The influence of social comparison on risk decision-making for self and groups in intergroup contexts

ABSTRACT

Objective

The current study aims to explore the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making for self and for groups in intergroup contexts.

Method

Two experiments with the within-subjects design of 2 (social comparison: upward comparison, downward comparison) × 3 (decision-maker role: for “me”, for “us”, for “them”) were conducted in this study. Experiment 1 focused on the ingroup contexts, and experiment 2 focused on the outgroup contexts.

Results

(1) in outgroup contexts, individuals are more risk-seeking in upward comparison conditions than in downward comparison conditions. However, the difference disappears in ingroup contexts. (2) Making decisions for “them” is riskier than making decisions for “me” and for “us” with no significant differences between the latter two and consistent across intergroup contexts. (3) The difference in risk decisions made amid upward and downward comparisons is amplified for decisions made for groups.

Conclusion

The findings may support the selective accessibility model and provide an interpretation with responsibility alleviation for self-group differences in risk decision-making.

KEY POINTS

What is already known about this topic:

1. Recent research provides evidence for social loss aversion with individuals taking more risks when making upward comparisons.

2. Previous findings of studies without involving social comparisons on the difference between making risk decisions for oneself and making decisions for others were not consistent.

3. The identity of the comparison target affected an individual’s attention to social comparison.

What this topic adds:

1. Making decisions for a group magnified the difference in risk decisions made amid upward and downward comparisons.

2. The perception of less responsibility for “their” welfare led to the decision makers taking more risks when making decisions for “them”.

3. The difference in risk decisions made amid upward and downward comparisons appears in outgroup contexts whereas disappears in ingroup contexts for an outgroup context highlights comparative information, while an ingroup context weakens social comparison information.

KEYWORDS:

• Social comparison
• intergroup context
• decision maker roles
• risk decision making

Introduction

The influence of social comparison on risk decision making

Social comparison is the process of comparing one’s own situation and status (including one’s abilities, viewpoints, physical health, etc.) to those of others (Festinger, 1954; Xing & Yu, 2005). According to the relativity of situation and status, social comparison was divided into three types: (1) downward comparison, meaning one that is better than others; (2) upward comparison, where others are considered better off than oneself; (3) parallel comparison, where one considers oneself and others to be the same level (Suls & Miller, 1977). A neuroscience study found reward-related brain regions (especially the ventral striatum, VS) are more sensitive to relative rewards than to absolute rewards when social interaction occurs in a seemingly competitive environment (Dvash et al., 2010; Fliessbach et al., 2007). Therefore, when perceived, social comparative information/cues may be served as social reference points for decision makers, which could make decision-making situations correspondingly become social gain, social loss or social neutral (Lu et al., 2013), in turn prompt individuals to change their decision-making (Gächter et al., 2012; Hu et al., 2021; Linde & Sonnemans, 2015; Loewenstein et al., 1989; Schwerter, 2015).

The influence of social comparison on risk decision-making has been confirmed by many studies, but the direction of influence has not been conclusive hitherto. Some earlier studies have found that individuals in conditions of downward comparison are more risk-seeking than those in conditions of upward comparison (Fox & Dayan, 2004; Linde & Sonnemans, 2012). However, a lot of recent research has obtained the opposite results, with individuals taking more risks when making upward comparisons (Grimm et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2018; Schwerter, 2015; Wang et al., 2016), which provides evidence for social loss aversion. It is obvious that social loss aversion is a natural extension of prospect theory to a social reference point (Linde & Sonnemans, 2012), which would make individuals risk-seeking in the face of social loss, and make people risk-averse while confronting social gain. In addition, the self-concept path of social reference points influencing risk decision-making suggests that social loss would threaten self-concept (Muller & Fayant, 2010; Xie & Lu, 2014). In order to maintain a positive self-concept, individuals may strive to surpass their comparison subjects through risk seeking when making upward comparisons. Therefore, we expect to observe a main effect of social comparison on participant’s risk decision-making, that is, compared with the downward comparison, participants were more risk-seeking in upward comparison (H1).

