Jacques de Molay said:
There's no need for deep psychological analysis or overly-complicated social experiments. Just get out of bed in the morning and step out into the world. People like to "win," and their sense of entitlement comes long before their winning ways are set in motion. It's precisely what motivates them to achieve that "win" in the first place.
That's why people will do their best to get ahead of you in traffic. That's why the'll grab the cab or the parking spot you were waiting for. That's why they try to get more luggage onto a plane than is normally allowed. That's why they'll keep silent when the cashier hands them back more money than they knew they deserved.
It's a pervasive instinct the transcends most human differences, and spans all cultures, in all places, across history. The suggestion that we might have fewer cheaters if we were to only change the nature of our competitions is both embarrassingly childish and ignorant of our true nature. Winning against others is what we owe our very existence to.
So you think the researchers who did those studies cheated? They didn’t really find what they claimed to find? Because what they claimed to find is in fact that having won previously predisposes one to cheating more. Not cheating for the first time ever, no one is saying that most people never cheat. Just cheat more.
IOW, it’s a statistical effect. From the link:
"Dishonesty is a pretty complex phenomenon — there are all sorts of mechanisms behind it," said Schurr. "But people who win competitions feel more entitled, and that feeling of entitlement is what predicts dishonesty."
Notice they didn't claim that winning is the only process that contributes to a feeling of entitlement (being born rich generally does, too, e.g., not to mention being allowed to have everything you want when you're young). They just concluded that winning is one contributing factor, and that entitlement strongly contributes to cheating.
Nor do the researchers think competition could or should be eliminated:
Schurr, who calls competition "one of the greatest inventions of economists," doesn't believe it's inherently bad. But he does think it could use some reining in.
If you have a problem with this, you’re welcome to post a critique of the study, but nothing in your posts so far constitutes this. On the contrary, I think you're being simplistic in saying "people like to win". Just step into the world and you will see there is enormous variation in how much people want to win. Some people are obsessed with winning, will do anything to win. For many others, it really isn't that big a deal. They have other priorities. Likewise, if you think everyone behaves as described in your second paragraph, I don't think you've observed the world very carefully.
Everyone does want to survive, but that's not quite the same thing. It's been quite a long time since individuals in our species had to win in order to survive.