When competing with a rival adviser for a client’s attention, the majority of participants were ready to forgo financial reward to increase their chances of being selected. Payments for influence were higher when the client did not favour the participant. Participants also used their advice confidence strategically, expressing more confidence when they were ignored

Hertz, Uri,and Bahador Bahrami 2018. “Intrinsic Value of Social Influence over Others”. PsyArXiv. April 30. psyarxiv.com/6jm7t

Abstract: The view that social rewards, such as belonging to a group and having influence on other’s behaviour have intrinsic value has been supported by recent neuroscientific studies, showing that social rewards are processed in the brain similarly to monetary rewards. Here we ask whether influencing others is a strong enough a motivation, that to secure it one might be willing to forgo monetary pay offs? We examined participants online and in the lab, while playing an advice-giving game, competing with a rival adviser for a client’s attention. Majority of participants were ready to forgo financial reward to increase their chances of being selected over their rival. Payments for influence were higher when the client did not favour the participant. Participants also used their advice confidence strategically, expressing more confidence when they were ignored by the client. Both means of persuasion were affected by the participants performance – performance relative to the rival adviser affected advice confidence, while one’s own accuracy affected payments. In both cases performing better led to increase use of persuasion. These results imply that influence on others is inherently valuable and exchangeable for monetary reward.