TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Gächter, Simon
AU  - Huang, Lingbo
AU  - Sefton, Martin
        TI  - Disappointment Aversion and Social Comparisons in a Real-Effort Competition
        PY  - 2017/May/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 10754
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp10754
        AB  - 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. 
        KW  - reference-dependent preferences
KW  - disappointment aversion
KW  - social comparison effects
KW  - real effort competition
        ER  -