Social value orientations and impressions of partner's honesty and intelligence: A test of the might versus morality effect.

Abstract

This research evaluates the might vs. morality effect (Liebrand, Jansen, Rijken, & Suhre, 1986) by examining whether the manipulation of the perception of partner's honesty and intelligence interacts with the observer's own social value orientation to influence the latter's expectations regarding partner cooperation and own cooperation in a social dilemma. Results reveal that greater cooperation was expected from an honest partner than from a dishonest partner and that this effect was stronger for prosocial Ss than for individualists and competitors. Conversely, individualists and competitors expected greater cooperation from an unintelligent partner than from an intelligent partner, whereas prosocial Ss did not expect differences between these partners. Similar findings were obtained for own cooperation, although social value orientations did not interact with partner intelligence. Considerable research has been focused on how individuals form, maintain, and organize personality impressions, revealing that people readily form impressions of others, that such impressions are fairly stable, and that such impressions frequently are organized along dimensions of social meaning, such as honesty and intelligence (e.g., for theoretical analyses, see Reeder & Brewer, 1979; Rosenberg SSkowronski