The influence of social comparison on risk decision making for self and groups

In real life, except for making decisions for themselves, it is not uncommon for humans to make decisions for others, as is the case of supervisors setting goals for their teams, financial advisors making investment plans for their clients, etc. Like this, decision makers are in different decision-maker roles when faced with situations where they are making decisions for themselves or for others. A large number of studies on risk decision-making that do not involve social comparisons have found significant differences between making decisions for oneself and making decisions for others (Olschewski et al., 2019; Polman, 2012; Stone & Allgaier, 2008). It means that risk decisions are influenced by the role of decision makers. Most of these studies focus on individual decisions; that is, decisions are made by the decision maker alone, and costs and benefits are borne by the decision maker or others alone. Empirical research on people making risk decisions for others began in the 1960s, initially focusing on group decisions (Lonergan & McClintock, 1961; Polman & Wu, 2020).

However, there have been only a few studies on the difference between making risk decisions for oneself and for a group, and the results are divergent (Polman & Wu, 2020). A number of studies have found that decisions made for a group are more risk averse than decisions made for oneself (Füllbrunn & Luhan, 2015; Reynolds et al., 2009). For example, Füllbrunn and Luhan (2015) explored how fund managers invest for themselves, for a group of clients with no payoff alignment and for a group of clients with payoff alignment. It was found that the participants were more cautious when making decisions for groups than when making decisions for themselves, and their investment for groups was significantly less than that for themselves. Other studies, however, show different results (Füllbrunn & Luhan, 2017; Vieider et al., 2016). Vieider et al. (2016) compared decision-making for oneself with decision-making for oneself and another person by estimating a structure model and found that “there is no general cautious shift”.

Responsibility alleviation, the responsibility of third-party benefits that leads decision-makers to engage in prosocial behaviours and in turn make conservative decisions, serves as the main explanation for the difference between risk decisions made for oneself and those made for a group (Charness & Jackson, 2009; Charness, 2000). Based on the assumption that responsibility perceptions for the welfare of a third party are stronger than one’s own, this principle can explain Füllbrunn and Luhan (2015) and Reynolds et al. (2009) findings showing a cautious shift phenomenon for groups rather than Füllbrunn and Luhan’s (2017) finding of no self-group difference. However, is a sense of responsibility for third-party benefits truly stronger? Previous studies have not provided empirical support for this conclusion. In addition, in previous studies with cautious shift results, the groups were always more or less related to the decision makers themselves. For example, there is a professional identity connection between a fund manager and his or her clients (Füllbrunn & Luhan, 2015) and in the relationship between a group representative and other group members of the same group (Reynolds et al., 2009). These identity relationships may enhance perceptions of responsibility when making decisions for a group. For a group that does not include oneself and with no contact or payoff alignment with the decision-maker, the perceived responsibility of the decision-maker in making a decision for such a group may not be stronger than when making a decision for oneself. In this case, does the difference between making decisions involving risk for oneself and a group differ from the previous cautious shift?

In this study, a group containing oneself and payoff alignment was set as a dormitory (us), and a group containing oneself and no payoff alignment was described as an unrelated group (them). A simple gambling task was used to explore differences in risk decision-making with roles for decision-makers (for “me”, for “us” and for “them”). According to responsibility alleviation, we expect to observe a main effect of the role of decision-makers on participant’s risk decision-making. Specifically, making risk decisions for “us” may be more prudent or not significantly different from making decisions for “me,” while making decisions for “them” may be riskier (H2).

Considering the social context, are making risk decisions for oneself and for groups different under the influence of social comparison? A recent study may help answer this question. It examined how people weigh absolute utility and comparative utility when making choices for themselves and for others. The results showed that choosing for others increases the value of comparative utility because people believe that others value social comparison more than they do, and therefore individuals prefer the choice with higher comparative utility when choosing for others (Lu & Shang, 2021). Thus, we expect to observe an interaction effect between social comparison and decision-maker roles on participant’s risk decision-making. The differences in social comparison (upward vs. downward) may be more significant when making decisions for a group (H3).

