IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wzbmbh/spii2019214.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Working until you drop: Image concerns or prosocial motives?

Author

Listed:
  • Erkut, Hande
  • Shalvi, Shaul

Abstract

Working hard is costly, so people should work wisely. Yet, they do not always work efficiently, spending their effort on tasks that do not bring tangible benefits. One reason that potentially amplifies inefficient working is that people work in social environments where they are observed and where others' earnings also depend on their effort. In this paper, we investigate whether people work and earn more than they need, and if so why? We use laboratory experiments to disentangle two concerns that potentially lead people to work inefficiently hard, namely image concerns and prosocial motives. Our results suggest that people indeed overwork unnecessarily, and that this is mainly due to image concerns.

Suggested Citation

  • Erkut, Hande & Shalvi, Shaul, 2019. "Working until you drop: Image concerns or prosocial motives?," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Behavior SP II 2019-214, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wzbmbh:spii2019214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/206622/1/1681633930.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    2. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    3. Gary Charness & David Masclet & Marie Claire Villeval, 2014. "The Dark Side of Competition for Status," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 38-55, January.
    4. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
    5. repec:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:8:p:771-781 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. David Gill & Victoria Prowse, 2012. "A Structural Analysis of Disappointment Aversion in a Real Effort Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 469-503, February.
    7. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    8. Brice Corgnet & Roberto Hernán-González & Eric Schniter, 2015. "Why real leisure really matters: incentive effects on real effort in the laboratory," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(2), pages 284-301, June.
    9. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    10. John Pencavel, 2015. "The Productivity of Working Hours," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(589), pages 2052-2076, December.
    11. Arthur Schram & Jordi Brandts & Klarita Gërxhani, 2019. "Social-status ranking: a hidden channel to gender inequality under competition," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 396-418, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Simone Haeckl & Rupert Sausgruber & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "Work Motivation and Teams," Discussion Papers 18-08, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    2. Benistant, Julien & Galeotti, Fabio & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2021. "The Distinct Impact of Information and Incentives on Cheating," IZA Discussion Papers 14014, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Erkal, Nisvan & Gangadharan, Lata & Koh, Boon Han, 2018. "Monetary and non-monetary incentives in real-effort tournaments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 528-545.
    4. Leonie Gerhards & Neele Siemer, 2016. "The Impact Of Private And Public Feedback On Worker Performance—Evidence From The Lab," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1188-1201, April.
    5. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2016. "Combining “real effort” with induced effort costs: the ball-catching task," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(4), pages 687-712, December.
    6. Graff, Frederik & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Competing on the Holodeck - The effect of virtual peers and heterogeneity in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    7. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Gender and peer effects on performance in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 207-224.
    8. Gill, David & Prowse, Victoria, 2019. "Measuring costly effort using the slider task," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 1-9.
    9. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Simon Gächter & Lingbo Huang & Martin Sefton, 2018. "Disappointment Aversion And Social Comparisons In A Real‐Effort Competition," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(3), pages 1512-1525, July.
    12. David Gill & Zdenka Kissová & Jaesun Lee & Victoria Prowse, 2019. "First-Place Loving and Last-Place Loathing: How Rank in the Distribution of Performance Affects Effort Provision," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 494-507, February.
    13. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2017. "Gender and Peer Effects in Social Networks," IZA Discussion Papers 10588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Dalmia, Prateik & Filiz-Ozbay, Emel, 2021. "Your success is my motivation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 49-85.
    15. Fu, Qiang & Ke, Changxia & Tan, Fangfang, 2015. "“Success breeds success” or “Pride goes before a fall”?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 57-79.
    16. Wu, Qin & Bayer, Ralph-C & Lenten, Liam J.A., 2020. "Conditional Pension Funds to Combat Cheating in Sporting Contests: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    17. Julie Beugnot & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix & Marie Claire Villeval, 2013. "Social Networks and Peer Effects at Work," Cahiers de recherche 1320, CIRPEE.
    18. Kenju Kamei & Thomas Markussen, 2023. "Free Riding and Workplace Democracy—Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(7), pages 3884-3904, July.
    19. Francesca Gioia, 2017. "Peer effects on risk behaviour: the importance of group identity," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(1), pages 100-129, March.
    20. Neckermann, Susanne & Yang, Xiaolan, 2017. "Understanding the (unexpected) consequences of unexpected recognition," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 131-142.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    overworking; image concerns; social preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:wzbmbh:spii2019214. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vawzbde.html .

    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.