Competition Is Competition for Desired Objects
metaphor
Source: Economics → Competition
Categories: cognitive-sciencelinguistics
From: Master Metaphor List
Transfers
This metaphor structures competition through the lens of scarce, desirable objects that multiple parties want but not all can have. Where the aggression metaphor frames competition as a fight and the race metaphor frames it as a sprint, this mapping frames competition as a grabbing contest: there is a thing, multiple people want it, and the question is who gets it. The source domain is the embodied experience of reaching for objects — toys, food, mates, territory — that others also want.
Key structural parallels:
- The desired object — competition is organized around something concrete that can be possessed. Market share, a job opening, a grant, a championship title. The metaphor insists that competition has a specific prize, not just a process. “What are they competing for?” is the first question the frame demands.
- Scarcity — the object is limited. If one party gets it, others cannot, or at least get less. “There’s only so much to go around.” “They’re fighting over scraps.” The metaphor makes zero-sum reasoning feel natural because physical objects are inherently exclusive in possession.
- Reaching and grasping — competitive action is modeled as physically acquiring the object. “Grab market share.” “Seize the opportunity.” “They snatched the contract.” The bodily schema of extending your hand and closing it around something structures how competitive success feels.
- Possession and loss — the outcome of competition is having or not having the object. “They got the deal.” “We lost the account.” Winners hold the object; losers are empty-handed. The metaphor makes competitive outcomes feel tangible and final.
- Proximity — being close to the desired object is being close to winning. “Within reach.” “They’re close to landing the contract.” Distance from the object maps onto likelihood of competitive success.
Limits
- Many competitive goods are not scarce in the way objects are — the metaphor imports physical scarcity into domains where it may not apply. Knowledge, reputation, and network effects are not diminished by being shared. When companies compete for “mindshare” or “attention,” the desired object metaphor smuggles in a zero-sum assumption that distorts the actual dynamics. One person’s attention to a brand does not necessarily reduce another’s.
- Objects are static; competitive prizes change shape — the metaphor assumes the thing being competed for holds still while competitors reach for it. But in practice, the prize transforms during the competition. The market opportunity that existed when the race began may be entirely different by the time someone “grasps” it. The metaphor has no vocabulary for a desired object that morphs.
- Possession is binary; competitive advantage is graduated — you either hold the object or you don’t. But competitive positions are typically matters of degree: partial market share, conditional offers, shared custody. The metaphor’s crisp possession semantics make messy competitive realities feel like failures of resolution rather than accurate descriptions.
- The metaphor obscures value creation — if competition is about grabbing existing objects, then the total value in the system is fixed. The frame makes entrepreneurship and innovation illegible because creating new desired objects is not part of the grabbing script. “Creating value” has to fight against the metaphor’s assumption that value is pre-existing and waiting to be seized.
- It infantilizes — the deepest source experience for this metaphor is children grabbing for the same toy. The mapping carries that connotation even in sophisticated contexts. “They’re all scrambling for the same pie” reduces strategic competition to a playground squabble, which may be illuminating or may be reductive depending on the situation.
Expressions
- “Grab market share” — acquiring a portion of a market as physically seizing an object
- “They snatched the contract from us” — competitive loss as having an object taken from your hands
- “Within reach” — proximity to the desired object as likelihood of competitive success
- “There’s only so much pie to go around” — competitive goods as a finite physical quantity to be divided
- “Scrambling for the same resources” — multiple competitors reaching for the same objects simultaneously
- “They cornered the market” — positioning so that others cannot reach the desired objects
- “Land the deal” — successfully grasping the competitive prize, with the added metaphor of fishing (landing a catch)
- “The prize goes to the highest bidder” — the desired object awarded through competitive allocation
- “Low-hanging fruit” — desired objects that are easy to grab, requiring minimal competitive effort
Origin Story
Documented in the Master Metaphor List (Lakoff, Espenson & Schwartz, 1991) as the third source domain for COMPETITION, alongside 1-ON-1 PHYSICAL AGGRESSION and RACE. This mapping is distinctive because its source domain is itself a type of competition — competition for physical objects is the most concrete, embodied form of competition there is. In Grady’s (1997) terms, it may function as a primary scene: the childhood experience of multiple children wanting the same toy is a plausible experiential basis for abstract competitive reasoning.
The metaphor is closely related to the broader PURPOSES ARE DESIRED OBJECTS mapping in the Event Structure metaphor system. Competition for desired objects is a special case where multiple agents share the same purpose (acquiring the same object) and the object’s scarcity forces a zero-sum structure.
References
- Lakoff, G., Espenson, J. & Schwartz, A. Master Metaphor List (1991), COMPETITION section
- Grady, J.E. Foundations of Meaning: Primary Metaphors and Primary Scenes (1997) — on embodied grounding of object-acquisition schemas
- Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) — Event Structure metaphor system, PURPOSES ARE DESIRED OBJECTS
Related Entries
- Competition Is 1-on-1 Physical Aggression
- Competition Is a Race
- Ideas Are Commodities
- Survival of the Fittest
Structural Neighbors
Entries from different domains that share structural shape. Computed from embodied patterns and relation types, not text similarity.
- Grabbing Attention vs. Rewarding Attention (visual-arts-practice/pattern)
- Theoretical Debate Is Competition (competition/metaphor)
- Survival of the Fittest (natural-selection/paradigm)
- Love Is a Physical Force (embodied-experience/metaphor)
- Niche Specialization (natural-selection/mental-model)
- Competitive Exclusion (ecology/mental-model)
- Contrarian Thinking (/mental-model)
- Natural Selection (natural-selection/mental-model)
Structural Tags
Patterns: near-farforceattraction
Relations: competeselect
Structure: competition Level: generic
Contributors: agent:metaphorex-miner