Desire to Win ?

[Youkai]

Hi,

I recently had a discussion with some ppl about the human desire to win !
I said and believe that EVERY human beeing has a desire to win, and that everyone tries to win all the time he/she can.
For that statemant i got flamed by many ppl (mostly by those who often loses against me) and was told an egoistic idiot, but still i believe that EVERYONE wants to win.
There are so many ppl who do everything just to win, some ppl would even kill just to win.

I would like to know what you think about it, who is right ?
I know it somehow sucks that ppl overdo it do bad things to win but they do, or am i totaly mistaken ?


P.S. for those who wants to know how ppl come to such a topic,
it started cuz of a game where some ppl didn't want to play together with weak player so that the teams would have been 2 good player against 2 newbies.

 

[iwakura]

i can't say i agree that 100% all people want to win, but i believe that the majority of people do. I've seen cases where people are completely broken down, with no fighting power left. Emo's for instance. I know someone that killed himself, (R.I.P. Garth, you moron) he just had no more will to keep going. There are tons of people that don't even have the confidence/motivation to leave their house (hikikomoris in japan). It's sad to admit, but not all people have the fighting spirit.

edit: i don't mean emo as in your typical emo - i'm not talking about the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, nothing like that. I mean real emo, not suicidal to get attention or something, but because they no longer see a point in living.

edit2: i kinda strayed from the whole "spirit to win", but I think it's pretty relevant..

 

[rice151]

lol @ Emos Like Dashboard Confessional fanbois?
I was just gonna say by saying "EVERY human beeing has a desire to win" is such an ABSOLUTE statement, of course people are going to try to flame you. There are always exceptions...What about people "casually" playing?

They are only playing to win because that is usually the "objective" of the game. Why would you want to play to lose...

 

[iwakura]

yeah, i'd have to agree that most people play to win, but you have to consider that there are people who don't play.

 

[Bridgy84]

I would say that if you have any aspirations in life you are in some way trying to win. I mean if you did not want to win you would really just do nothing. Any sucsesses in life in essence are a win so really everyone is trying to win in some way.

 

[jimmy j]

Everybody wants to win. It's not just a human desire either; The urge to compete is built into every living creature on the planet.

At the very core of our species there are two fundamental drives - reproduction and survival. These are both dependent on competition and this competitive urge permeates into everyday life.

Competition is the foundation of evolution

 

[Orc]

Live to win, 'till you die, 'till the light dies in your eyes
Live to win, take it all, just keep fighting till you fall

 

[hanman]

i agree that everyone wants to win, even "casual" players. nobody WANTS to lose. someone may intentionally throw a match, but even that requires other incentives. boxers taking a dive, for instance, to get a bigger payoff. i might throw a match of mario kart to let my wife win, otherwise she wouldn't want to play anymore. even the "emo" kid who commits suicide wants to win. in his mind, he's tired of losing at life, so he just stops playing. he wants to win, he's just convinced himself he can't. the fact is, we are born with an overwhelming desire to succeed at whatever we choose to do. unfortunately, that's impossible to do all the time. it's life's loses that teach us to try even harder to succeed. some people choose instead to give up, and that is truly tragic.

 

[iwakura]

i agree that everyone wants to win, even "casual" players. nobody WANTS to lose. someone may intentionally throw a match, but even that requires other incentives. boxers taking a dive, for instance, to get a bigger payoff. i might throw a match of mario kart to let my wife win, otherwise she wouldn't want to play anymore. even the "emo" kid who commits suicide wants to win. in his mind, he's tired of losing at life, so he just stops playing. he wants to win, he's just convinced himself he can't. the fact is, we are born with an overwhelming desire to succeed at whatever we choose to do. unfortunately, that's impossible to do all the time. it's life's loses that teach us to try even harder to succeed. some people choose instead to give up, and that is truly tragic.

Never thought of it that way. Thanks!

 

[mcp2]

Winning and competing against others is an innate feature.

That's why alpha males always dominate!

 

[VVoltz]

Fight with your soul!

 

[Legend]

Sigh.
This is simply just a matter of basic psychology and human nature.
Simply put, nobody LIKES to lose (unless they're gaining something from it, whether it be a learning experience, or an actual physical object).
When talking about games, yes - people do anything to win. Especially in sports (roiders, for example). But, like I said - this is a whole psychological thing. To some people, winning isn't all that important. To others, winning is everything, like you see in all those made-for-tv Family Channel movies.

Everybody knows that it's not fun to lose, but sometimes you gotta bite the bullet.
I too, believe that anyone can do anything that they so choose to do, whether it's winning a match with extremely favorable odds for the opponent, or climb a real high tree.

I'm too lazy to analyze the rest of this, so you're on your own.

 

[butaro]

Fine, be my guest if you want to die.

 

[mcp2]

I'm going to go with Legend's whole psychology thing.

Seligman proposed that we are born with phobias of certain situations and things. Losing or winning. According to Watson and Rayner winning has probably been conditioned with survival. Thus wanting to win is innate (we are born with it) which is Biological Preparedness.

The reason why people get upset/angry/violent when they are losing is due to stress. When we see a situation as threatening then this causes stress. Sympstoms of stress can be anxiety, anger, periods of incactivity etc.

So all in all that's why everybody likes to win and why there "bad loosers".

 

[Glacius0]

You can't confine the statement to wanting to win, because sometimes you want to accomplish something that doesn't require winning. The whole thing basically comes down to "people want things".

Some of my personal beliefs: Wanting to win actually gets in the way of winning. You should strive for wanting to improve. You don't improve if you keep applying the same winning strategy. Try something else, lose, and see it as an investment to improve. Improving is the key to winning, winning itself is just a result.

However, striving to improve can get in the way of having fun. Figuring out how to improve at a game by applying the above mentioned tactic may leave you without friends to play with. Being equally skilled is where things are the most fun for both you and your opponent.

Depending on the situation, decide which is more important to you. Both can be fun, it just depends.

Think it through for a minute and you'll see you can actually apply this to just about anything. Example: I went to dance lessons with my girlfriend. I went with the intention to improve, and learned the steps in one lesson. However, my girlfriend couldn't remember her steps, and I got frustrated with her not being able to keep up. That was my fault, not hers; I wasn't set on having fun. From now on, I'll be helping her improve instead.

Whaddaya know, gaming actually teaches you something.

 

[Youkai]

good that here are mature people who give good reasons and especially share my opinion in most parts XD

i'll link this topic to those guys who said i am stupid to say everyone wants to win ... maybe after reading all of your posts they might at least believe it a little bit.



Some time ago i saw in TV a show where they analyzed little kids and they sayd that even little 3 or 4 years old kids already compete against each other only not knowing it themselfe

 

[Legend]

Just so you know, I don't think that people that aren't members of Gbatemp can see topics, so your peeps are gunna have to register before reading.

 

[Psyfira]

Totally agree with Hanman, although I wouldn't say everyone wants to win absolutely everything. It depends if they find the "game" important or not. The most important games are the ones we don't even realise we're playing. (Life-stuff being more important than losing a silly round of Mario Kart, for example)

 

[deathfisaro]

Strange thing is, if I play Texas hold'em with say 4 people then I'm not afraid go out first. But if I'm one of the only two left then I want to win.

 

[mcp2]

Thing is, you need a good hand or a stern face ^^