Contingent social utility in the prisoners' dilemma

We examined a central assumption of recent theories: that social utility is contingent on impressions of other people. We manipulated participants' impression of the other player in a prisoners dilemma. We then measured participants' own preferences in the PD, their estimates of the other players preferences in the PD, their prediction of the other player's move, and their own move. We hypothesized that the participants' move would maximize their stated preferences, given their pre diction of the other players move, and that participants' preferences would be contingent on their impression of the other player. Results supported both hypotheses and revealed that participants' preferences were contingent more on their estimate of the other players preferences than on their prediction of the other players move. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V, All rights reserved.