The impact of social comparison on self-group risk decision-making: the role of intergroup contexts

In recent years, studies on the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making have begun to focus on the role of comparison targets’ identities. There is evidence that people may be more concerned about comparisons when paired with a friend than when paired with a stranger (Cobo-Reyes & Jiménez, 2012; Fareri & Delgado, 2014). Barrós-Loscertales et al. (2016) found that individuals took more risks when they compared themselves to real participants than when they compared themselves to virtual participants. Thus, the identity of the comparison target may affect an individual’s attention to social comparison and thus decision-making results.

In the process of social comparison, according to the selective accessibility model (SAM; Mussweiler, 2003), when confronted with a comparison target, a person quickly judges the overall degree of similarity between oneself and the comparison target based on prominent features that are not directly related to the comparison dimension, and then automatically classifies comparison target as a member of the out-group or in-group (Turner, 1985). When comparing groups, following the principle of positive differentiation (Zhang & Zuo, 2006), individuals may thus tend to judge outgroup members as different from themselves, while ingroup members are considered similar to themselves. Perceived dissimilarity usually leads to a contrast effect, while similarity leads to an assimilation effect (Kang & Liu, 2019; Keh et al., 2016; Mussweiler, 2003). Contrast and assimilation have different effects on individual self-evaluation. Contrasting away from an upward comparison target produces a negative self-evaluation, while contrasting away from a downward comparison target reflects a positive self-evaluation (Mussweiler, 2003; Vogel et al., 2019). To outperform or stay ahead of the comparison target to maintain a positive self-concept, the decision-maker may adopt a risk-taking strategy when facing upward comparison and choose a conservative option under downward comparison condition (Gamba et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2016). In contrast to the contrast effect, assimilation with an upward comparison target leads to positive self-evaluations, and assimilation with a downward comparison target leads to negative self-evaluations (Mussweiler, 2003; Vogel et al., 2019). At this point, decision-makers may make different risk decisions than in the contrast case. Therefore, it can be inferred that the outgroup or ingroup membership of the comparison target may influence contrast or assimilation during the comparison process and thus lead decision makers to make different risk choices. In other words, the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making may be moderated by intergroup contexts/comparison target identities (H4). Outgroup situations may lead to a contrast effect, causing decision makers to take more risks amid upward comparisons than amid downward comparisons (H4a), while ingroup situations may lead to an assimilation effect, which may lead to the opposite result (H4b).

Current study

In the present study, two experiments are conducted to explore the effects of social comparison on risk decisions made for oneself and for groups in outgroup and ingroup contexts. The current study compares and explores the influence of intergroup situations on the results of self-group risk decision-making by distinguishing between ingroups and outgroups, which may provide support for social comparison theory, and also provide empirical support for explaining the difference of self-group risk decision with the principle of responsibility alleviation.

Pretest

To investigate the differences in perceived responsibility among different decision-maker roles, 40 students (N_male = 16, M_age = 20.00, SD = 1.11) were recruited for a pre-test at a university in North China before the formal experiment, and got paid after pre-test. The pre-test was conducted in a quiet laboratory. Three kinds of decision-maker roles (for “me”, for “us” and for “them”) instructions were presented to the participants (see supplementary materials for details). Participants were asked to assess their perceived responsibilities under the conditions of different decision-maker roles on a 10-point scale, for which 0 = no responsibility and 9 = strong responsibility.

The results of a repeated-measures ANOVA showed differences in participants’ perceived responsibility under different decision-maker roles, F(2, 78) = 19.125, p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.329. A post hoc test showed that the perceived responsibility over decisions made for “them” (M = 5.50, SD = 2.65) was significantly lower than that over decisions made for “me” (M = 7.95, SD = 2.01) and for “us” (M = 7.75, SD = 1.84), and no significant difference was found in the perceived responsibility for the latter two.

