Ego-relevance in team production

We study how individuals’ effort contribution to a team production task varies depending on whether the task is ego relevant or not. We conduct an experiment to test the effect of ego-relevance when the team production depends on the team’s top- or bottom-performer. Ego-relevance is manipulated by calling the Raven IQ Test an “IQ Task” or a “Pattern Task.” We find that the effort contributed to the task is affected by ego-relevance and the impact of the team production function on effort contribution is mediated by the teammate’s expected effort contribution. Ego-relevance increases the responsiveness to the teammate’s expected effort contributions. Similarly, more responsive behavior is noticeable when the team production depends on the bottom-performer. However, we do not observe interaction-effects between ego-relevance and the team production function that affect effort contributions.


Consent form
Please read the consent form below and press the continue button if you agree to each bullet point.
• I voluntarily agree to take part in this study.
• I have been given a full instruction by the investigators of the nature, purpose, location and likely duration of the study, and of what I will be expected to do.
• I consent to my data that I provide in this experiment being used for this study. I understand that all personal data relating to volunteers is anonymised and held and processed in the strictest confidence. I understand that the research data will be used for producing a research article to be published in scientific journals. The anonymised data may be published as an open-access data source.
• I understand that I am free to withdraw from the study at any time during the experiment without needing to justify my decision and without prejudice. I also understand that if I withdraw from the study once the study is finalised I can ask for my data to be deleted by providing my Prolific ID.
• I acknowledge that in consideration for completing the study I shall receive earnings at the end of the study. I recognise that I will receive £2 plus additional payment that will depend on my and other participants' decisions as explained in the instructions for the experiment.
• I confirm that I have read and understood the above and freely consent to participating in this study. I have been given adequate time to consider my participation and agree to comply with the instructions and restrictions of the study.

Instructions
Welcome to our study! You will receive £2 for participating in this study. Plus you can earn additional money depending on your decisions during the study. Please read and follow the instructions carefully. They contain everything you need to know.

Part 1: IQ Task/ Pattern Task
Note 1: treatment variations are displayed in italics.
Note 2: this paragraph appears only in the ego-relevance treatment.

The Part 1 tasks are taken from an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test that is commonly used to measure people's intelligence levels. Previous research has shown that people scoring high in IQ tests have been
found to get higher salaries, obtain better job position and report higher satisfaction with their lives. You will be shown 10 patterns with a missing element. Your task is to select the option that completes the pattern from several options given at the bottom of the screen. An example pattern is provided below, where option 4 is the correct answer.
You will have 2 minutes to complete a set of 10 patterns. Each correct answer will add 1 point to your score and wrong answers will not affect your score.
Your score does not increase your payment in Part 1, but in Part 2 you will be matched to a teammate with the closest score to yours. This may determine your payments in Part 2 of the Study. So it is in your interest to score as high as you can.
Everyone else will complete the same set of IQ/Pattern tasks.
Please click Continue to start the IQ/Pattern Task.

Belief elicitation after completing Part 1's Task
Thanks for completing the IQ/Pattern Task.

Team Decision: [Complementary/Substitutable Team Production Manipulation]
Your scores in previous IQ/Pattern Task were calculated. We will rank all 20 participants (including you) depending on the scores in the Task. Depending on your score and your rank, you will be matched with another person as shown below to form a Team. We will know your scores, but unfortunately, you will not learn what score you or your teammate achieved or who your teammate is at any point of the study.
In this part of the experiment, you will have to complete a new set of 10 IQ/Pattern Tasks in 2 minutes. Your earnings will depend on your and your teammate's decisions and scores.
You are about to answer a new set of 10 IQ/Pattern Tasks. You have to decide how many, but not which ones, of the Tasks will be used to compute your payment. We call them the ACTIVATED answers.
You are now given an additional £1.00 that you can spend to activate your answers from the IQ/Pattern Task. Activating each answer costs £0.10. The software will randomly select the number of ACTIVATED answers out of the 10 IQ/Pattern Tasks to calculate your ACTIVATED score.

YOUR ACTIVATED SCORE, TEAMMATE ACTIVATED SCORE and TEAMSCORE
Your additional earnings from this study depend on your TEAMSCORE.
The TEAMSCORE will be the MINIMUM/MAXIMUM between your own and your teammate's ACTIVATED score. That is, your TEAMSCORE depends on the MINIMUM/MAXIMUM number of correct answers you and your teammate got among the ACTIVATED answers. TEAMSCORE = Minimum/Maximum (Your Activated Score; Teammate Activated Score) You and your teammate will simultaneously decide how many answers to activate. It means that both you and your teammate will earn the same amount from working on IQ/Pattern task, but your total activation costs may differ depending on how many questions each of you decided to activate. We will subtract your activation cost from the additional £1.00 that you are given in this part.

Your earnings
To calculate your earnings, we will multiply your TEAMSCORE by £0.25 and subtract your cost of activating the questions. Your additional earnings will be equal to £1 that we give you to activate answers minus the £0.10 multiplied with the number you choose to activate plus your TEAMSCORE multiplied with £0.25. The formula for this is as below: Additional Earnings = £1.00 -£0.10 × ACTIVATED ANSWERS + £0.25×TEAMSCORE At the end of the study, you will learn about your additional earnings, but you will not learn what your and your teammate's scores were or how many answers your teammate activated.
Let's look at an example to better understand how your earning will be calculated.

Example 1
You and your teammate decide to activate all 10 of the answers. Since you have both activated all 10 answers, the software will look at the correctness of all your answers. Suppose YOUR ACTIVATED SCORE was 9 questions right and your TEAMMATE's ACTIVATED SCORE was 7 questions right. Then the TEAMSCORE will be 9/7, since 9/7 was the MAXIMUM/MINIMUM score between you and your teammate ACTIVATED score. Your and your teammate's earnings will thus be: £1.00 -£0.10×10 + £0.25 × 9/7 = £2.25/1.75.

Example 2
You have chosen to activate 7 answers and your teammate have chosen to activate 4 answers. The software randomly activates 7 out of the 10 answers from the set of 10 IQ/Pattern tasks, and then checks how many are correct. The software randomly activates 4 out of the 10 answers of your teammate from the set of 10 IQ/Pattern tasks, and then checks how many are correct. Suppose your ACTIVATED SCORE is 6 of 7 answers. Suppose your TEAMMATES' ACTIVATED SCORE is 2 of 4 answers.
You will only learn about your final earnings, but not about your or your teammate's correct answers.

Quiz [Correct answers in bold]
To make sure you understood how your earnings will be calculated, please answer the following quiz on your screen. You will not be able to proceed to the study unless you can answer all questions.

Q1: You activated 4 answers and your teammate activated 0 answers. You answered correctly 3 out of the 4 randomly selected questions.
Select the correct answer: • Your activated score will be: a) 3 b) 4 c) 5 d) 0 • Your teammate activated score will be: a) 3 b) 4 c) 5 d) 0 • Your team score will be: a) 3, b) 4, c) 5, d) 0 • Your earnings will be: a) less than your teammate's earnings, b) larger than your teammate earnings, c) equal to your teammate earnings.

• YOUR ACTIVATED SCORE: [3]
Would you like to learn what your score was in the IQ/Pattern Task? If yes, please choose which score you want to learn and we will show your scores in the final stage. This will cost you £0.10 each (to be subtracted from your earnings if you have positive earnings). [If chosen to learn scores] -You answered [ ] and [ ] questions out of 10-items in your IQ/Pattern task. We will let you know of your TEAMSCORE and respectively your earnings once all participants have completed the study.