Sympathy determines the winner

Sympathy determines the winner: In the last few hours before a job interview, one's thoughts always revolve around the same questions: How should you dress, what should you reveal about yourself, and what is the best way to stand out from the crowd of applicants? A new study by researchers Urs Fischbacher, Fabian Dvorak (both from the Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz and members of the Cluster of Excellence "Collective Behaviour") and Katrin Schmelz (formerly University of Konstanz, now Santa Fe Institute, USA) now shows that it can indeed be smart to stand out in such situations. However, if you have common ground with committee members, it can be much more promising to emphasize the similarities.

The study, published in The Economic Journal, takes a closer look at situations in which people strategically decide whether they want to stand out or conform. The researchers conducted an experiment with 871 students in which the participants had to act in a group and could either be chosen for a reward (in the working world this would be a promotion, for example) or something negative (such as a dismissal).

Drawing attention? Not at any price
Initially, all students independently made decisions whether to fit in or stand out. After seeing the decisions of the others, they decided again. "One thing was particularly noticeable: When they could be selected for something bad, participants overwhelmingly chose to conform, potentially out of fear of drawing attention to themselves. However, in situations where rewards were involved, some participants deliberately chose to stand out", says Urs Fischbacher, summarizing a partial result of the study. Urs Fischbacher is a professor of behavioural economics at the University of Konstanz and involved in the two Clusters of Excellence "Collective Behaviour" and "The Politics of Inequality".

The study also investigated how evaluators selected individuals for a positive reward or an undesirable consequence. The results suggest that having things in common with an evaluator is much more important than being noticeable. "Evaluators preferably assigned rewards not to those who stood out, but to those similar to themselves. When selecting for punishment, people who stood out were more in danger, while being similar to the evaluator provided protection", says Fabian Dvorak and adds: "This means that it is worth emphasizing what you have in common with the evaluator, both in positive and negative situations. The resulting sympathy either protects against negative consequences or, at least to a certain extent, increases the chance of receiving the reward".

Attracting attention needs to be planned well
So is it completely irrelevant whether you stand out from a group as long as you are as similar as possible to the evaluator? "It's not quite that simple. Standing out from a group can still be a successful strategy if a large part of the group is very similar to the evaluator. Those fitting in might not get noticed. In this case, it can be helpful to positively stand out", says co-author Katrin Schmelz.

There is another limitation if the group is very homogeneous. According to the study, this reduces the likelihood that a non-conforming person will be favoured. "This mechanism presents a worrying implication for hiring practices, as it suggests that efforts to promote diversity could be undermined in rather homogeneous environments", concludes Dvorak.