Reciprocity as an Individual Difference

Abstract

There is accumulating evidence that decision makers (DMs) are sensitive to the distribution of resources among themselves and others, beyond what is expected from the predictions of narrow self-interest. These social preferences are typically conceptualized as being static and existing independently of information about the other people influenced by a DM’s allocation choices. In this article, we consider the reactivity of a DM’s social preferences in response to information about the intentions or past behavior of the person to be affected by the DM’s allocation choices (i.e., how do social preferences change in relation to the other’s type). This article offers a conceptual framework for characterizing the link between distributive preferences and reciprocity, and reports on experiments in which these two constructs are disentangled and the relation between the two is characterized.