IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v67y2017icp122-130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are (negative) emotions to blame for being positional? An experimental investigation of the impact of emotional states on status preferences

Author

Listed:
  • Celse, Jérémy
  • Galia, Fabrice
  • Max, Sylvain

Abstract

Would you prefer to have more or more than others? Solnick and Hemenway (1998) found that the majority of participants prefer to incur a loss rather than being below others. Several studies corroborate the existence and importance of positional concerns and suggest, without demonstrating it, that negative emotions such as envy to be responsible for guiding positional preferences. A question remains: Are emotions, and particularly negative emotions, responsible for leading agents to exhibit positional preferences? We examine experimentally the impact of emotions on participants' preferences for status. We run three conditions. Under one condition, we elicit participants' preferences for status by asking them to answer a variant of the Solnick and Hemenway's (1998) questionnaire so as to elicit their status preferences without inducing any emotion. Under the two other conditions, we first induce experimentally emotions (either joy or anger) and secondly, we ask participants to fill the same questionnaire. We find that emotions cause a significant change in participants' preferences. We observe that inducing joy shifts significantly participants' preferences. However, we fail at observing a significant impact of anger on participants' preferences. In particular, we find that the negative emotion of anger is not to blame for being positional.

Suggested Citation

  • Celse, Jérémy & Galia, Fabrice & Max, Sylvain, 2017. "Are (negative) emotions to blame for being positional? An experimental investigation of the impact of emotional states on status preferences," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 122-130.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:67:y:2017:i:c:p:122-130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2016.12.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804316301264
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2016.12.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Neumark, David & Postlewaite, Andrew, 1998. "Relative income concerns and the rise in married women's employment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 157-183, October.
    2. Murat Birdal & T. Ongan, 2016. "Why Do We Care About Having More than Others? Socioeconomic Determinants of Positional Concerns in Different Domains," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 727-738, March.
    3. Fredrik Carlsson & Olof Johansson‐Stenman & Peter Martinsson, 2007. "Do You Enjoy Having More than Others? Survey Evidence of Positional Goods," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 74(296), pages 586-598, November.
    4. Gilles Grolleau & Tarik Lakhal & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2008. "Consommer plus ou consommer plus que les autres ?. Une analyse empirique des biens de position," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 59(4), pages 701-717.
    5. Daniel J. Zizzo, 2004. "The Neuroeconomics of Anger," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 21, pages 473-494.
    6. Claudia Senik, 2005. "Income distribution and well‐being: what can we learn from subjective data?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 43-63, February.
    7. S. Wouters & N. Exel & M. Donk & K. Rohde & W. Brouwer, 2015. "Do people desire to be healthier than other people? A short note on positional concerns for health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(1), pages 47-54, January.
    8. Giorgio Coricelli & Mateus Joffily & Claude Montmarquette & Marie Villeval, 2010. "Cheating, emotions, and rationality: an experiment on tax evasion," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 13(2), pages 226-247, June.
    9. Charness, Gary & Grosskopf, Brit, 2001. "Relative payoffs and happiness: an experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 301-328, July.
    10. Frank, Robert H, 1997. "The Frame of Reference as a Public Good," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1832-1847, November.
    11. Luce, Mary Frances, 1998. "Choosing to Avoid: Coping with Negatively Emotion-Laden Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(4), pages 409-433, March.
    12. Alpizar, Francisco & Carlsson, Fredrik & Johansson-Stenman, Olof, 2005. "How much do we care about absolute versus relative income and consumption?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 405-421, March.
    13. Bosman, Ronald & Sutter, Matthias & van Winden, Frans, 2005. "The impact of real effort and emotions in the power-to-take game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 407-429, June.
    14. Fershtman, Chaim & Murphy, Kevin M & Weiss, Yoram, 1996. "Social Status, Education, and Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 108-132, February.
    15. Claudia Senik, 2005. "Income distribution and well-being: what can we learn from subjective data?," Post-Print halshs-00754101, HAL.
    16. Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel & Saïd, Sandra, 2012. "Do you believe that others are more positional than you? Results from an empirical survey on positional concerns in France," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 48-54.
    17. Sara J. Solnick & David Hemenway, 2005. "Are Positional Concerns Stronger in Some Domains than in Others?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 147-151, May.
    18. Lisette Ibanez & Nathalie Moureau & Sébastien Roussel, 2014. "Induction d'émotions et comportements pro-environnementaux dans le cadre d'un jeu du dictateur," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(2), pages 215-242.
    19. Jon Elster, 1998. "Emotions and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 47-74, March.
    20. Solnick, Sara J. & Hong, Li & Hemenway, David, 2007. "Positional goods in the United States and China," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 537-545, August.
    21. Isen, Alice M. & Geva, Nehemia, 1987. "The influence of positive affect on acceptable level of risk: The person with a large canoe has a large worry," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 145-154, April.
    22. Ronald Bosman & Frans van Winden, 2002. "Emotional Hazard in a Power-to-take Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 147-169, January.
