> How can you know that such an impulse is part of some country’s national culture?
Singaporean here. I've seen this "crabs in a bucket" mentality since the days of formal education. It's often known as being "kiasu" (afraid of losing to others, in Hokkien dialect) [1] in the 90's.
These days, it's sometimes known as the "sinkie pwn sinkie" phenomenon [2].