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One-upmanship
One-upmanship, also called "one-upsmanship", is the art or practice of successively outdoing a competitor. The term was first used in the title of a book by Stephen Potter, published in 1952 as a follow-up to ''The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating)'' (1947), and ''Lifemanship'' titles in his series of tongue-in-cheek self-help books, and film and television derivatives, that teach various ploys to achieve this. This comic satire of self-help style guides manipulates traditional British conventions for the gamester, all life being a game, who understands that ''if you're not one-up, you're one-down.'' Potter's unprincipled principles apply to almost any possession, experience or situation, deriving maximum undeserved rewards and discomfitting the opposition. The 1960 film ''School for Scoundrels'' and its 2006 remake were satiric portrayals of how to use Potter's ideas. In that context, the term refers to a satiric course ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Office Politics
Workplace politics is the process and behavior that in human interactions involves power and authority. It is also a tool to assess the operational capacity and to balance diverse views of interested parties. It is also known as office politics and organizational politics. It involves the use of power and social networking within a workplace to achieve changes that benefit the individuals within it. "Organizational politics are self-serving behaviors" that "employees use to increase the probability of obtaining positive outcomes in organizations". Influence by individuals may serve personal interests without regard to their effect on the organization itself. Some of the personal advantages may include: * access to tangible assets * or intangible benefits such as status * pseudo-authority that influences the behavior of others Positive politics are behaviors that are designed to influence others with the goal of helping both the organization and the person playing the politics. Examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamesmanship
Gamesmanship is the use of dubious (although not technically illegal) methods to win or gain a serious advantage in a game or sport. It has been described as "Pushing the rules to the limit without getting caught, using whatever dubious methods possible to achieve the desired end". It may be inferred that the term derives from the idea of playing for the game (i.e., to win at any cost) as opposed to sportsmanship, which derives from the idea of playing for sport. The term was popularized by Stephen Potter's humorous 1947 book, ''The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship (or the Art of Winning Games without Actually Cheating)''. It had, however, been used before by Ian Coster in his autobiographic book ''Friends in Aspic'', published in 1939, where it was attributed to Francis Meynell. Alleged origins Potter cites the origin of gamesmanship to be a tennis match [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaming The System
Gaming the system (also rigging, abusing, cheating, milking, playing, working, or breaking the system, or gaming or bending the rules) can be defined as using the rules and procedures meant to protect a system to, instead, Psychological manipulation, manipulate the system for a desired outcome. According to James Rieley, a British advisor to CEOs and an author, structures in companies and organizations (both explicit and implicit policies and procedures, stated goals, and mental models) drive behaviors that are detrimental to long-term organizational success and stifle competition. For some, error is the essence of gaming the system, in which a gap in protocol allows for errant practices that lead to unintended results. Although the term generally carries negative connotations, gaming the system can be used for benign purposes in the undermining and dismantling of corrupt or oppressive organisations. History The first known documented use of the term "gaming the system" is in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arms Race
An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and the aim of superior military technology, the term is also used to describe any long-term escalating competitive situation where each competitor or competitive group focuses on out-doing others. Unlike a sporting race, which constitutes a specific event with winning interpretable as the outcome of a singular project, arms races constitute spiralling systems of on-going and potentially open-ended behavior. The existing scholarly literature is divided as to whether arms races correlate with war. International-relations scholars explain arms races in terms of the security dilemma, rationalist spiral models, states with revisionist aims, and deterrence models. Examples Pre-First World War naval arms race From 1897 to 1914, a nav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Potter
Stephen Meredith Potter (1 February 1900 – 2 December 1969) was a British writer best known for his parodies of self-help books, and their film and television derivatives. After leaving school in the last months of the First World War he was commissioned as a junior officer in the British Army, but by the time he had completed his training the war was over and he was demobilised. He then studied English at Oxford, and after some false starts he spent his early working life as an academic, lecturing in English literature at Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, during which time he published several works on Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Finding his income inadequate to support himself and his family, he left the university and took up a post producing and writing for the BBC. He remained with the BBC until after the Second World War, when he became a freelance writer, and remained so for the rest of his life. His series of humorous books on how to secure an unfair ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Competitor