Study 1 the impact of social comparison and decision-maker roles on risk decision-making in outgroup contexts

Method

Participants

To estimate the required sample size for the repeated measures, a priori power analysis was conducted with G*Power3.1. The estimated sample size was 24 under the assumption that a medium-sized effect (f = 0.25) could be detected with α = .05 and power = .90. To ensure sufficient testing power, 35 students were recruited at a university in North China, including 10 males and 25 females with M_age = 18.62 and SD = 1.63. The participants were right-handed with normal or normal corrected vision and were participating in this type of experiment for the first time. No participants were excluded. The participants signed an informed consent form before the experiment, and got paid after completing the experiment. In addition, all procedures used in this study are in accordance with the ethical standards of the Academic Committee of ××University and the ethical principles of the Helsinki Declaration of 1964.

Experimental design and statistical analyses

In this study, a within-subjects design of 2 (Social Comparison: upward comparison, downward comparison) × 3 (Decision-maker Role: decision-making for “me”, decision-making for “us”, decision-making for “them”) was used. The dependent variable was the rate of choosing the risk option, i.e., the proportion of participants choosing 25 options in each condition. Data analysis was completed on SPSS 25.0 (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0). Corresponding to the experimental design, a 2 × 3 repeated-measure ANOVA on the rate of choosing the risk option was performed.

Stimulus and procedure

Point estimation material

To create an outgroup situation, the current study adapted the Minimal-Group paradigm of Tajfel (1970, 1971). The participants were shown seven pictures (each picture contained 40 to 100 black dots) and asked to estimate the number of black dots in each picture within 3 s. The participants were then randomly assigned to one of the two groups, the overrated group and the underrated group. However, the participants were told that based on their performance in the point estimation task, each of them was considered an overestimator or underestimator. During the subsequent gambling task, the outgroup situation was manipulated by presenting the performance of simulated opponent “A” with the opposite point estimate type to that of the participants. For instance, if a participant was told that he or she was “an underestimator”, opponent “A” during instruction was called “an overestimator”.

Decision-maker role

Instructions were used to manipulate the roles of decision makers before each session of the gambling task (see supplementary materials for details).

Simple gambling task

Gehring and Willoughby’s (2002) simple gambling task was used to measure individuals’ propensities to make risky decisions. The task involved three sessions, each of which included two blocks with 50 trials each. Each session began with instructions on the role of the decision-maker. Then, the gambling task started. First, a fixed cross appeared in the centre of the screen as a fixation point for 500 ms. Then, two rectangles appeared on the left and right sides of the screen, one with the number 5 and the other with the number 25, representing 0.5 ¥ and 2.5 ¥, respectively. Participants were asked to press the F (left) or J (right) keys on the keyboard to make a choice. A negative or positive result denoting a gain or loss, respectively, then appeared on the screen. Each time the participant made 10 choices, the cumulative amounts of the participant and of simulated opponent A appeared on the screen with the probability of the participant’s amount being higher or lower than the amount of A being 0.5. In the experimental setting, the cumulative amounts of every 10 decisions could be positive or negative to better reflect real conditions. To reduce practice effects, participants were asked to complete a practice test before the formal experiment.

The experimental process is shown in Figure 1. After completing the experiment, depending on their performance, the participants were thanked and paid 10–15 yuan.

Figure 1. Experimental process. Note. Under the upward social comparison condition, the income of “A” is higher than that of the participants; under the downward social comparison condition, the opposite is true.

Results

The results show that the main effect of social comparison was significant, F(1, 34) = 15.021, p < 0.001, η_p² = 0.429. Compared to that in the downward comparison condition, the percentage of participants choosing the risky option was higher in the upward comparison condition. The main effect of the role of the decision-maker was significant, F(2, 68) = 7.808, p < 0.01, η_p² = 0.451. Participants chose riskier options when making decisions for “them” than when making a decision for “me” (p < 0.01) and for “us” (p < 0.05), but there was no significant difference between the latter two (p = 0.164).

