Surrogate utility estimation by long-term partners and unfamiliar dyads.

ABSTRACT: To what extent are people able to make predictions about other people's preferences and values?We report two experiments that present a novel method assessing some of the basic processes in surrogate decision-making, namely surrogate-utility estimation. In each experiment participants formed dyads who were asked to assign utilities to health related items and commodity items, and to predict their partner's utility judgments for the same items. In experiment one we showed that older adults in long-term relationships were able to accurately predict their partner's wishes. In experiment two we showed that younger adults who were relatively unfamiliar with one another were also able to predict other people's wishes. Crucially we demonstrated that these judgments were accurate even after partia

SUBMITTER: Tunney RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4373268 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature