Social utility and decision making in interpersonal contexts.

Abstract

Three studies examined preferences for outcomes to self and a codisputant. Studies 1 and 2 estimated social utility functions from judgments of satisfaction with alternative outcomes. Comparing functional forms, we found that a utility function, including terms for own payoff and for positive and negative discrepancies between the parties' payoffs (advantageous and disadvantageous inequality), provides a close fit to the data. The typical utility function is steeply increasing and convex for disadvantageous inequality and weakly declining and convex for advantageous inequality. We manipulated dispute type (personal, business) and disputant relationship (positive, neutral, or negative) and found that both strongly influence preferences for advantageous but not disadvantageous inequality. A third study contrasted implications of the social utility functions with predictions of individual utility theories.

The Friendly Taking Effect: How Interpersonal Closeness Leads to Seemingly Selfish Yet Jointly Maximizing Choice

“…Just as selfishness can sometimes override concern for close others when these two values conflict, a concern for the total benefit can also override people's concern for a close other in some contexts. In neither case do we deny the existence of a concern for the other, and instead we recognize close relationships routinely involve compromises between doing what is good for the self, the other, and for the total benefit (Hui et al 2014), as well as making tradeoffs between pursuing equality (Messick and Schnell 1992) and relative advantage (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Bazerman 1989;Shaw, DeScioli, and Olson 2012). Future work should investigate how these sometimes contradictory factors interact to influence people's decisions about how to share with others.…”

Detecting Failures of Backward Induction: Monitoring Information Search in Sequential Bargaining

“…Equilibrium social preference theories account for departures from perfect equilibrium by positing a "social utility" for others' payoffs or differences in payoffs (Loewenstein, Thompson and Bazerman [41]; Fehr and Schmidt [25]; Bolton and Oeckenfels [9]; Charness and Rabin [18];…”

Another frame, another game? Explaining framing effects in economic games

“…Social preference theories assume that at least some players take into account not only their own payoffs, but also the payoffs of others (e.g., Andreoni, Brown, & Vesterlund, 2002;Levine, 1998;Loewenstein, Thompson, & Bazerman, 1989) or the relation between their own and others' payoffs (e.g., Bolton, 1991;Bolton & Ockenfels, 2000;Dehue, McClintock, & Liebrand, 1993;Fehr & Schmidt, 2006;Liebrand & McClintock, 1988). In the Allportian tradition, social preferences are frequently assumed to be stable characteristics of the player that are faithfully expressed across time and contexts (Camerer & Thaler, 1995;Loomes, 1999).…”