Shame and Pride in Team Contests

ABSTRACT

We investigate the effect of shame (due to low performance) and pride (due to high performance) in a team contest. When a player feels more strongly about shame and pride, he exerts higher equilibrium effort, but his teammate exerts lower equilibrium effort, ultimately leading to a positive overall effect on the team's equilibrium winning probability. A team's success depends on the sum of its members' emotional weight parameters rather than on their individual values. We then analyze a team design game in which each team owner strategically makes a costly investment to increase his team's total weight of shame–pride utility.