Slightly behind = more motivation

"Encouraging people to see themselves as behind others, albeit only slightly, should increase motivation."

That's from the conclusion of an academic paper that I read about in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ reported:

According to their [Jonah Berger and Devin Pope] findings, men's college basketball teams increase their chances of winning by 5.5% to 7.7% if they are behind by a single point at halftime. In fact, if a team goes to the locker room after 20 minutes down by one point, they actually have a 51.3% chance of winning the game.

I think most people recognize what they reported. If you are a little bit behind your competition, you work pretty hard to do better. It is encouraging to be just a little bit behind.