Social preferences shaped by conflicting motives: When enhancing social welfare creates unfavorable comparisons for the self

The construction of social preferences often requires one to reconcile various social motives, such as concern with unfavorable inequality and maximization of social welfare. We propose a novel theory whereby people's level of agency influences the relative intensities of their social motives, and thus their social preferences. Agency in this context refers to decision makers' active involvement in the processes that produce social outcomes. Nonagentic decision makers are not involved in creating the outcomes. Therefore, the comparison between self and others is highly informative for them and they shun settings in which their outcome appears to be inferior. Conversely, agentic decision makers, who take action to influence social outcomes, care more about others' outcomes and are more inclined to promote social welfare. We report five studies testing the agency hypothesis. Participants were presented with realistic scenarios involving outcomes for themselves and another person. In each scenario, the outcome for oneself was fixed, while the outcome for the other person varied. The participants' task was to indicate their satisfaction with the other person obtaining either the same outcome as their own or a better one. We found that participants who were involved in creating the outcomes (agentic condition) were more satisfied with the other getting the better option than were participants who were not involved (nonagentic condition). Even low levels of influence on the outcomes were sufficient for a strong agency effect to occur. We discuss the agency hypothesis in relation to theories of social preference, the effects of voicing and participation in decision processes, and trade-offs in public policy

Agency and the Construction of Social Preference: Between Inequality Aversion and Prosocial Behavior

The term “social preference” refers to decision makers’ satisfaction with their own outcomes and those attained by comparable others. The present research was inspired by what appears to be a discrepancy in the literature on social preferences – specifically, between a class of studies demonstrating people’s concern with inequality and others documenting their motivation to increase social welfare. We propose a theoretical framework to account for this puzzling difference. In particular, we argue that a characteristic of the decision setting – an individual’s role in creating the outcomes, referred to as agency – critically affects decision makers’ weighting of opposing social motives. Namely, in settings where people can merely judge the outcomes, but cannot affect them (“low agency”), their concern with inequality figures prominently. In contrast, in settings where people determine the outcomes for themselves and others (“high agency”), their concern with the welfare of others is prominent. Three studies employing a new salary-allocation paradigm document a robust effect of agency. In the high-agency condition participants had to assign salaries, while in the low-agency condition they indicated their satisfaction with equivalent predetermined salaries. We found that compared with low-agency participants, high-agency participants were less concerned with disadvantageous salary allocations and were even willing to sacrifice a portion of their pay to better others’ outcomes. The effects of agency are discussed in connection to inequality aversion, social comparison, prosocial behavior, and preference construction.

Receiving advice on matters of taste: Similarity, majority influence, and taste discrimination

People routinely consider the opinions of others prior to making decisions on matters of taste (e.g., a restaurant or movie). Our theoretical framework highlights the role of two sources, social (majority) influence and similarity among advisors, in such decisions. We suggest that individuals' use of these sources depends on their taste discrimination. While highly discriminating judges seek the opinion of a similar advisor rather than the majority opinion, less discriminating judges do so less. In four studies participants made musical choices based on recommendations. The studies document the great appeal of behavioral similarity and the role of demographic similarity. They also provide evidence for the discrimination hypothesis. A formal simulation is developed to account for the relationship between taste discrimination and the predictive accuracy of the majority and of similar advisors. The results shed light on theories of advice utilization and social influence, and are connected with applications involving personalized recommendation systems.Decision making Advisors Opinions Preferences Similarity Majority influence

Spurious Consensus and Opinion Revision: Why Might People Be More Confident in Their Less Accurate Judgments?

In the interest of improving their decision-making, individuals revise their opinions on the basis of samples of opinions obtained from others. However, such a revision process may lead decision-makers to experience greater confidence in their less accurate judgments. We theorize that people tend to underestimate the informative value of independently drawn opinions, if these appear to conflict with one another, yet place some confidence even in the "spurious consensus" which may arise when opinions are sampled interdependently. The experimental task involved people’s revision of their opinions (caloric estimates of foods) on the basis of advice. The method of sampling the advisory opinions (independent or interdependent) was the main factor. The results reveal a dissociation between confidence and accuracy. A theoretical underlying mechanism is suggested whereby people attend to consensus (consistency) cues at the expense of information on interdependence. Implications for belief-updating and for individual and group decisions are discussed.