Dubois, Nicole

The Social Value of the Persons: Are Two Pieces of Information Better than One? - 2010.


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Two studies examined how the two dimensions of personological value affect judgments. Target description was manipulated by giving one or two pieces of information about the target. In Study 1 (recruitment situation), in the one-piece condition, the piece concerned target’s social utility (U) vs target’s social desirability (D) vs target’s internality (I) vs target’s externality (e). In the two-piece condition, one piece concerned the target’s personological value (U vs e) and the other one, the target’s normative value (I vs e), thus: UI vs Ue vs DI vs De. In Study 2 (recruitment vs friend co-option situations), in the onepiece condition, the piece concerned target’s U vs target’s D vs consensus on target’s positive description (C). In the two-piece condition, one piece concerned the target’s personnological value (U vs I) and the other one, the consensus on target’s personological value (C), thus: CU vs CD. The results showed that the two dimensions of personological value each have their appropriate field of relevance: social utility is a relevant criterion of selection as far as economic value is concerned, and social desirability is a relevant criterion of selection as far as interpersonal relations are concerned. The results also suggest that when subjects are given two homogeneous pieces of information (two pieces about social value), they process them with an implicit algebraic model based on calculation of mean. When subjects are given two heterogeneous pieces of information (one piece about social value and another one about consensus), they process them with an implicit algebraic model based on calculation of an interactive effect. These results were obtained in the two situations.