The Demand and Supply of Esteem: An experimental analysis

We use a laboratory experiment to identify some determinants of variation across individuals in the demand and supply of esteem. Some participants can choose, at a cost, buy ‘credits’ so as to appear to others to have a better performance on a real effort task than they really do: this purchase reflects esteem seeking. The provision of esteem, via a partner's feedback on performance, is also recorded. We find: (i) those with a low willingness to supply effort have a lower probability of purchasing credits, (ii) participants matched with low scoring partners buy more credits (iii) feedback is improved for those purchasing credits.