Abstract
Understanding the role that social cues have on interpersonal choice, and their susceptibility to contextual effects, is of core importance to models of social decision-making. Language, on the other hand, is one of the main means of communication during social interactions in our culture. The present experiments tested whether positive and negative linguistic descriptions of alleged partners in a modified Ultimatum Game biased decisions made to the same set of offers, and whether the contextual uncertainty of the game modulated this biasing effect. The results showed that in an uncertain context, the same offers were accepted with higher probability when they were preceded by positive rather than by negative valenced trait-words. Participants also accepted fair offers with higher probability than unfair offers, but this effect did not interact with the valence of the social descriptive words. In addition, the speed of the decision was affected by valence: acceptance choices were faster when they followed a positive adjective, whereas rejection responses were faster after a negative-valenced word. However, these effects were highly reduced when the uncertainty was eliminated from the game. This suggests that positive and negative relevant social information can bias decisions made to the same pieces of evidence during interpersonal interactions, but that this mainly takes place when the uncertainty associated with the choices is high.
Highlights
Making decisions is a common chore in our daily lives
We explored if prior social information biases decisions to the same set of offers made in interpersonal interactions, and whether the uncertainty of the context modulates this effect
The present study tested the idea that the personal information we have regarding other people with whom we interact may prepare us to take a line of action that is consistent with the valence of such prior social information, and bias the decisions we make in response to the same set of behaviors
Summary
Making decisions is a common chore in our daily lives. From small-range choices, such as where to have dinner, to long-scale dilemmas such as whether to change jobs, we constantly find ourselves in situations in which we have to consider the available options and potential outcomes and their value, and choose according to our short and/or long-term goals. The nature of our decisions significantly influences our well-being and satisfaction, and deficits in decision-making may have disastrous consequences for our lives [1]. Given the extensive social nature of humans, many of our choices involve other people. An important line of research considers which aspects of the current state of affairs modulate our decisions in social contexts. Other biasing factors related to the deciders include the stereotypes they hold [6], their incidental emotional state [7,8], or general tendencies to conform to the norms of the group [9]. Social information about others, such as their moral status [10], incidental feelings [11] or displayed emotions influence decisions towards them
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