Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161377 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10754
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We present an experiment to investigate the source of disappointment aversion in a sequential real-effort competition. Specifically, we study the contribution of social comparison effects to the disappointment aversion previously identified in a two-person real-effort competition (Gill and Prowse, 2012). To do this we compare "social" and "asocial" versions of the Gill and Prowse experiment, where the latter treatment removes the scope for social comparisons. If disappointment aversion simply reflects an asymmetric evaluation of losses and gains we would expect it to survive in our asocial treatment, while if losing to or winning against another person affects the evaluation of losses/gains we would expect treatment differences. We find behavior in social and asocial treatments to be similar, suggesting that social comparisons have little impact in this setting. Unlike in Gill and Prowse we do not find evidence of disappointment aversion.
Subjects: 
real effort competition
social comparison effects
disappointment aversion
reference-dependent preferences
JEL: 
C91
D12
D81
D84
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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