The article presents the results of a sociological survey of young people aimed at identifying factors and their significance for effective control of competitive processes. Building and development of competitiveness and competitive relations takes a special place in the processes of development of the next generation. The attitude of working youth to competition is being studied in situation of transition of Russian society to market relations. Competition is a universal social law that manifests differently in socio-economic formations, age groups, social and professional groups. In a market economy, competition affects the interests of each person. The study is aimed at determining the attitude of working youth towards competition. The technique of the bipolar scale of the semantic differential (graded scoring scale of 20 positive and negative characteristics) is used. In the respondents' assessments of the term "competition", mainly positive connotations predominate. Identified clusters show a positive mental disposition towards competitiveness, which creates breeding grounds for the developing of necessary qualities of a competitive personality. It is quite difficult to measure the process of accumulating personal competitiveness and assess its effectiveness. In the first approximation (for all subjectivity), this can be done on the basis of personal self-estimate of competitiveness. The article presents the results of the empirical sociological research of die level of competitiveness carried out by the authors: 57% of respondents consider themselves competitive, only 3% of respondents gave a negative assessment. With the total number of doubters - 40%, the ratio in favor of those who consider themselves "relatively successful" is almost five times higher than the number of those who doubt about their own competitiveness. Such high ratings are mostly due to the ambitiousness and small life experience of young people. The higher the social status of respondents, the more often they consider themselves to be competitive and successful people. The research results also show positive attitude of working youth towards competitive relations. The level of the competitiveness is largely determined by the different accents of young attitude towards the performed work.