Surrogate utility estimation by long-term partners and unfamiliar dyads

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Decision Science

Background:

• Understanding how individuals predict others' preferences is key to surrogate decision-making.
• Previous research often focused on potential biases in these predictions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the accuracy of surrogate-utility estimation.
• To investigate the cognitive processes underlying accurate preference prediction.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments involving participant dyads assigning utilities to items.
• Participants predicted their partner's utility judgments for health and commodity items.
• Statistical analysis controlled for individual preferences to isolate perspective-taking.

Main Results:

• Older adults in long-term relationships accurately predicted partners' preferences.
• Younger, less familiar adults also demonstrated accurate preference prediction.
• Accuracy persisted after controlling for participants' own preferences, indicating perspective-taking.

Conclusions:

• Accurate surrogate-utility estimation is achievable across different relationship lengths and ages.
• Perspective-taking, rather than self-anchoring, drives accurate predictions.
• This challenges assumptions about inherent inaccuracy in surrogate decision-making.