EXPRESS: Dissociative effects of psychological distance on self–other risky decision-making in individuals with different social value orientations

Self-other risky decision-making is of general concern by researchers. However, the findings on self-other risky decision-making were inconsistent, which suggested situational factors and subject’s personality traits need to be considered. Based on three studies with 588 subjects, we explored the influence of psychological distance on self-other risky decision-making in individuals with different social value orientations (SVOs). Both the large sample questionnaires in Study 1 and the laboratory experiment in Study 2 found that proself (low SVO) group had higher risk-taking tendency when making decisions for others than for themselves. Study 2 further revealed that proself group exhibited lower decision quality and weaker negative emotion for loss outcome when making decisions for others than for themselves. Whereas, the above effects disappeared in prosocial (high SVO) group Study 3 indicated that the above differential effects in the proself group were enhanced between making decisions for themselves and for strangers, and weakened between themselves and friends. This study highlighted the dissociative effects of psychological distance on self-other risky decision-making in individuals with different SVOs.