    23. Sarah E. Hill & David M. Buss, 2006. "Envy and positional bias in the evolutionary psychology of management," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(2-3), pages 131-143.
    24. J. Solnick, Sara & Hemenway, David, 1998. "Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 373-383, November.
    25. Gilles Grolleau & Tarik Lakhal & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2008. "Consommer plus ou consommer plus que les autres ?. Une analyse empirique des biens de position," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 59(4), pages 701-717.
    26. Celse, Jérémy, 2012. "Is the positional bias an artefact? Distinguishing positional concerns from egalitarian concerns," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 277-283.
    27. Steven R. Beckman & Buhong Zheng & John P. Formby & W. James Smith, 2002. "Envy, malice and Pareto efficiency: An experimental examination," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(2), pages 349-367.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adam Ayaita & Kerstin Pull, 2022. "Positional preferences and narcissism: evidence from ‘money burning’ dictator games," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 267-271, February.
    2. Alexandros Karakostas & Nhu Tran & Daniel John Zizzo, 2022. "Experimental Insights on Anti-Social Behavior: Two Meta-Analyses," Discussion Papers Series 658, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    3. Bucciol Alessandro & Cicognani Simona & Zarri Luca, 2020. "Social Status Perception and Individual Social Capital: Evidence from the US," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-14, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jérémy Celse, 2009. "Will Joe the Plumber envy Bill Gates? The impact of both absolute and relative differences on interdependent preferences," Working Papers 09-26, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Dec 2009.
    2. Jérémy Celse, 2018. "Do You Enjoy Having More Than Others or More Than Another? Exploring the Relationship Between Relative Concerns and the Size of the Reference Group," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 1089-1118, August.
    3. El Harbi, Sana & Bekir, Insaf & Grolleau, Gilles & Sutan, Angela, 2015. "Efficiency, equality, positionality: What do people maximize? Experimental vs. hypothetical evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 77-84.
    4. Murat Birdal & T. Ongan, 2016. "Why Do We Care About Having More than Others? Socioeconomic Determinants of Positional Concerns in Different Domains," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 727-738, March.
    5. Solnick, Sara J. & Hemenway, David, 2009. "Do spending comparisons affect spending and satisfaction?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 568-573, August.
    6. Alpaslan Akay & Lisa Andersson & Peter Martinsson & Haileselassie Medhin, 2014. "Positional Concerns among the Poor: Does Reference Group Matter? Evidence from Survey Experiments," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 23(5), pages 673-699.
    7. Alpaslan Akay & Gökhan Karabulut & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "The effect of religiosity and religious festivals on positional concerns -- an experimental investigation of Ramadan," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(27), pages 3914-3921, September.
    8. Akay, Alpaslan & Bargain, Olivier B. & Giulietti, Corrado & Robalino, Juan D. & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2016. "Remittances and relative concerns in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 191-207.
    9. Sharon Hadad & Miki Malul, 2017. "Do You Prefer Having Much More or Slightly More than Others?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 227-234, August.
    10. Mara Grasseni & Federica Origo, 2018. "Competing for Happiness: Attitudes to Competition, Positional Concerns and Wellbeing," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(7), pages 1981-2008, October.
    11. Benno Torgler & Markus Schaffner & Bruno S. Frey & Sascha L. Schmidt & Uwe Dulleck, 2008. "Inequality Aversion and Performance in and on the Field," CREMA Working Paper Series 2008-18, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    12. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2012. "Positional Concerns through the Life Cycle: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data and Survey Experiments," IZA Discussion Papers 6342, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Jérémy CELSE, 2011. "Damaging the perfect image of athletes: How sport promotes envy," Working Papers 11-16, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Jun 2011.
    14. Benno Torgler & Markus Schaffner & Bruno S. Frey & Sascha L. Schmidt, 2008. "Looking Awkward When Winning and Foolish When Losing: Inequity Aversion and Performance in the Field," CREMA Working Paper Series 2008-11, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    15. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter & Medhin, Haileselassie, 2012. "Does Positional Concern Matter in Poor Societies? Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 428-435.
    16. Akay, Alpaslan & Martinsson, Peter, 2019. "Positional concerns through the life-cycle," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 98-103.
    17. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2011. "A hasznosság és a relatív jövedelem kapcsolatának vizsgálata magyar adatok segítségével [Examining the relation of utility and relative income using Hungarian data]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 56-73.
    18. S. Wouters & N. Exel & M. Donk & K. Rohde & W. Brouwer, 2015. "Do people desire to be healthier than other people? A short note on positional concerns for health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 16(1), pages 47-54, January.
    19. Wendner, Ronald, 2010. "Growth And Keeping Up With The Joneses," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(S2), pages 176-199, November.
    20. Laszlo Goerke & Michael Neugart, 2021. "Social preferences, monopsony and government intervention," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 864-891, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Relative standing; Emotions; Positional concern; Status; Experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D0 - Microeconomics - - General
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:67:y:2017:i:c:p:122-130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.