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attainment of any exclusive goal, including recognition: Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other biological resources. Humans usually compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment. Competition is a major tenet of market economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers. Competition inside a company is usu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winning Streak (sports)
A winning streak, also known as a win streak or hot streak, is an uninterrupted sequence of success in games or competitions, commonly measured by at least 4 wins that are uninterrupted by losses or ties/draws. Although sometimes claimed as a winning streak by those unaccustomed to winning, simply winning two games in a row is most definitely not a win streak. In sports, it can be applied to teams, and individuals. In sports where teams or individuals represent groups such as countries or regions, those groups can also be said to have winning streaks if their representatives win consecutive games or competitions, even if the competitors are different. Streaks can also be applied to specific competitions: for example, a competitor who wins an event in three consecutive Olympic Games has an Olympic winning streak, even if they have lost other competitions during the period. Longest streaks The longest (in terms of time) recorded winning streak in any professional sports is Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opportunism
Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances – with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individual humans and living organisms, groups, organizations, styles, behaviors, and trends. Opportunism or "opportunistic behaviour" is an important concept in such fields of study as biology, transaction cost economics, game theory, ethics, psychology, sociology and politics. Definitions Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances. Although in many societies opportunism often has a strong negative moral connotation, it may also be defined more neutrally as putting self-interest before other interests when there is an opportunity to do so, or flexibly adapting to changing circumstances to maximize self-interest (though usually in a way that negates some principle prev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mind Games
Playing mind games (also power games or head games) is the largely conscious struggle for psychological one-upmanship, often employing passive–aggressive behavior to specifically demoralize or dis-empower the thinking subject, making the aggressor look superior. It also describes the unconscious games played by people engaged in ulterior transactions of which they are not fully aware, and which transactional analysis considers to form a central element of social life all over the world. The first known use of the term "mind game" dates from 1963, and "head game" from 1977. Conscious one-upmanship In intimate relationships, mind games can be used to undermine one partner's belief in the validity of their own perceptions. Personal experience may be denied and driven from memory, and such abusive mind games may extend to the denial of the victim's reality, social undermining, and downplaying the importance of the other partner's concerns or perceptions. Both sexes have equa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dozens
The Dozens is a game played between two contestants in which the participants insult each other until one of them gives up. Common in African-American communities, the Dozens is almost exclusively played in front of an audience, who encourage the participants to reply with increasingly severe insults in order to heighten the tension and consequently make the contest more interesting to watch. Comments in the game may focus on the opposite player's intelligence, appearance, competency, social status, and financial situation. Disparaging remarks about the other player's family members are common, especially regarding their mother. Commentary is often related to sexual issues, and this version of the game is referred to as the "Dirty Dozens".Chimezie, Amuzie (June 1976). "The Dozens: An African-Heritage Theory", ''Journal of Black Studies'', Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 401–420. According to sociologist Harry Lefever and journalist John Leland, the game is played almost entirely by Afric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, individuals, economic and social groups, etc. The rivalry can be over attainment of any exclusive goal, including Recognition (sociology), recognition: Competition occurs in nature, between living organisms which co-exist in the same natural environment, environment. Animals compete over water supplies, food, mates, and other resource (biology), biological resources. Humans usually Survival of the fittest, compete for food and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, power, prestige, and celebrity, fame when in a static, repetitive, or unchanging environment. Competition is a major tenet of market economy, market economies and business, often associated with business competition as companies a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Group Dynamics
Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group (''intra''group dynamics), or between social groups ( ''inter''group dynamics). The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, leadership studies, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies. History The history of group dynamics (or group processes) has a consistent, underlying premise: 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.' A social group is an entity that has qualities which cannot be understood just by studying the individuals that make up the group. In 1924, Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer proposed ‘There are e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
