Price Discrepancy Between Sellers and Buyers When Making Decisions for the Self and Others

Abstract

In daily life, people make decisions not only for themselves but also on behalf of others. There may be differences in terms of the endowment effect when making decisions in these two situations. In Study 1, this question was investigated with an existing dataset exploring the traditional endowment effect, in which 86 students (M age = 20.8 years, SD = 5.0) at Harvard University were asked to make a decision on selling or buying a coffee mug for themselves or for others as brokers. When making decisions for the self, the average price demanded by sellers was much higher than that offered by buyers; while making decisions for others, the price discrepancy disappeared. In Study 2, a similar study was conducted with a sample of 42 Chinese university students (M age = 22.3 years, SD = 2.5), and a similar pattern of results was obtained. Further analysis indicated that when making decisions for others, only buyers increased their valuations, therefore mitigating the seller–buyer price discrepancy. Finally, the findings were interpreted from the perspective of Construal Level Theory.