The Influence Of Social Comparison On The Labor Behavior Of Migrant Workers

This paper studies the changes of migrant workers’ labor behavior in the case of social comparison.Firstly,the social comparison theory is introduced,and the concept and method of real effort experiment are introduced.Secondly,by referring to the real effort experiment and combining with the research purpose of this paper,a behavioral experiment is designed,and the influence of social comparison on migrant workers’ labor behavior is estimated by using the panel random effect model with experimental data.Previous empirical research methods are mostly data analysis methods based on survey statistical data.Through the analysis of cross-section data within a year or panel data for many years,they are limited by the amount of data and analysis methods.In addition,appropriate reference groups need to be found.In this paper,through the method of behavioral experiment,the reference group without social comparison was first set,and then the economic environment and related variables in the experiment were accurately controlled.Finally,the experimental data of the social comparison experimental group and the reference group without social comparison were compared and analyzed,and the analysis conclusions were obtained.This paper studies the two dimensions of the influence of social comparison on working behavior by designing behavioral experiments,which are the efficiency of working behavior--the number of questions answered by the experimental participants,and the quality of working behavior--the correct number and accuracy of questions answered by the experimental participants.The efficiency of working behavior reflects whether the migrant workers put more effort into labor in the counting experiment because of the existence of social comparison.The quality of migrant workers’ supply reflects the effectiveness of the quantity of working behavior of the subjects in the experiment,and not all increases in labor quantity are effective migrant workers’ supply.Both efficiency and quality of working behavior can be reflected in the change of working behavior of migrant workers under the circumstance of social comparison.Three experimental designs were designed: the baseline design,the downward social comparison design(downward comparison),and the upward social comparison design(upward comparison).The baseline design did not provide any social comparison information,so the baseline design was used as the reference design for the experiment.Through the panel random effect model,this paper analyzes the influence of upward social comparison design and downward social comparison design on the labor behavior of migrant workers,mainly analyzing the labor efficiency and labor quality.Using the panel random effect model,this paper studies the influence of social comparison on labor efficiency and labor quality,and further studies how the maximum information in the upward social comparison and the minimum information in the downward social comparison affect the labor behavior of migrant workers.Through the analysis of the panel random effects model,the following conclusions are drawn: first,compared with the baseline design,the downward social comparison has a significant impact on the number of answers and number of correct answers.In other words,under the condition of downward social comparison,the labor efficiency and labor quality of migrant workers will be significantly improved.Secondly,compared with the baseline design,upward social comparison has a significant impact on the number of answers,that is,when individuals make upward social comparison,the labor efficiency of migrant workers will be significantly improved.Thirdly,a comparative analysis of the upward social comparison and the downward social comparison shows that the upward social comparison information can better stimulate the labor efficiency of migrant workers than the downward social comparison information.However,compared with the baseline design,the downward social comparison had a significant effect on the number of correct answers,while the upward social comparison had no significant effect on the number of correct answers.In addition,compared with the minimum gainers,we found that the minimum information significantly affected the labor efficiency(the number of answers)and labor quality(the number of correct answers)of the non-minimum gainers in the downward social comparison.Compared with the maximum gainers,the maximum information in the upward social comparison had no significant incentive effect on the non-maximum gainers.