How much do others matter? Explaining positional concerns for different goods and personal characteristics

We test concerns for relative standing with respect to private consumption, income, leisure, savings, and personal characteristics, using data from a classroom survey. Our results show highest degrees of positionality for personal characteristics and income. In order to explain positionality, we employ survey participants’ ratings of items with respect to (i) observability and (ii) non-psychological negative externalities on others. Based on these ratings, our results show that non-psychological externalities play an important role for an item’s degree of positionality. In contrast to previous research, we find that there is no statistically significant effect of an item’s observability on its degree of positionality.

► We test concerns for relative standing with respect to different items.
► Participants rate items according observability and non-psychological externalities.
► Non-psychological externalities play an important role for items’ positionality.
► No statistically significant observability-effect on items’ degree of positionality.