Hypercompetitiveness in academia: achieving criterion-related validity from item context specificity

A measurement of a conditional disposition, academic hypercompetitiveness, was created via the contextualization of hypercompetitiveness scale items into situations and circumstances relevant to academic life. An investigation of the construct and criterion-related validity of this new instrument, the Hypercompetitiveness in Academia (HIA) scale, was conducted. The HIA scale was found to be more strongly associated with academic outcomes and achievements than a scale measuring individual differences in a generalized, context-independent, hypercompetitive disposition. Conversely, the generalized hypercompetitiveness scale was found to be more strongly associated with measures of antisocial dispositions. The implications of this research on Horney's (1937) theory of neurosis, the possible negative repercussions of academic hypercompetitiveness, and the study of individual differences through investigations of conditional dispositions were discussed.