In two experiments, subjects were required to observe and predict the behavior of a hypothetical "chooser" who made choices for him-or herself and for a hypothetical other in a series of decomposed games. The preference for outcomes, or social motivational orientation, of the chooser was preprogrammed and varied across conditions. Results of the experiments confirmed that subjects were more readily able to detect the outcome preferences of choosers who made choices according to individualistic or competitive choice rules than of choosers who behaved in a prosocial or negatively self-interested manner. Furthermore, the prediction data obtained from Experiment 2 revealed that subjects tended to perceive choosers' own gain as an important component of most of the choosers' secondary motivation. Evidence from subjects' ratings of the choosers' personality attributes and estimates of the relative weights the choosers attached to their own and the other's gain (Experiment 2) indicated that subjects formed distinctive impressions of the choosers despite differences in predictive accuracy across conditions. A third experiment, performed to investigate the relationship between predictive accuracy and the mathematical complexity of the choosers' various choice rules, found no evidence that mathematical complexity influenced subjects' performance on the prediction task. The study of social exchange is concerned only in terms of what he or she receives for with situations where the outcomes of two or self but also in terms of what others receive, more individuals are dependent upon their Experiments by Messick and McClintock mutual behaviors. Recent literature dealing (1968), McClintock, Messick, Kuhlman, and with social exchange has focused on deter-Campos (1973), and Kuhlman and Marshello mining the values that individuals seek to (1975) confirm that people show individual maximize in outcome interdependence situa-differences in their tendencies to maximize tions. McClintock (1972b), for example, has their own outcomes, joint outcomes, and the proposed that the value of outcomes to an relative difference between their own and individual may be defined by that person not others' outcomes.These preferences for outcomes, or social motives, have been formally characterized in The research reported here was partially sup-a geometric model by Griesinger and Livported by a Canada Council Doctoral Fellowship to ingston (1973). The Griesinger and Living-Judith E. Maki Canada Council Grant #871-1044 ston represen tation takes the form of a twoto Warren B. Thorngate, and a University of Call-,.. , , a fornia Faculty Research Grant and National Science dimensional space where outcomes or payoffs Foundation Grant #77-03862 to Charles G. McCHn-to self are ordered along the horizontal axis, tock. The authors are indebted to Elizabeth Bigman, and outcomes to the other are ordered along Melissa Bubar, and Beverly Davidson, who assisted tne vertical axis. An actor's preference for "SStrtSs should be sent to Charles G. certain distributions...