The Dark Side of Competition for Status

36 Pages Posted: 24 Jan 2015

See all articles by Gary Charness

Gary Charness

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) - Department of Economics

David Masclet

Université de Rennes I; M@rsouin

Marie Claire Villeval

GATE, CNRS

Date Written: 2014

Abstract

Unethical behavior within organizations is not rare. We investigate experimentally the role of status-seeking behavior in sabotage and cheating activities aiming at improving one’s performance ranking in a flat-wage environment. We find that average effort is higher when individuals are informed about their relative performance. However, ranking feedback also favors disreputable behavior. Some individuals do not hesitate to incur a cost to improve their rank by sabotaging others’ work or by increasing artificially their own performance. Introducing sabotage opportunities has a strong detrimental effect on performance. Therefore, ranking incentives should be used with care. Inducing group identity discourages sabotage among peers but increases in-group rivalry.

Keywords: Status, ranking, feedback, sabotage, doping, competitive preferences, experiment

JEL Classification: C91, C92, M54, D63, J28, J31

Suggested Citation

Charness, Gary and Masclet, David and Villeval, Marie Claire, The Dark Side of Competition for Status (2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2554463 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2554463

Gary Charness (Contact Author)

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) - Department of Economics ( email )

2127 North Hall
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
United States
805-893-2412 (Phone)
805-893-8830 (Fax)

David Masclet

Université de Rennes I ( email )

11 Rue Jean Macé
35065 Rennes Cedex, Rennes
France

M@rsouin ( email )

France

Marie Claire Villeval

GATE, CNRS ( email )

93, chemin des Mouilles
Ecully, 69130
France
+33 472 86 60 79 (Phone)
+33 472 86 60 90 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/marie-claire-villeval

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