If I can do it, so can you! : Peer effects on perseverance
- Buechel, Berno University of Fribourg
- Mechtenberg, Lydia University of Hamburg
- Petersen, Julia University of Hamburg
-
2018
Published in:
- Journal of economic behavior and organization. - 2018, vol. 155, p. 301-314
English
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.
- Faculty
- Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales et du management
- Department
- Département d'économie politique
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Economics
- License
- License undefined
- Identifiers
-
- RERO DOC 327338
- DOI 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.09.004
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/308187
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