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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Intrachoice dynamics shape social decisions
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Fadong Chen
  • Zhi Zhu
  • Qiang Shen
  • Ian Krajbich
  • Todd Anthony Hare
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Management Science
Publisher Institute for Operations Research and the Management Science
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0025-1909
Volume 70
Number 2
Page Range 1137 - 1153
Date 2024
Abstract Text Do people have well-defined social preferences waiting to be applied when making decisions? Or do they have to construct social decisions on the spot? If the latter, how are those decisions influenced by the way in which information is acquired and evaluated? These temporal dynamics are fundamental to understanding how people trade off selfishness and prosociality in organizations and societies. Here, we investigate how the temporal dynamics of the choice process shape social decisions in three studies using response times and mouse tracking. In the first study, participants made binary decisions in mini-dictator games with and without time constraints. Using mouse trajectories and a starting time drift diffusion model, we find that, regardless of time constraints, selfish participants were delayed in processing others’ payoffs, whereas the opposite was true for prosocial participants. The independent mouse trajectory and computational modeling analyses identified consistent measures of the delay between considering one’s own and others’ payoffs (self-onset delay, SOD). This measure correlated with individual differences in prosociality and predicted heterogeneous effects of time constraints on preferences. We confirmed these results in two additional studies, one a purely behavioral study in which participants made decisions by pressing computer keys, and the other a replication of the mouse-tracking study. Together, these results indicate that people preferentially process either self or others’ payoffs early in the choice process. The intrachoice dynamics are crucial in shaping social preferences and might be manipulated via nudge policies (e.g., manipulating the display order or saliency of self and others’ outcomes) for behavior in managerial or other contexts.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1287/mnsc.2023.4732
Other Identification Number merlin-id:24276
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Keywords Management science and operations research, strategy and management, social preferences, information processing, drift diffusion model, mouse tracking