Status-Relevant Experiences and Conspicuous Consumption - the Moderating Role of Prenatal Androgen Exposure

In this paper we study consumers' interest in acquiring and displaying expensive luxury products. Based on recent insights in consumer psychology, which build on developments in evolutionary biology, we consider luxury products as "costly signals": wasteful and costly goods, whose purpose is to communicate one's biological fitness, and social status, to others. In line with previous research, we show that experiences that trigger mate attraction goals (Study 1: Exposure to others in bathing outfit) or status display goals (Study 2: Experiencing a vicarious victory of one's favorite sports team) can increase people's interest in luxury products. However, we demonstrate that some individuals are predictably more responsive to those experiences than others. We used a physiological measure (the proportion of the length of the index finger and ring finger of the right hand, 2D:4D) as a proxy for individual differences in exposure to prenatal androgens (i.e., testosterone). This measure has been related to dominant and competitive behavior later in life. We predict and find that individuals with a low 2D:4D (i.e., high exposure to prenatal androgens) were more responsive to the status-relevant experiences: they became more interested in luxury goods after these experiences. This was not the case for high 2D:4D individuals.