Anticipated cooperation vs. competition moderates interpersonal projection

Nice or smart? Task relevance of self-characteristics moderates interpersonal projection

“…Importantly, however, the degree of social projection increased as a function of how relevant participants considered these traits to be for the cooperative task. This study is consistent with other research in which cooperation was found to increase projection (Riketta & Sacramento, 2008;Toma et al, 2010). Moreover, this study provides evidence that people project in cooperation more on relevant traits, either because these traits were the most salient ones or because these traits may increase the chance of succeeding in this situation.…”

“…Our findings also point to a possible explanation of why people project their self-view especially in cooperative settings (Riketta & Sacramento, 2008;Toma et al, 2010). The research conducted so far suggests that a focus on similarity is the default process in cooperation.…”

“…At the intergroup level, Riketta and Sacramento (2008) found that people are more likely to see an outgroup as similar to themselves if it is cooperating rather than competing with the ingroup. At the interpersonal level, Toma et al (2010) recently showed that people see a target person as more similar to themselves when they anticipate cooperation rather than competition with the target person.…”

“…On the one hand, people value in others those characteristics that are relevant to interdependent interactions (e.g., honesty, kindness, intelligence, and trustworthiness; Cottrell, Neuberg, & Li, 2007). On the other, people exhibit a clear preference toward those partners who are similar to them (Byrne, 1971), and they tend to expect similarity with cooperative partners (Toma, Yzerbyt, & Corneille, 2010). The present research examined the possibility that both types of factors, that is, trait relevance and self-related information, could be simultaneously taken into account when forming impressions about collaborative partners.…”

Motivational and Contextual Considerations Concerning the Social Projection Hypothesis

“…As in all social dilemmas, in the PD a person is faced with a situation of social interdependence. Although Krueger et al set out to investigate the role of projection for a person faced with the choice to cooperate or defect, in our own research we tested the impact of the type of self-other interdependence (cooperative vs. competitive) on social projection (Toma, Yzerbyt, & Corneille, 2010). In two experiments participants projected their own characteristics, regardless of characteristics' valence, onto their partner more strongly when they expected to cooperate than when they expected to compete.…”