Social value orientation and anticipated emotions in resource allocation decisions

Abstract

The aim of the research reported in this thesis was to enhance our understanding of why individuals differ in their so-called social value orientation (SVO), i.e., their preferences for allocating resources equally or unequally between themselves and another person. By comparison with ‘proself’ individuals, ‘prosocials’ prefer to allocate resources equally. This has been linked to their greater sympathy with or empathy for other people. In the current research I propose that the anticipation of cooperative or competitive emotions may underlie these different preferences. To measure anticipated emotions about allocating resources fairly or unfairly, I developed a reliable and valid measure, as reported in Chapter 2. This measure was used to investigate whether anticipated emotions mediate the relation between SVO and allocation behaviour. I found that anticipated emotions did account (at least in part) for the relationship between SVO and allocation behaviour. This pattern of mediation was consistent in two cultural settings: Western European (UK, reported in Chapter 3) and Asian (Malaysia, reported in Chapter 4). I also examined whether participants’ allocation behaviour would differ as a function of whether the receiver was a member of the allocator’s ingroup or outgroup. Surprisingly, no such differences were found. Nevertheless, there was some evidence that individual differences in social dominance orientation are related to participants’ allocation behaviour, with anticipated emotion again mediating the relation. In Chapter 5, I experimentally manipulated anticipated emotion in an effort to show that this proposed mediator has a causal impact on allocation behaviour. Two experimental studies yielded evidence that manipulating anticipated emotion had a significant impact on allocation behaviour, and that the normally observed relation between SVO and allocation behaviour was eliminated by this manipulation. Overall, this thesis provides compelling evidence that anticipated emotion is a key psychological mechanism that helps to explain individual differences in allocation behaviou