Research Design Connection: Success and Choices Made

by Sally Augustin, Ph.D. | December 4th, 2017

Success and selecting luxurious options have been linked by Wu and his team. They report that “Conspicuous consumption refers to the phenomenon where individuals purchase goods for signaling social status, rather than for its inherent functional value…Winning a [social] competition increased…preferences for higher-status vs. lower-status products.” All participants in the study by Wu and colleagues were male and an example of conspicuous consumption is buying an expensive sports car. Participants winning social competitions were victorious playing the game Tetris. Decision makers at organizations planning new offices, for example, are likely to be influenced in the same way by their social successes as people playing Tetris. Yin Wu, Christoph Eisenegger, Niro Sivanathan, Molly Crockett, and Luke Clark. 2017. “The Role of Social Status and Testosterone in Human Conspicuous Consumption.” Scientific Reports, vol. 7, article 11803. Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly …