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Status-Relevant Cues and Conspicuous Consumption: the Moderating Role of Prenatal Androgen Exposure
Xavier Palacios, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Gert Cornelissen, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Consumer products can be considered a means for an individual to signal one’s social status and individual qualities to others. In many
cases, however, they cannot be considered an honest signal of the individual’s genetic quality. Rather, consumer products provide a
means to attempt to fake such quality. Using Digit Ratio (2D:4D) as a proxy, we test whether the exposure to prenatal androgens
moderates the attraction to acquire luxury consumer products as a signal for individual quality, following different types of statusrelevant cues.
[to cite]:
Xavier Palacios and Gert Cornelissen (2011) ,"Status-Relevant Cues and Conspicuous Consumption: the Moderating Role of
Prenatal Androgen Exposure", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 39, eds. Rohini Ahluwalia, Tanya L. Chartrand,
and Rebecca K. Ratner, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 715-716.
[url]:
http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1009270/volumes/v39/NA-39
[copyright notice]:
This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in
part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/.
Advances in Consumer Research (Volume 39) / 715
To test this hypothesis, we asked our participants to remember an episode in the past in which they did an (un)ethical thing. By defining
ethics in terms of consequences or rules we brought them in a consequential or deontological mindset. We then observed whether participants
subsequently behaved consistent with the act they recollected from their past, or whether they showed a balancing effect. We manipulated
Ethical Framework (deontological versus consequential) and Valence of an initial act (positive or negative). To do so, we asked half of our
participants to remember an episode in the past where they did something ethical, and we asked the others to think about something unethical
they did. Half of the individuals in each group were instructed to think about a behavior that was (un)ethical “because it benefitted/hurt other
people” (i.e., the Consequential condition). The others thought about a behavior that was (un)ethical “because you did (not) do your duty to
follow an ethical norm or principle” (i.e., the deontological condition).
As a dependent measure, we used a modified Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (PDG; Smeesters, Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt,
2003). We performed a two-way ANOVA with Moral Framework (deontological versus consequential) and Valence of the recollected behavior (positive or negative) as between-subject factors and number of coins given in the PDG as the dependent variable using. We did not find a
main effect of Moral Framework or Valence, but we did find a significant interaction effect of both factors (F(1, 87) = 9.53, p < 0.01). When
participants were successfully instructed to be in a consequentialist mindset, they gave more coins in the PDG if they recalled a moment in the
past in which they behaved unethically (M = 2.89, SD = 1.71) than those who recollected an ethical act (M = 1.77, SD = 1.97; F(1, 87) = 5.05,
p < 0.03). In other words, those participants who were in an outcome-based mindset showed a moral balancing effect. When participants were
brought into a deontological mindset, they gave more coins in the PDG if they had recollected an ethical act (M = 2.74, SD = 1.52) than when
the recalled an unethical act (M = 1.71, SD = 1.24; F(1, 87) = 4.48, p < 0.04). In other words, these participants showed a moral consistency
effect. For participants who were asked to remember an ethical act in the past, those who were in a consequentialist mindset gave less yellow
coins than those in a deontological mindset (F(1, 87) = 3.89, p = 0.05). For participants who were asked to remember an unethical act in the
past, those who were in a consequentialist mindset gave more yellow coins than those in a deontological mindset (F(1, 87) = 5.72, p < 0.01).
The study supported our hypothesis that a consequentialist, outcome-based mindset leads to moral balancing and a deontological, rulebased thinking mindset leads to moral consistency. This finding provides an interesting suggestion to explain the inconsistent findings in the
recent literature on moral dynamics. Many of these articles indeed employ a rather consequential definition of ethical behavior, and therefore
may present a somewhat distorted view on the moral dynamics of everyday life. In some cases an individual’s behavior might be preceded by
rule-based reasoning about how to interpret their previous behavior.
