Within and Across Class Envy: Anti-Social Behaviour in Hierarchical Groups

Models of social preferences (i.e. inequality aversion), assuming society is defined by a hierarchy based on income or wealth, predict that the poor envy the rich. Reference Group Theory predicts that the poor (rich) envy others from the same social group or class. We report results from a game designed to stimulate feelings of envy. Players are defined both by their place within an overarching hierarchy as well as by their place within the hierarchy of their specific class (i.e. their reference groups). We find that, while across class envy is common; within class envy motivates the most anti-social behaviour.