When a competitor and opponent have a common identity that’s relevant to a particular competition, it will increase their perception of rivalry and inspire them to try harder, according to new Cornell research.

Expanding on past studies showing that competitors are particularly motivated to perform well against certain opponents, Emily Zitek, associate professor of organizational behavior in the ILR School, found that having either the same gender or the same nationality as an opponent leads to greater perceptions of rivalry and subsequent better effort-based performance.

“Typically, we think of rivalries at a team level,” Zitek said. “Interestingly, what our research found was that within a rivalry, an individual player could have a special rivalry with one particular player on the opposing team simply because they share an identity that goes beyond the team identity.”   

In the paper, “Identity-Based Rivalry: A Common Identity Across Competitors Leads to Rivalry Perceptions and Better Performance,” published Oct. 18 by Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, Zitek hypothesized that having a common identity leads to a greater rivalry.

To test this theory, she and her co-authors – doctoral student Claire Sandman Malcomb and Frank J. Hager ’12, MBA ’24 – ran an online experiment that compared men’s and women’s perceptions of their most recent same-gender and different-gender opponents in sports, and then analyzed a Major League Baseball archival dataset to examine if there were any rivalry effects for batters who go up against catchers of the same (vs. different) nationalities.

“Frank was a former baseball player and coach here at Cornell, so he was the one who originally had this idea that the pairings of different nationalities would matter for hitting performance; it’s something that’s discussed in the baseball community,” said Zitek, who studies the factors that affect people’s participation and performance in sports. “And the study also really resonated with me as mixed sport athlete – I play Ultimate Frisbee – where all genders compete together in my particular division.”

In the first study, the researchers asked people to think of the last time they competed against a same-gender and a different-gender opponent, then answer rivalry-related questions about each opponent. 

They found that perceptions of rivalry were significantly higher for same-gender opponents. Moreover, participants rated their same-gender opponents as more similar, said they had more frequent competitions with them and reported that these matchups were more competitive or even.

“One interesting pattern that emerged was that having the same gender identity as an opponent was a stronger predictor of rivalry perceptions for men than for women,” Zitek said. “We believe that when men play against someone of the same gender identity, they feel like they’re rivals maybe because they feel like they’re similar, and maybe because they’ve competed against each other frequently in the past and feel like it will be a close matchup. Those things aren’t as true when they compete against women.

“On the other hand, there is research that has shown that another source of rivalry comes from when people feel like they're the disadvantaged group. So, when women are competing against women, they feel like they’re rivals because they're similar and have frequent and close match-ups. But when they compete against men, there are also feelings rivalry for women because they feel like they have something to prove,” she said. 

In the second study, the researchers obtained a dataset from MLB’s Statcast of all MLB plate appearances from 2015 to 2020 and assessed hitting performance based on a batter’s slugging percentage. They chose to study American and Dominican Republic players – two of the most common nationalities in MLB – and focused on catchers because the catcher works in close proximity to the batter during the at-bat and suggests the pitches that will be thrown to the batter. 

They found that both American and Dominican batters had significantly better slugging percentages when a catcher of the same nationality was behind the plate, but the boost was higher in Dominican players. 

The stronger results for the Dominican players are consistent with research on the sources of rivalry, in that that these players are more likely to have had repeated competitions over time with each other given the smaller size of their country and how the Dominican baseball leagues are organized. Also, the Dominican players are a minority group in MLB, and minority group members often have a stronger sense of identity, which may make them feel more similar and connected to each other, Zitek said.

“It’s so interesting that you can have these rivalries at a team level, but then also have a special rivalry with one particular player on the opposing team just for the simple reason that they share an identity,” she said. “It’s important to understand sport performance and what motivates people. Being an athlete is tiring, and they’re always looking for other ways to stay motivated. So, thinking about individual rivalries versus just team rivalries could be a good way to improve performance.”

Julie Greco is a senior communications specialist for the ILR School.