With whom, and about what, do we compare?

Ingvild Mageli,Eirik Heen,Andrea Mannberg

doi:10.7557/22.5776

Abstract

We use an experimental approach to test if there is a link between positional preferences and the social closeness and relevance of the reference group. More specifically, we test if people are more positional when they compare with friends and colleagues, than when they compare to an anonymous person in society. We further test if the gender of the members in the reference group is important, and if positional preferences can be linked to an individual’s social identity. To test our hypotheses, we randomize the reference groups across five unique domains – income, work performance, beauty, physical strength and social media popularity. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that social identification with a domain is correlated with positional concerns in that domain. However, in contrast to our hypotheses, we also find that a comparisons with an anonymous person in society trigger positional concerns among a significantly larger share of participants than do comparisons with friends or colleagues. Finally, our results indicate that both the gender of the participant and of the reference group has an effect on positional concerns.

Highlights

Karoshi – the Japanese term for death from overwork, and karojisatsu – suicide due to mental stress arise from intense comparisons of work performance between colleagues (McAdams, 1992)
3.2 Effects of social closeness and relevance To evaluate if the social closeness of the reference group affects positional concerns, we evaluate if the proportion of positional choices is higher when the reference group is defined as friends or colleagues as compared to society
Contrary to our hypothesis (H1), our results suggest that a larger share of individuals display positional concerns when the reference group is society than when the reference group is defined as friends or colleagues

Summary

Introduction

Karoshi – the Japanese term for death from overwork, and karojisatsu – suicide due to mental stress arise from intense comparisons of work performance between colleagues (McAdams, 1992). Suppose that a colleague of yours starts to outperform you at work, e.g., publishing more papers in higher ranked journals than you do. What if the success belonged to a friend with a different occupation, rather than a colleague, would you still feel a bit conflicted? It is today widely acknowledged that many, if not most, people engage in social comparisons (Duesenberry, 1949; Easterlin, 1995; Frank, 2005). When an individual engage in social comparisons, and these comparisons affect her wellbeing, economists say that the individual has positional preferences Positional concerns are associated with an inefficient use of resources because they provide individuals with incentives to overinvest in behaviors that signal status (e.g. Alpizar, Carlsson, & JohanssonStenman, 2005; Aronsson & Johansson-Stenman, 2008; Frank, 2005)

Methods

Results

Conclusion