Decision Processes in Prosocial vs. Proself Individuals: An Eye-Tracking Study of Social Value Orientation

Abstract

Social value orientation (SVO) is widely used to account for individual differences in cooperative behavior. However, the cognitive processes underlying these differences remain unclear. We tracked the eye-movements of 123 participants (82 prosocials and 41 proselfs) during the SVO task. Although individuals in both groups focused primarily on their own payoffs, prosocials devoted significantly more time and attention to their partners’ outcomes. Proselfs also attended to their partners’ outcomes, but to a lesser extent. These patterns suggest that individuals in both groups engage in socially relevant information gathering, whereas prosocials adopt a more deliberative and other-oriented decision-making strategy. These shared patterns of attentional monitoring may reflect a proximate cognitive mechanism supporting cooperation and partner evaluation in social dilemmas. Our findings highlight the value of eye-tracking methods in revealing the process-level foundations of social preferences.