Abstract
When individuals are given a choice between an outcome that is comparatively superior but absolutely inferior (your salary is $5,000; others’ salaries are $4,000), and an outcome that is absolutely superior but comparatively inferior (your salary is $6,000; others’ salaries are $7,000), what would they choose for themselves or for others? The present study aims to explore the impact of decision targets (self vs. other) on a decision involving a tradeoff between a better absolute outcome and an outcome with a more favourable interpersonal comparison. Across six studies (n = 927, including two preregistered studies), we consistently found that the absolutely superior option with low relative standing was more preferable when deciding for oneself than for others. Furthermore, evaluation of the target was identified as the underlying mechanism. Compared with making decisions for others, individuals who made decisions for themselves had a higher preference for the absolutely superior option because they have a higher evaluation for the self than for others.
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Data availability
The data used are available via the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Sojump (http://www.sojump.com/) is a service provider similar to Mechanical Turk that hosts online questionnaires. It is widely used in research (Li et al., 2020), and provides a diverse Chinese worker pool.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jingyi Lu and Hanqi Zhang for their valuable comments.
Funding
This research was financially funded by the programs of National Natural Science Foundation of China (71472005 & 71772007 & 71974005) and Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M690236).
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Li, H., Xie, X. Absolute outcome or relative standing? The difference between making decisions for the self and other. Curr Psychol 42, 26065–26078 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03676-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03676-w