The interaction between social comparison and the decision-maker roles was significant, F(2, 68) = 5.166, p < 0.05, η_p² = 0.352. A simple effect analysis found that for decisions made for “us” and for “them”, there was a difference between rates of choosing risky options in the upward and downward comparison conditions. Specifically, when making decisions for “us”, participants in the upward comparison condition (M = 0.553, SD = 0.204) chose more risky options than those in the downward comparison condition (M = 0.496, SD = 0.173), p < 0.05. When making decisions for “them”, participants in the upward comparison condition (M = 0.668, SD = 0.163) also chose more risky options than in the downward comparison condition (M = 0.572, SD = 0.171), p < 0.01. For those making decisions for “me”, there was no significant difference in the rate of choosing the risk option between the upward (M = 0.496, SD = 0.138) and downward comparison conditions (M = 0.481, SD = 0.135), p = 0.481. These results are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Ratios of risky choices made in outgroup contexts. * denotes p < 0.05. Error bars = standard errors.

Discussion

The results of study 1 show that in the outgroup situation, individuals were more risk seeking under the upward comparison condition. This result supports H1 and H4a, which is consistent with the findings of Grimm et al. (2021) and Liu et al. (2018). This may be the case because of the contrast effect that occurs in outgroup situations in which the decision-maker’s self-conception is threatened amid upward comparisons (Fox & Dayan, 2004). To outperform their comparison targets to maintain their positive self-conception, individuals take risky repair measures (Wang et al., 2016) and choose the option with considerable upward space (Schwerter, 2015).

For the outgroup condition, decisions made for “them” were riskier than decisions made for “me” and “us” with no significant difference between the latter two. This finding supports H2. Although inconsistent with the cautious shift found by Füllbrunn and Luhan (2015) and Reynolds et al. (2009), this result can still be explained by the responsibility alleviation principle (Charness, 2000; Charness & Jackson, 2009). The pre-test results show that perceptions of responsibility for third-party welfare when making decisions for a group are not necessarily stronger than when making decisions for oneself and may be the same as those for oneself or may be weaker. Responsibility alleviation holds that a sense of responsibility for third-party benefits leads to prosocial behaviour and thus to conservative decision-making. Then, according to this logic, the same sense of responsibility to “our” and “my” welfare results in no significant difference between risk-taking decisions made for “me” and “us”. A lesser sense of responsibility for “their” welfare makes it riskier for decision-makers to make decisions for “them”.

In addition, the results show that in the outgroup context, individuals were more risk-seeking in the upward comparison condition than in the downward comparison condition when making decisions for groups. Although the same tendency was found, the difference was not significant for decisions made for “me”. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that, compared to decisions made for “me”, differences between social comparisons are magnified when making decisions for a group (H3). As Lu and Shang (2021) found that people believe that others value social comparison more than they do, people may also believe that a group pays more attention to social comparison information than oneself, thus amplifying the effect of social comparison on risky decision-making for groups.

When comparisons are made to in-group members, does the effect of social comparison on risk decision-making for oneself and for a group change? This question was explored in study 2.

Study 2 the impact of social comparison and decision-maker roles on risk decision-making in ingroup contexts

Method

Participants

To estimate the required sample size for the repeated measures, the same power analysis was conducted with G*Power3.1. The estimated sample size was 24 under the assumption that a medium-sized effect (f = 0.25) could be detected with α = .05 and power = .90. To ensure sufficient testing power, 32 students were recruited at a university in North China, including 7 males and 25 females with M_age = 19.64 and SD = 1.98. The participants were right-handed with normal or normal corrected vision and were participating in this type of experiment for the first time. No participants were excluded. The participants signed an informed consent form before the experiment, and got paid after completing the experiment. In addition, all procedures used in this study are in accordance with the ethical standards of the Academic Committee of ××University and the ethical principles of the Helsinki Declaration of 1964.

Experimental design and statistical analyses

In this study, a within-subjects design of 2 (Social Comparison: upward comparison, downward comparison) × 3 (Decision-maker Role: decision-making for “me”, decision-making for “us”, decision-making for “them”) was used. The dependent variable was set as the rate of choosing the risk option, i.e., the proportion of participants choosing 25 options in each condition. Data analysis was completed on SPSS 25.0 (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 25.0). Corresponding to the experimental design, a 2 × 3 repeated-measure ANOVA on the rate of choosing the risk option was performed.

