If I can do it, so can you! Peer effects on perseverance

•Perseverance in a depleting real-effort task is affected by successful peers.•Being observed by peers reduces the tendency of giving up immediately.•Observing the success of a peer with humble self-perception motivates to persevere.•Observing the success of a peer with proud self-perception discour...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic behavior & organization 2018-11, Vol.155, p.301-314
Main Authors: Buechel, Berno, Mechtenberg, Lydia, Petersen, Julia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Experiment
Peer effects
Perseverance
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Summary:•Perseverance in a depleting real-effort task is affected by successful peers.•Being observed by peers reduces the tendency of giving up immediately.•Observing the success of a peer with humble self-perception motivates to persevere.•Observing the success of a peer with proud self-perception discourages perseverance. Successful performance – be it in school, at the job, or in sports activities – requires perseverance, i.e., persistent work on a demanding task. We investigate in a controlled laboratory experiment how an individual's social environment affects perseverance. We find evidence for two kinds of peer effects: being observed by a peer can postpone the decision to give up, while observing a peer can be informative and have more sustainable effects. In particular, we show that successful peers affect perseverance positively if they communicate their success in a motivating way and negatively otherwise. Our experimental results suggest that peers affect perseverance indirectly, via influencing self-confidence.
ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2018.09.004