People perform better when competitive impulses are sparked with banter, new research says
By Elizabeth Bernstein | The Wall Street Journal
One recent evening after work, Wallace Bruce set off for a run. The 30-year-old actor had taken a few months off from exercising, so he planned an easy loop through his Los Angeles neighborhood.
He was five minutes from his house and had just broken a sweat when a man with white hair, also jogging, blew past him. Mr. Bruce estimated him to be in his late 70s. Ten yards down the road the man turned his head back and shouted: “Keep up… if you can!”
Although Mr. Bruce chuckled to himself, he immediately picked up his pace. “A ‘game-on’ type of instinct kicked in,” he says. “I thought, ‘Alright old man, I got you.’”
