Abstract
A first experiment reported in this paper had 30 subjects play 100 trials of a Maximizing Difference Game against a simulated partner who followed one of two modified delayed matching strategies. Half of the subjects met a strategy designed to make them inferior, the other half a strategy making them superior in terms of relative gain maximization The inferior group showed significantly more relative gain achievement than the superior group In a second experiment 98 subjects played 100 trials of a Mutual Fate Control Game against one of seven pre-programmed strategies, entailing different levels of inferiority risk and superiority deprivation. The results fully supported the predictions that the amount of inferiority risk, as a primary factor, and of superiority deprivation, as a secondary factor, should be directly related to the amount of relative gain achievement and inversely related to the amount of joint gain achievement.