Have you “involution” today—Competition psychology scale for college students

Abstract

In order to investigate the competitive psychology of college students in the current context of fierce social competition, this study compiled a competition psychology scale for college students [i.e., the Competition Psychology Scale for College Students (CPS-CS)]. The scale was administered online to 628 university students in different regions of China. After item analysis, reliability analysis, and validity analysis, a 6-item scale was finally formed. CPS-CS contains four dimensions: hypercompetitive attitude, competitive motivation, personal development, competitive attitude, and competitive interpersonal relationships. The reliability and validity of the CPS-CS developed in this research meet the requirements of psychometrics.

Development and validation of an Academic Involution Scale for College Students in China

“…We found that some proactive students took initiative to make competition with their counterparts in a role of “involutioner” (an anxiety maker) rather than “involutionee” (an anxiety sufferer). This is in line with Liu et al's (2022) HCA. Therefore, future studies can conduct a mixed approach combing the scale measurement and deep interview to access the involutional psychology of college students.…”

“…In consonance with Liu et al's (2022) involutional representations, three constructs concerning the Chinese college students' involutional behavior repeatedly emerge in literature: (1) Academic Behavior , such as competing for a high score or scholarship. Instead of stimulating academic prosperity, the overdue academic involution may not only put students under constant pressure and distress, fearing that they will not be able to obtain a desirable score, a scholarship and even graduation, but also catalyze the unethical behaviors such as the falsified data, plagiarism, ghostwriting, and other off‐beat behaviors (Li, 2023, p. 2).…”

“…With respect to the concurrent validity, all three factors were significantly and moderately related to the academic anxiety of college students in a positive manner (Cassady et al, 2019). From an internal perspective, Liu et al (2022) probed into the dominant competition psychology of Chinese college students, that is, hypercompetive attitude (HCA, such as “When I succeed, I think people get jealous of me”) and personal development and competitive attitude (PDCA, such as “Competition can improve my social skills”). Our external research is behavior‐oriented, which are complementary to Liu et al's (2022) by answering what behaviors and activities have a stake in involution.…”

“…In a similar vein, Competition Psychology Scale for College Students (CPS‐CS) was developed to investigate the competitive psychology of Chinese college students. CPS‐CS is composed of four dimensions: (1) hypercompetitive attitude, (2) competitive motivation, (3) personal development competitive attitude, and (4) competitive interpersonal relationships (Liu et al, 2022). Overall, the internal approach produces a range of multidimensional, psychometrically sound, and comprehensive scales, highlighting the competitive psychological structure of Chinese college students against the social backdrop of COVID‐19.…”

“…Given that involution is a socialized process in which different agents strive for limited resources thereby realizing self‐achievement and self‐values, we are more interested in Chinese college students' competition‐oriented behaviors. As the developers of CPS‐CS point out, “being a major group in society, college students face competition from academics, clubs, and interpersonal relationships in school on the one hand and the pressure of competing with others in society and the workplace on the other” (Liu et al, 2022, p. 2). Therefore, the internal and external approaches are complementary to each other.…”