Advice to friends in want/should conflicts

Abstract One explanation for self‐other differences in decision making is that they are due to differences in the construal of the situation, with advisors adopting a more abstract construal of the decision. However, decisions for the should self (what should I do?) are also characterized by an abstract construal, suggesting that advice to friends might be similar to what decision makers think they should do (self‐should decisions). We conducted three studies comparing should self decisions with advice in situations characterized by a want/should conflict. Study 1 demonstrated that advice to a friend was different from a self‐should decision. Self‐should choices were also found to be different from what one wants to do (self‐want) and what one would do (self‐would). Study 2 found that participants in the advice conditions considered the context when making a recommendation, but participants in the self‐should conditions were unaffected. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated that advisors considered the goal of the decision maker's behavior when making recommendations, unlike participants in the self‐should and injunctive norm conditions. These results demonstrate that self‐other differences in decision making extend to self‐should decisions and that self‐should decisions are consistent with injunctive norms. Self‐should decisions were unaffected by situational factors, whereas advice to friends considered the decision maker's primary goal.