Competition, Cooperation and Social Perceptions

How do people come to think of themselves as having more or less in common with others? Much theoretical, empirical and experimental research shows that perceived social differences affect economic decisions and outcomes. This experiment reverses the causal arrow and asks if economic interactions can affect social perceptions. We find that subjects who compete against counterparts for pay report fewer common traits with counterparts than do subjects facing a cooperative pay scheme. This effect emerges despite monetary incentives for accuracy. A more subjective assessment of similarity is dominated by shared political leanings, with no effect of the pay-scheme treatments.

The nEuro-economics seminar is a monthly seminar series organised by the HRL team. We invite Europe-based early career researchers to speak about their research at the crossroads of neuroscience, psychology and economics.