The self- and other-interest inventory: Measurement and validation of a conceptualization of distinct constructs

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop and validate the constructs of self- and other-interest as self-construals, as well as tool for measuring them: the Self- and Other-Interest Inventory (SOII). Four sets of studies are presented to accomplish this task. In Studies 1a-c, three student samples are used to develop and validate the student SOII using existing measures within the psychological literature, in a traditional scale validation collection of studies. In Study 2, the SOII is assessed for its ability to detect situational influence via a priming task in which participants receive either primes of individualistic or collectivistic values as an instantiation of the accessibility of self-construals of self- and other-interest. In Studies 3a-c, the SOII is assessed for its ability to predict behavior: participants' donation behavior is shown to depend on whether self-interest or other-interest self-construal is accessible; perseverance in a mental rotation task is predicted by self-interest self-construal when incentivized by benefits to the self and other-interest self-construal when incentivized by benefits to the other; and cooperative behavior in a prisoner's dilemma depends on both self- and other-interest self-construals when both are made accessible. Finally, in Studies 4a & b, the adult version of the SOII is validated and used to show that participants' age predicts differences in the relationships between self-construals, and the relationship between age and positive relationship between self- and other-interest predicts the development of generativity (as opposed to stagnation), the primary developmental task of midlife.