Stimulus and procedure

Point estimation material

As in Experiment 1, the participants were randomly assigned to overestimating or underestimating groups but were told that they were being assigned based on their performance in the point estimation task. During the subsequent gambling task, participants were told that they needed to compare themselves to participant “A”, who was of the same type as them, to manipulate the ingroup situation. That is, if a participant was told that he or she was “an underestimator”, opponent “A” was referred to as “an underestimator” in the instructions and vice versa.

Decision-maker role

The instructions were also designed to manipulate the role of the decision-maker before each session of the gambling task. The instructions for used making decisions for “me”, for “us” and for “them” were the same as those used in Experiment 1.

In addition, the gambling task and experimental procedure were the same as those used in study 1.

Results

The results show that the main effect of the decision-maker roles was significant, F(2, 62) = 4.798, p = 0.022, η_p² = 0.451. Participants chose riskier options when making decisions for “them” than when making decisions for “me” or for “us” (ps <0.05), but there was no significant difference between the latter two (p = 0.096). The main effect of social comparison was not significant, F(1, 31) = 3.263, p = 0.088.

The interaction between social comparison and decision-maker roles was significant, F (2, 62) = 3.701, p < 0.05, η_p² = 0.289. According to a simple effect analysis, there were differences in the rate of choosing risk options under different social comparison conditions. When making decisions for “them”, the rate of choosing risk options in the upward comparison condition (M = 0.619, SD = 0.187) was higher than in the downward comparison condition (M = 0.556, SD = 0.199), p < 0.05. While making decisions for “me” and for “us”, there was no significant difference in the rate of choosing the risk option between the upward and downward comparison conditions (for “me”: 0.479 ± 0.107 vs. 0.481 ± 0.115, p = 0.911; for “them”: 0.497 ± 0.166 vs. 0.488 ± 0.176, p = 0.757. See Figure 3).

Figure 3. Ratios of risky choices made in ingroup contexts. * represents p < 0.05. Error bars = standard errors.

Discussion

The results of study 2 show that the main effect of social comparison was not significant in the ingroup context, diverging from H4b, which assumes that the result for the ingroup context should be contrary to that of the outgroup context. Brown et al. (1992) showed that trivial factors, such as using individuals were born on the same day as the comparison target, create psychological closeness between the individual and the comparison target and affect the generation of contrast or assimilation effects. The ingroup identity of the comparison target may create psychological closeness between the individual and the comparison target, leading to an assimilation effect. Upward assimilation leads to a positive self-evaluation, and the decision-maker may interpret the difference as slight or nonexistent (Collins, 1996; Gerber et al., 2018), therefore maintaining consistent choices. While leading to negative self-evaluations, downward assimilation is less likely to occur because people do not want to be similar to people who are worse off (Collins, 1996; Gerber et al., 2018). Thus, decision makers may not be influenced by downward comparative information. In general, ingroup situations may weaken the influence of comparative information, leading to the insignificant main effect of social comparison in ingroup situations.

In the ingroup context, decisions made for “them” were riskier than those made for “me” and “us”, and there was no significant difference between the latter two. This can also be explained according to the logic of responsibility alleviation (Charness, 2000; Charness & Jackson, 2009). The same perception of responsibility for “our” and “my” welfare led to no significant difference in risk decisions for “me” and for “us”, and the perception of less responsibility for “their” welfare led to the decision makers taking more risks when making decisions for “them”.

In addition, the interaction between social comparison and decision-maker roles was significant in the ingroup context, which is consistent with H3. Specifically, it was only when making decisions for “them” that people were more risk-seeking with upward comparison, while the difference between upward and downward comparisons disappeared when making decisions for “me” and “us”. This may be the case because individuals believe that no payoff alignment groups pay more attention to social comparison information than do themselves.

General discussion

In the present study, two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of social comparison on risk decision-making for self and for groups in outgroup and ingroup contexts, respectively. Below, the results of the two experiments are discussed synthetically.

First, the results of the two studies show that in the outgroup situation, participants were more risk-seeking in the upward comparison context than in the downward comparison, while no significant difference was found in the ingroup context. This result indicates that the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making may be moderated by the intergroup contexts/the identities of the comparison target, which is consistent with H4.

