Social reputation influences on liking and willingness-topay for artworks

Author(s)
Blanca Thea Maria Spee, Matthew Pelowski, Jozsef Arato, Jan Mikuni, Ulrich Tran, Christoph Eisenegger, Helmut Leder
Abstract

Art, as a prestigious cultural commodity, concerns aesthetic and monetary values, personal tastes, and social reputation in various social contexts—all of which are reflected in choices concerning our liking, or in other contexts, our actual willingness-to-pay for artworks. But, how do these different aspects interact in regard to the concept of social reputation and our private versus social selves, which appear to be essentially intervening, and potentially conflicting, factors driving choice? In our study, we investigated liking and willingness-to-pay choices using—in art research—a novel, forced-choice paradigm. Participants (N = 123) made choices from artwork-triplets presented with opposing artistic quality and monetary value-labeling, thereby creating ambiguous choice situations. Choices were made in either private or in social/public contexts, in which participants were made to believe that either art-pricing or art-making experts were watching their selections. A multi-method design with eye-tracking, neuroendocrinology (testosterone, cortisol), and motivational factors complemented the behavioral choice analysis. Results showed that artworks, of which participants were told were of high artistic value were more often liked and those of high monetary-value received more willingness-to-pay choices. However, while willingness-to-pay was significantly affected by the presumed observation of art-pricing experts, liking selections did not differ between private/public contexts. Liking choices, compared to willingness-to-pay, were also better predicted by eye movement patterns. Whereas, hormone levels had a stronger relation with monetary aspects (willingness-to-pay/ art-pricing expert). This was further confirmed by motivational factors representative for reputation seeking behavior. Our study points to an unexplored terrain highlighting the linkage of social reputation mechanisms and its impact on choice behavior with a ubiquitous commodity, art.

Organisation(s)
Vienna Cognitive Science Hub, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology
Journal
PLoS ONE
Volume
17
No. of pages
30
ISSN
1932-6203
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266020
Publication date
04-2022
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
501021 Social psychology, 501030 Cognitive science, 501001 General psychology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/social-reputation-influences-on-liking-and-willingnesstopay-for-artworks(45e18b14-0044-4dbf-817f-eae1686db5fd).html