title: The Influence of Social Comparison and Peer Group Size on Risky Decision-Making.
abstract: This study explores the influence of different social reference points and different comparison group sizes on risky decision-making. Participants were presented with a scenario describing an exam, and presented with the opportunity of making a risky decision in the context of different information provided about the performance of their peers. We found that behavior was influenced, not only by comparison with peers, but also by the size of the comparison group. Specifically, the larger the reference group, the more polarized the behavior it prompted. In situations describing social loss, participants were led to make riskier decisions after comparing themselves against larger groups, while in situations describing social gain, they become more risk averse. These results indicate that decision making is influenced both by social comparison and the number of people making up the social reference group.
authors: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University Jinan, China.
authors: Dawei
authors: D
authors: Wang
authors: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University Jinan, China.
authors: Liping
authors: L
authors: Zhu
authors: Department of Computer Science, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland.
authors: Phil
authors: P
authors: Maguire
authors: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University Jinan, China.
authors: Yixin
authors: Y
authors: Liu
authors: Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA, USA.
authors: Kaiyuan
authors: K
authors: Pang
authors: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University Jinan, China.
authors: Zhenying
authors: Z
authors: Li
authors: School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University Jinan, China.
authors: Yixin
authors: Y
authors: Hu
keywords: peer group influence; risky decision making; social comparison; social framing; social reference points