Lecture: Dan Molden

The Social Psychology Seminar Series presents the following talk.

Friday, March 6
3:30 p.m.
Psychology Building, Room 128

Dan Molden, Northwestern University, will present, "Motivations for Prevention or Promotion During Social Exchange: Effects on Cooperation, Reciprocity, and Trust."

Abstract:
People must often decide how to balance their own interests against those of others. Much previous research has focused on how specific prosocial or self-serving motivations guide decisions to behave cooperatively or selfishly in these types of circumstances. Moving beyond this research, the present studies examined how broader motivations for security and maintenance (i.e.,/ prevention/) or growth and attainment (i.e.,/ promotion/) might also influence such decisions. Whereas concerns with prevention have been found to produce a focus on protecting against losses and meeting obligations, concerns with promotion have been found to produce a focus on achieving gains and fulfilling aspirations. Thus, whereas prevention-focused motivations may strengthen consideration of the losses incurred and social obligations
violated by pursuing one's own interests above others', promotion-focused motivations may strengthen consideration of the personal gains possible through such less-cooperative choices. In this talk, I will present a series of studies that support these hypotheses: in these studies, prevention-focused individuals were found to (a) contribute more to communal resources in a/ public goods/ dilemma, (b) return more money to an "investor" who had transferred money to them during a/ trust game/, and (c) even transfer more resources to an anonymous partner with whom they would never have any contact during a/ dictator gam/e than promotion-focused individuals. However, results also suggested that these effects depended upon beliefs that others were committed to an interdependent relationship as well. When interaction partners showed a lack of trust or did not behave fairly, prevention-focused individuals engaged in no more cooperation, and displayed less trust, than did promotion-focused individuals. Broader implications of these findings for understanding the motivations involved in social exchange will be discussed.