The role of social status and testosterone in human conspicuous consumption

Conspicuous consumption refers to the phenomenon where individuals purchase goods for signalling social status, rather than for its inherent functional value. This study (n = 166 male participants) investigated how the outcome of a social competition influenced conspicuous consumption, and its association with competition-induced testosterone reactivity. Winning a competition increased both explicit and implicit preferences for higher-status vs. lower-status products, using both natural stimuli (prestigious cars) and laboratory-tagged stimuli of matched value (university T-shirts). Competition also influenced behaviour in an Ultimatum Game, such that winners were more likely to reject unfair offers. Competition outcomes had no discernible influence upon salivary testosterone levels, and neither basal testosterone levels nor testosterone reactivity induced by competition predicted the conspicuous consumption measures. Our data indicate that winning a competition lead to more dominant behaviour, albeit in a manner that is not statistically regulated by testosterone, possibly through increased feeling of entitlement.This work was completed within the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (director: TW Robbins), supported by a consortium award from the Medical Research Council (MRC Ref G1000183) and Wellcome Trust (WT Ref 093875/Z/10/Z). YW was supported by the Treherne Studentship in Biological Sciences from Downing College, Cambridge, National Natural Science Foundation of China (31600923), Shenzhen University Natural Science Research Fund (2016073) and Shenzhen University Social and Humanity Science Research Fund (17QNFC44). CE was supported by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF VRG13-007). The Centre for Gambling Research at UBC is supported by the British Columbia Lottery Corporation and the British Columbia Government