4 Basic data analysis: experiments

In this chapter, we will analyze data from an experiment that tested whether people’s sense of power affects their willingness to pay (WTP) for status-related products (i.e., for conspicuous consumption) and whether this relationship is different when their WTP for these products is visible to others versus not.

Participants came to our lab in groups of eight or seven. They were seated in front of a computer in semi-closed cubicles. In the introduction, participants read that they would first have to fill in a personality questionnaire and a survey on how they dealt with money. After that, they would have to work together in groups of two on a few puzzles.

The first part of the session was a personality questionnaire assessing dominance and status aspirations (Cassidy & Lynn, 1989; Mead & Maner, 2012). Participants read 18 statements and indicated whether each of these statements applied to them or not. After completing this questionnaire, participants were reminded that at the end of the session they would have to work together with another participant on a few puzzles. Each dyad would consist of a manager and a worker. Participants read that assignment to these roles was based on their results on the personality questionnaire, but in reality, assignment to roles was random.

Participants in the high power condition then read that they were best suited to be manager whereas participants in the low power condition read that they were best suited to be worker (Galinsky, Gruenfeld, & Magee, 2003). The instructions made clear that managers would have more power in the puzzle-solving task than workers (they could decide how a potential bonus of 20 euros would be divided between manager and worker). Before starting the puzzles, however, participants were asked to first take part in a different study.

In an ostensibly different study, participants’ willingness to spend on conspicuous and inconspicuous products was measured. In the introduction to this part of the experiment, the presence of the audience was manipulated. In the private condition, participants were simply told that we were interested in their consumption patterns. They were asked how much they would spend on ten products that differed in the extent to which they could be used to signal status. The conspicuous or status-enhancing products were: a new car, a house, travels, clothes, and a wrist watch (for men) or jewelry (for women). The inconspicuous or status-neutral products were basic toiletries, household medication, a bedroom alarm clock, kitchen staples, and household cleaning (Griskevicius, et al., 2007). Participants responded on a nine-point scale ranging from 1: “I would buy very cheap items” to 9: “I would buy very expensive items”.

In the public condition, participants were told that we were working on a website where people could meet. This website would help us investigate how people form impressions of each other based on each other’s consumption patterns. Participants read that they would first have to indicate how much they would spend on a couple of products. Their choices would then be summarized in a profile. The other participants in the session would have to form impressions about them based on this profile. After viewing an example of what their profile could look like, participants moved on to the same consumption measure as in the private condition.

In short, the experiment has a 2 (power: high vs. low) x 2 (audience: public vs. private) x 2 (consumption: conspicuous vs. inconspicuous) design with power and audience manipulated between subjects and consumption manipulated within subjects.

The hypotheses in this experiment were as follows:

In the private condition, we expected that low power participants would have a higher WTP than high power participants for conspicuous products but not for inconspicuous products. Such a pattern of results would replicate results from Rucker & Galinsky (2008).
We expected that the public vs. private manipulation would lower WTP for conspicuous products for low power participants but not for high power participants. We did not expect an effect of the public vs. private manipulation on WTP for inconspicuous products for low nor high power participants.

This experiment is described in more detail in my doctoral dissertation (Franssens, 2016)

References:

Cassidy, T., & Lynn, R. (1989). A multifactorial approach to achievement motivation: The development of a comprehensive measure. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 62(4), 301-312.

Franssens, S. (2016). Essays in consumer behavior (Doctoral dissertation). KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Galinsky, A. D., Gruenfeld, D. H., & Magee, J. C. (2003). From Power to action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(3), 453-466. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.3.453

Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., Sundie, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Miller, G. F., & Kenrick, D. T. (2007). Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption: When romantic motives elicit strategic costly signals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93(1), 85-102. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.93.1.85

Mead, N. L., & Maner, J. K. (2012). On keeping your enemies close: Powerful leaders seek proximity to ingroup power threats. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 576-591. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025755

Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2008). Desire to acquire: Powerlessness and compensatory consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(2), 257-267. https://doi.org/10.1086/588569