Social value orientations and impressions of partner's honesty and intelligence: A test of the might versus morality effect.

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Abstract
This research evaluates the might vs. morality effect (Liebrand, Jansen, Rijken, & Suhre, 1986) by examining whether the manipulation of the perception of partner's honesty and intelligence interacts with the observer's own social value orientation to influence the latter's expectations regarding part- ner cooperation and own cooperation in a social dilemma. Results reveal that greater cooperation was expected from an honest partner than from a dishonest partner and that this effect was stronger for prosocial Ss than for individualists and competitors. Conversely, individualists and competitors expected greater cooperation from an unintelligent partner than from an intelligent partner, whereas prosocial Ss did not expect differences between these partners. Similar findings were obtained for own cooperation, although social value orientations did not interact with partner intelligence. Considerable research has been focused on how individuals form, maintain, and organize personality impressions, reveal- ing that people readily form impressions of others, that such impressions are fairly stable, and that such impressions fre- quently are organized along dimensions of social meaning, such as honesty and intelligence (e.g., for theoretical analyses, see Reeder & Brewer, 1979; Rosenberg &Sedlak, 1972;Skowronski & Carlston, 1989). However, little prior research has been con- cerned with the interpersonal consequences of personality im- pressions, even though in real-life situations, individuals fre- quently may use global impressions of others (e.g., new col- leagues and acquaintances) in forming expectations of other's probable behavior as well as in deciding how to approach such others. Impressions may be particularly valuable in situations in which one's outcomes, at least in part, are affected by the actions of others; such beliefs may help the individual to form expectations regarding the other's probable behavior and to an- ticipate the ways in which own outcomes will be affected by the other (e.g., will the other come well-prepared for this meeting?). These expectations, in turn, can serve the important function of guiding the person's own behavior (e.g., how much time shall I invest in preparing for this meeting?). Accordingly, we assume that in the context of interdependent situations, individuals will value information regarding another person's personality char-

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