The ring measure of social values: A computerized procedure for assessing individual differences in information processing and social value orientation

Abstract

Personality can be defined from a social standpoint as a more or less consistent system of orientations that influences an individual's decisions and behaviors regarding the allocation of resources to self and others. One of the more robust models for the measurement of an individual's interpersonal utilities is McClintock's social value approach (McClintock, 1972). In the present study, we evaluate the construct of social value by testing the hypothesis that the cognitive processing time of subjects should vary systematically as a function of the type of social value being expressed. Towards this end, the Ring Measure of Social Values (Liebrand, 1984) was administered to 61 male and 124 female subjects. As predicted, cooperators and competitors were observed to have longer response latencies than altruists and individualists. In addition, a Social Value by Outcome Structure interaction was observed, and explained by assuming that cooperators are more hesitant in making decisions involving negative outcomes for others, whereas competitors are more reluctant to assign positive outcomes to others. These research findings add further evidence regarding the validity to the construct of social value.

Testing a social-cognitive model of moral behavior: The interactive influence of situations and moral identity centrality.

“…If so, then it would provide strong evidence that the measure of moral identity centrality is not simply an alternative way of measuring social values. SVO was assessed using the RING test (Liebrand & McClintock, 1988). This test asks participants to choose between a series of two different hypothetical payoff allocations for the participant (self) and the hypothetical person (other).…”

Rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game is no evidence of strong reciprocity

“…During the three-and-a-half-year period over which the culture and game study was conducted, the social value orientations of the participants were measured four times; two of these measures used the triple dominance method (13), and two of them used the ring method (14). Each individual measure was used to classify each participant as a cooperator, a competitor, or an individualist, and the proportions in which the participants were assigned to each classification were used as measures of prosociality, competitiveness, and proselfness, respectively.…”

“…Furthermore, we will demonstrate that the rUG is not correlated with either the prosocial dispositions or prosocial value orientations (SVOs) (13,14) of the responders, nor with their prosocial behaviors in other games such as cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game (cPDG), trust as a truster (tTG), or allocation of resources to a recipient as a dictator in the dictator game (aDG). These findings will provide evidence against the strong-reciprocity-theory-based interpretation of the rUG as a reflection of a disposition toward practicing both positive and negative reciprocity on the part of the responder.…”

Another frame, another game? Explaining framing effects in economic games

“…Social preference theories assume that at least some players take into account not only their own payoffs, but also the payoffs of others (e.g., Andreoni, Brown, & Vesterlund, 2002;Levine, 1998;Loewenstein, Thompson, & Bazerman, 1989) or the relation between their own and others' payoffs (e.g., Bolton, 1991;Bolton & Ockenfels, 2000;Dehue, McClintock, & Liebrand, 1993;Fehr & Schmidt, 2006;Liebrand & McClintock, 1988). In the Allportian tradition, social preferences are frequently assumed to be stable characteristics of the player that are faithfully expressed across time and contexts (Camerer & Thaler, 1995;Loomes, 1999).…”