| Abstract: | Research was conducted with 240 undergraduates to determine the relationship between an observer's own value orientation and his/her ability to detect the value orientations of others. Choices in a series of 3-choice decomposed games were used to classify Ss as altruistic, cooperative, individualistic, or competitive in orientation. Subsequently, Ss observed a hypothetical person (the "chooser") select between self- and other-outcome alternatives in a series of 4-choice decomposed games. The chooser's behavior was preprogrammed in accordance with an altruistic, cooperative, individualistic, or competitive orientation. Results confirm that Ss' own values affected their relative abilities to predict the different choosers' behaviors. Cooperative and individualistic Ss demonstrated comparatively high levels of predictive accuracy regardless of the chooser's social value orientation, whereas altruistic and competitive Ss' predictive accuracy varied as a function of the chooser's orientation. Results for cooperative and competitive Ss resembled the "triangle" effect first observed by H. H. Kelley and A. J. Stahelski (1970). (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
