How does competition motivate risk-taking? In this chapter, the authors consider and define competition through the lens of evolution by natural selection. The authors then review the relative state model, a recently developed, evolutionarily informed, mathematically modeled motivational framework that conceptualizes risk-taking as a product of competitive dis/advantage. The authors describe how an understanding of the two key inputs into competitive dis/advantage—embodied capital and situational/environmental factors—can shed light on risk-taking in the pursuit of proxies of fitness in three key domains: resources, mates, and status. Finally, the authors offer some informed speculation on the proximate psychology of competitive dis/advantage, focusing on how individual differences in the subjective experience of dis/advantage may influence patterns of risk-taking.

Delay discounting is a measure of preferences for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. Discounting has been assessed in many ways; these methods have variably and inconsistently involved measures of different lengths (single vs. multiple items), forced‐choice methods, self‐report methods, online and laboratory assessments, monetary and non‐monetary compensation. The majority of these studies have been conducted in laboratory settings. However, over the past 20 years, behavioral data collection has increasingly shifted online. Usually, these experiments involve completing short tasks for small amounts of money, and are thus qualitatively different than experiments in the lab, which are typically more involved and in a strongly controlled environment. The present study aimed to determine how to best measure future discounting in a crowdsourced sample using three discounting measures (a single shot measure, the 27‐item Kirby Monetary Choice Questionnaire, and a one‐time Matching Task). We examined associations of these measures with theoretically related variables, and assessed influence of payment on responding. Results indicated that correlations between the discounting tasks and conceptually related measures were smaller than in prior laboratory experiments. Moreover, our results suggest providing monetary compensation may attenuate correlations between discounting measures and related variables. These findings suggest that incentivizing discounting measures changes the nature of measurement in these tasks.