Competitiveness....

I find that it is healthy to be competitive in order to make us wanna move forward and do better... i.e. in moderation, everything is good.

What if it has become over-bearing and its annoying people? I think people has to be more alert on that... being too competitive comes across as insincere, pessimistic, like a bug - annoying!

I have been an adult student since I quit the airlines. During my degree, students I'm in the same class with are younger than me by a couple of years... some of them do not care less how well others do, but some are extremely competitive. I would let it go because they are younger and they would learn to tone it down a little when they are in the working world...

But now that I am in my Masters program... this is still prevalent. I am the middle-aged one in class... the younger ones, still do not care less... but to my surprise, the older ones are extremely competitive. Almost every semester for every subject, people would come up and ask, "How much did you get?" "God, I did worse than you" "Can I see your assignment" "What did you write for this and that?"

Beginning I would find it tolerable... but after a year of 3 semesters of 7 papers.... I have finally lost my patience yesterday. We are in an academic setting and day one we were told to cite every single point which we took from somewhere. But most of the class members did not. Except for two of us. Then the drama starts.... one after another comes and ask the same question... The last person got it, I'm sorry... but you were unlucky... "I just said, I dunno, I'm not the lecturer, don't ask me anymore, you guys are bugging me, seriously, let it go already"

To my surprise, the reply was "I like your answer" - in a sarcastic way... people do not learn... they will continue hitting their head on the same wall until they learn their lesson i.e. the wall is there and thus you need to use another route to prevent yourself from knocking your head again...

Are there any gender differences in competitiveness? Culture differences? Anything???