The more people you're competing against, the less motivated and competitive you are

[robg]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/surprising_insights_from_the_social_sciences/?page=full

[robg]

Here's the academic paper:

http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/stephen.garcia/files/the_n-ef...

[sarvesh]

Observations of these kinds are good only if they are backed by any scienctific explaination as what could be the cause.

If individuals get less motivated and less competitive with more people in the tests then the highest test scores for many standardized tests should have dropped considerably over the years which I don't believe has been the case.