Preference for Relative Standing

1
Preference for Relative Standing

• 98 MBA students
• Which of the following two situations would you
  prefer?
• A job where you make 75k and your colleagues
  make 50k
• A job where you make 100k and your colleagues
  make 125k
• Additional findings
• Positional choice higher for maximizers under
  salary known condition
• They say they want the best but choose better
  than others over the absolute improvement

2
Relative Standing Experiments

• Hypothetical choices
• In which domains do people make positional vs.
  absolute choices?
• How do the choices differ across social groups?
• Who is a relevant comparison standard?
• Manipulations of perceived relative standing
• In which domains are people affected by their own
  relative standing?
• Does relative standing influence policy
  preferences?
• All experiments done in representative surveys