In the outgroup context, individuals took more risks in the upward social comparison condition than in the downward comparison, which may be because the outgroup membership of the comparison target produced a contrast effect during the process of social comparison. Thus, when individuals are presented with social comparison information, their self-evaluation level deviates from the comparison goal (Blanton, 2001; Gerber et al., 2018; Xing & Yu, 2006). When presented with upward comparison information, individuals’ self-assessment levels are reduced. Individuals thus tend to take risk repair measures to obtain a potentially larger income to maintain their positive self-conception. Otherwise, when faced with downward comparative information, individuals’ self-evaluation level improves, so they tend to choose conservative options to stabilize their advantageous position (Wang et al., 2016). Schwerter (2015) and Gamba et al. (2017) also found that decision makers change their risk choices to surpass or stay ahead of their peers.

However, in the ingroup context, the difference in risk decision-making found between upward and downward comparison conditions disappeared. It may be that the in-group identity of the comparison target activates social identity. Individuals adopt the social information processing mode of “seeking or integrating” to consider themselves with comparison targets as the same social unit, resulting in an assimilation effect (Gerber et al., 2018; Stapel & Koomen, 2001). Assimilation with the upward comparison target leads to a positive self-evaluation, and the decision-maker may interpret the difference between his or her current status and the target as slight or nonexistent (Collins, 1996; Gerber et al., 2018), thus maintaining their original strategy. Since people do not want to resemble those who are worse off, downward assimilation is less likely to happen (Collins, 1996; Gerber et al., 2018). Therefore, decision makers may not be influenced by downward comparative information. In general, in the ingroup context, decision makers may selectively carry out upward assimilation, which weakens the influence of comparative information, leading to the insignificant main effect of social comparison found in ingroup contexts.

Second, the results show that under different decision-maker roles, the risk seeking propensity of the participants varied. The percentage of participants choosing the risk options when making decisions for “them” was significantly higher than for those making decisions for “me” and for “us”, and there was no significant difference between the latter two. These results were not affected by intergroup contexts. The results of no difference between decisions made for “me” and those made for “us” are consistent with those of some previous studies (e.g., Füllbrunn & Luhan, 2017). It can be logically interpreted in accordance with the principle of responsibility alleviation (Charness & Jackson, 2009). The same perception of responsibility for “our” and “my” welfare leads to no significant difference in risk decisions for “me” and for “us”, and the perception of less responsibility for “their” welfare leads decision makers to take more risks when making decisions for “them”. This result is consistent across different intergroup contexts, possibly because decision makers attach more importance to the identity of the direct stakeholder of the selection outcome – the choice recipient – than to the comparison target that does not directly affect the final benefit.

Finally, the interaction between social comparison and decision-maker roles was significant, which is both the same and different in the ingroup and outgroup contexts. Specifically, the same was reflected in the fact that no significant difference was found between upward and downward comparison conditions for decisions made for “me”, while participants took more risks amid upward comparisons when making decisions for “them”. Previous studies have found egocentrism in social comparison. That is, when making social comparison judgements, people usually pay more attention to information about themselves than they do to information about others (Christian et al., 2014; Kruger et al., 2008). This may result in decision makers not being influenced by social comparative information when making decisions for “me”. According to research by Lu and Shang (2021), decision makers prefer options with high comparative utility when choosing for others, as people believe that others value social comparison more than themselves. When making a decision for “them”, the decision-maker may also believe that “they” pay more attention to social comparison information than they do, resulting in the effect of social comparison on when risky decision-making for “them”.

Interestingly, for decisions made for “us”, the effect of social comparison on risky decisions differed between intergroup contexts. In the outgroup context, participants took more risks in the upward social comparison condition, while this difference disappeared in the ingroup situation. This may be due to the particularity of the decision-maker roles in “we” condition. On the one hand, such a condition includes oneself and is related to one’s own interests, which may cause decision makers to exhibit the tendency of egocentrism. On the other hand, such a condition involves other members of one’s group. With this taken into account, there is a tendency for decision makers to pay attention to social comparison information. In this case, decisions are easily affected by other factors, such as the intergroup contexts set in this study. In brief, an outgroup context highlights comparative information, while an ingroup context weakens social comparison information. Therefore, differences between social comparison directions exist in outgroup contexts but disappear in ingroup contexts when making risk decisions for “us”.

