Role of interdependence structure, individual value orientation, and another's strategy in social decision making: A transformational analysis.

The present research examined the influence of the objective interdependence structure of tasks, the values of decision makers, and others' strategies on social decision making and judgment. We observed that subjects' preferences among outcome alternatives that influenced both their own and another's welfare were strongly conditioned by their value orientations and by their expectations concerning the other person's choice behavior. As anticipated, there was no main effect for task structure, but structure interacted with value and with the other's strategy to influence choice behavior. Further, we observed that subjects judged others pursuing a tit-for-tat or a cooperative strategy as fairer and more honest than those pursuing a competitive strategy. They judged others pursuing a tit-for-tat strategy as more intelligent and stronger than those playing cooperatively or competitively.