Measuring Social Value Orientation
Open accessAbstract
Narrow self-interest is often used as a simplifying assumption when studying people making decisions in social contexts. Nonetheless, people exhibit a wide range of different motivations when choosing unilaterally among interdependent outcomes. Measuring the magnitude of the concern people have for others, sometimes called Social Value Orientation (SVO), has been an interest of many social scientists for decades and several different measurement methods have been developed so far. Here we introduce a new measure of SVO that has several advantages over existent methods. A detailed description of the new measurement method is presented, along with norming data that provide evidence of its solid psychometric properties. We conclude with a brief discussion of the research streams that would benefit from a more sensitive and higher resolution measure of SVO, and extend an invitation to others to use this new measure which is freely available.
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The measurement of social value distance allowed quantification of the difference between the second (self-loss/other-gain) and fourth (self-gain/other-loss) quadrants, which is not feasible when only including gains or using absolute value differences.
“This measurement allowed us to quantify the difference between the second (self-loss/other-gain pairs) and fourth (self-gain/other-loss pairs) quadrants (Fig. 1c), which is not feasible when only including gains or using absolute value differences 3,28 .”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [28]
The degree of φ was positively correlated with the degree of absolute inequality aversion.
“The degree of φ was also correlated with the degree of absolute inequality aversion (which reflected a general preference for fairness and resistance to inequalities, with higher values indicating higher inequality aversion, r=0.65, p=1.54×10 -8 ), measured in an independent task 28 (Methods).”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [28]
The TD and SVO tasks were conventional measurements of one's stable disposition in social value orientation.
“In the behavioral session, all participants provided demographic information and completed the triple dominance (TD) 5 and social value orientation (SVO) 28 tasks, which were conventional measurements of one's stable disposition in social value orientation.”
From Oxytocin modulates social value representations in the amygdala (2019) · cites this paper as [28]
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- Authors
- Murphy, R. O., Ackermann, K. A., & Handgraaf, M. J. J.
- Affiliations
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Murphy, Ryan O.
- Venue
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2011-12
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 771-781
- ISSN
- 1930-2975 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4313429353
- Cited by
- 948
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 93 · 2025: 121 · 2024: 96 · 2023: 112 · 2022: 97 · 2021: 84 · 2020: 60 · 2019: 81 · 2018: 52 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 36.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Judgment and Decision Making (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0637151)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
- Keywords
- social value orientation, measurement scales, prosocial motivation, self-interest, psychometric properties, interpersonal decision making
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