With whom, and about what, do we compete for social status? Effects of social closeness and relevance of reference groups for positional concerns

Abstract

We used an experimental approach to test if there is a link between positional preferences and the social <i>closeness</i> and <i>relevance</i> of the reference group. More specifically, we tested if people are more positional when they compare with friends and colleagues than when they compare to an anonymous person in society. We further tested 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. 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 find that 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, although we find that both the gender of the participant and of the reference group has an effect on positional concerns in some domains, our analysis also indicates that not all domains are gendered. We discuss potential explanations behind these findings.