Dissociative effects of psychological distance on self-other risky decision-making in individuals with different social value orientations

Abstract

Self-other risky decision-making is of general concern to researchers. However, the findings on self-other risky decision-making were inconsistent, which suggested that situational factors and the subject’s personality traits need to be considered. Based on three studies with 588 subjects, we explored the influence of psychological distance on self-other risky decision-making in individuals with different social value orientations (SVOs). Both the large sample questionnaires in Study 1 and the laboratory experiment in Study 2 found that the proself (low SVO) group had a higher risk-taking tendency when making decisions for others than for themselves. Study 2 further revealed that the proself group exhibited lower decision quality and weaker negative emotion for loss outcomes when making decisions for others than for themselves. Although the above effects disappeared in the prosocial (high SVO) group, Study 3 indicated that the above differential effects in the proself group were enhanced between making decisions for themselves and for strangers, and weakened between themselves and friends. This study highlighted the dissociative effects of psychological distance on self-other risky decision-making in individuals with different SVOs.