Implication

This study preliminarily revealed the influence of social comparison on self-group risk decision-making in intergroup context, which enriches work on social comparison under self-other decision-making settings. The findings may provide support for the selective accessibility model and may also provide empirical support for explaining the difference of self-group risk decision with the principle of responsibility alleviation.

Limitations and future research

First, this study was conducted with college students, which did not represent a broader sample. Several studies have shown that younger adults reported higher levels of social comparison tendency than older adults (Callan et al., 2015; Suls & Mullen, 1982). Therefore, the effect of social comparisons with others could be more powerful in young adults when compared with older adults. In addition, there is a clear disbalance of gender in all groups of the present study. Although the impact of social comparison on gender differences in risk preferences has been widely ignored in the literature (Ermer et al., 2008), a recent study showed that the influence of social comparison on a risky decision is higher for men than for women (Schmidt et al., 2021). Future research needs to be conducted in a sex-balanced broader sample to verify the conclusions of this study, or can further explore age and gender differences in the impact of social comparison on risk decision-making.

Second, the minimal-group paradigm was used to manipulate intergroup contexts. Under this paradigm, there is no real face-to-face interaction between group members, no structure within groups, and no past history or culture among groups (Otten & Mummendey, 1999). The minimal-group experiment results show that even if people are assigned to a simple and meaningless category, as long as the participants simply perceive categorization, this is sufficient to generate group-oriented perception and behaviour (Tajfel, 1970; Tajfel et al., 1971; Zhang & Zuo, 2006). Under this paradigm alone, the current study found that the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making may be moderated by intergroup contexts. Future research may use ingroup and outgroup contexts with greater ecological validity, such as countries or nations, to further verify the role of intergroup contexts in the impact of social comparison on risk decision-making.

Third, only a money gambling task was used to explore risk decisions made in the economic domain. Previous studies on self-other risk decisions have found domain specificity in whether making decisions for others is riskier than making decisions for oneself (Batteux et al., 2019). For example, in the personal safety domain, decision makers are more risk averse when they make decisions for others than when making decisions for themselves (Mouter et al., 2018), whereas in the interpersonal relationship domain, the results are the opposite (Wray & Stone, 2005). Future research can use different domains of risk decision-making tasks, such as the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and Traffic Light Task, to explore whether social comparison has the same domain-specific impact on self-group risk decision-making.

Finally, the study found that intergroup contexts may moderate the influence of social comparison on risk decision-making and explain this by relevant theories of social comparison. However, the mechanisms of assimilation and comparison involved are only posited because the participants were not asked to self-evaluate their risk decision-making ability after the presentation of social comparison information. Therefore, a more sophisticated experimental design or other technical methods are needed for verification in the future. In addition, the information processing/brain mechanisms by which social comparison has different effects on risky decision-making in ingroup and outgroup contexts have not been explored. Future research may use eye movement technology to track eye movement trajectories and fixation times when social comparison information appears and to deeply examine participants’ attention to social comparison information under different decision-maker roles. In addition, emerging neuroscience technologies such as fMRI and ERP tools can also be applied in future studies to explore the brain mechanism involved in the impact of social comparison on risky decision-making.

Conclusion

When individuals have different decision-maker roles, the effects of social comparison direction on risk decisions vary. Making decisions for a group may magnify the difference in risk decisions made amid upward and downward comparisons. The identity of the comparison target may play a moderating role in the effect of social comparison on self-group risk decision-making. In addition, the results of this study may support relevant theories of social comparison, such as the selective accessibility model and provide an interpretation with the principle of responsibility alleviation for differences in self-group risk decision-making.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to confidentiality agreement, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the General Project of Education in 2021 for the 14th Five-Year Plan of the National Social Science Fund: The development, influencing factors and intervention system of middle school students’ moral shading: Based on decision-making process theory [BEA210108].