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Status-relevant cues and conspicuous consumption – the moderating role of prenatal
androgen exposure
Xavier Palacios, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Gert Cornelissen, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Consumer psychologists have suggested that individual differences exist between people regarding their need to display status (Stenstrom et al., 2010), and some of them seem to be grounded in biological mechanisms (Miller et al., 2007; Griskevicius et al., 2007). We
investigated how status-relevant experiences influence an individual’s need to display status. We contrasted two types of status-relevant
experiences. Both provoke the activation of a status goal, but in one case the goal of attaining a dominant status was achieved (i.e., football
supporters vicariously experiencing a victory of their preferred team; Bernhart et al., 1998), and in another such a goal remained unsatisfied
(i.e., individuals on their way to the beach). We also tested the moderating effect of exposure to prenatal androgens on the response to these
experiences. In previous studies, Digit Ratio (i.e., the ratio of the length of the index finger (2D) compared to the ring finger (4D); DR) has
been negatively related to the prenatal level of testosterone (Manning, 2002; Hönekopp et al., 2007). Low DR is associated with more com-
716 / Working Papers
petitive and dominant behaviors in humans (Manning, 2002; Millet, 2009). Therefore, we expect that the effect of status-relevant experiences
on status oriented behavior will be more pronounced in low DR individuals.
In a first study, we randomly approached 51 individuals on their way to (N = 19), or going home from (N = 32), a popular beach, located
in the vicinity of a large size cosmopolitan city. Their age varied from 15 to 47 (M = 26, SD = 10.9); 29 participants were male and 22 were
female. We expected those who are on their way to the beach to anticipate being exposed to “hot stimuli” (Van den Berg, 2008). The anticipation of such a mating cue activates a goal to display status (Jansens et al., 2010). We measured participants’ goal to display status using a
visual recognition task. An activated goal leads to a perceptual “readiness” to recognize those items that may help the individual to achieve
that goal (Roskos-Ewoldsen and Fazio, 1992). Therefore it is assumed that a higher need to display status will lead to faster recognition of
luxury consumer products. Participants were asked to look at ten displays which appeared on the screen for 1 second. Each display contained
five different products, one of which was a luxury product. After being exposed to each display, participants were given the time to write
down which objects they had recognized.
Based on the number of luxury products that participants recognized, we created an index for the Goal to Display Status. We performed a
two-way ANCOVA on this index including the discrete variable Status Cue (on the way to the beach versus going away from the beach), and
the continuous variable DR as predictors. The analysis revealed a marginal interaction effect between the presence of a Status Cue and DR
(F(1, 43) = 3.36, p = 0.07). In the control condition, we do not find a correlation between DR and attention to luxury products (r(29) = 0.07,
ns), whereas there was a correlation when participants are going towards the beach (r(16) = -0.48, p < 0.05). This suggests that when a status
cue is present, those with a lower DR have a larger need to display status, resulting in recognizing more luxury products.
In a second study, we tested whether we would replicate the pattern of data of Study 1 in a context where the status-relevant experience
provides a satisfaction of the status goal. We invited 56 university students to participate in a lab experiment (23 males and 33 females).
Half of our participants viewed a compilation of videos in which their favorite football team won an important match against their strongest
rival (Madrigal et al., 2008). It has been shown that the testosterone level of football supporters increase when they see their favorite team
win (Carré, 2009). Previous research has further demonstrated that testosterone levels influence the tendency to display status through the
purchase of luxury products (Janssens et al, 2010). In the control condition, participants did not see any video. Then participants in both conditions completed the recognition task we used in Study 1. We performed a two-way ANOVA on this Goal to Display Status index including
the variables Status Cue (video versus no video) and DR (high versus low). We find an interaction effect of both variables on the proportion of
luxury products recognized (F(1,37) = 7.26, p = 0.01). In the control condition, participants with a low DR (M = 0.17, SD = 0.06) indentified
fewer luxury products than those with a high DR (M = 0.21, SD = 0.03). The effect was marginally significant (F(1,37) = 3.50, p < 0.07). In
the Status Cue condition, after being exposed to the two videos, participants with a low DR (M = 0.21, SD = 0.06) see more luxury products
than those with a high DR (M = 0.17, SD = 0.05). This difference was marginally significant (F(1,37) = 3.83, p < 0.06). The status cue had
a significant effect on participants with a low DR (F(1,37) = 4.00, p = 0.05). After being exposed to the status cue, they recognized more
luxury products than in the control condition. The reverse is true for participants with a low DR. After being exposed to the status cue they
recognized less luxury products than in the control condition. This effect was only marginally significant (F(1,37) = 3.30, p < 0.08).
In both studies an individual difference variable (i.e., exposure to prenatal androgens) moderated the effect of status cues on individual’s
tendency to achieve and display status. Our findings suggest that cues that activate a status goal, whether or not the status goal is satisfied,
increase the need to achieve and display status, but only for individuals who received higher levels of prenatal androgens. Follow-up studies
that extend these findings are currently ongoing and will be completed by the date of the conference.
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