other words, our relative income increases) but not when everyone’s income is increased. It’s not the absolute amount of money that’s the question; it’s the comparison.” A few studies have been conducted which show the importance of winning and how it increases one’s self confidence, causing something which is called a “winning streak”. Psychologist Allen Fox explains in his book The Winners Mind that, "Unconscious fear of failure saps the will to win by distorting perceptions and causing competitors to hesitate to compete, procrastinate, lie to themselves, blame others, fail to finish tasks, and panic on the verge of victory.” Psychologist Ian Robertson explains in his book The Winner Effect that “Winning increases testosterone, which in turn increases the chemical messenger dopamine and that dopamine, hits the reward network in the brain, which makes us feel better.” The winning desire becomes stronger than one’s conscience of loyalty and winning

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