The Predictive Ability of Social Values in Resource Dilemmas and Public Goods Games

Abstract

Social values, or orientations toward specific goals, have been found to predict choice behavior in prisoner's dilemma-type games. However, their predictive ability in other types of social dilemmas (specifically, public goods and resource dilemmas) is not well established. This study compared the predictive ability of several methods of assessing social values, as well as Yamagishi's Trust Scale and an older measure of trust, the Fascism (F) Scale. Social values, as assessed by Knight and Dubro's judgmental measurement technique, were found to be predictive of resource dilemma behavior; trust, measured with Yamagishi's Trust Scale, predicted contribution to public goods. The trust and social values scales were not correlated, suggesting that they are distinct concepts; however, the social value scales did not correlate with each other. A testable explanation for the results, centering on the nature of payoffs in the different games, is offered.