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Measuring the Closeness of Relationships: A Comprehensive Evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' Scale

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  • Simon Gächter
  • Chris Starmer
  • Fabio Tufano

Abstract

Understanding the nature and influence of social relationships is of increasing interest to behavioral economists, and behavioral scientists more generally. In turn, this creates a need for tractable, and reliable, tools for measuring fundamental aspects of social relationships. We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' (IOS) Scale, a handy pictorial tool for measuring the subjectively perceived closeness of a relationship. The tool is highly portable, very easy for subjects to understand and takes less than 1 minute to administer. Across our three online studies with a diverse adult population (n = 772) we show that six different scales designed to measure relationship closeness are all highly significantly positively correlated with the IOS Scale. We then conduct a Principal Component Analysis to construct an Index of Relationship Closeness and find that it correlates very strongly (ρ = 85) with the IOS Scale. We conclude that the IOS Scale is a psychologically meaningful and highly reliable measure of the subjective closeness of relationships.

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  • Simon Gächter & Chris Starmer & Fabio Tufano, 2015. "Measuring the Closeness of Relationships: A Comprehensive Evaluation of the 'Inclusion of the Other in the Self' Scale," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-19, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0129478
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129478
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    4. Mantilla, Cesar & Murad, Zahra, 2020. "Ego-relevance in team production," SocArXiv zy248, Center for Open Science.
    5. Gächter, Simon & Starmer, Chris & Tufano, Fabio, 2022. "Measuring," IZA Discussion Papers 15512, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Jan S. Krause & Gerrit Nanninga & Patrick Ring & Ulrich Schmidt & Daniel Schunk, 2020. "The Influence of Ambient Temperature on Social Perception and Social Behavior," Working Papers 2013, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    7. Robson, Matthew, 2021. "Inequality aversion, self-interest and social connectedness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 744-772.
    8. Steven J. Bosworth & Dennis J. Snower, 2024. "Technological advance, social fragmentation and welfare," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 62(2), pages 197-232, March.
    9. Heursen, Lea, 2023. "Does relative performance information lower group morale?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 547-559.
    10. Erita Narhetali & Magdalena Smyk & Marek Weretka, 2023. "Empathy in risky choices regarding others," GRAPE Working Papers 91, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    11. Ortiz-Riomalo, Juan Felipe & Koessler, Ann-Kathrin & Engel, Stefanie, 2021. "Inducing perspective-taking for prosocial behaviour in natural resource management," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    12. Krause, Jan S. & Brandt, Gerrit & Schmidt, Ulrich & Schunk, Daniel, 2023. "Don’t sweat it: Ambient temperature does not affect social behavior and perception," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    13. Llopis Abella,Jimena & Fruttero,Anna & Tas,Emcet Oktay & Taj,Umar, 2020. "Urban Design, Public Spaces, and Social Cohesion : Evidence from a Virtual Reality Experiment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9407, The World Bank.
    14. Eugen Dimant, 2020. "Hate Trumps Love: The Impact of Political Polarization on Social Preferences," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 029, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Schütt, Christoph A., 2023. "The effect of perceived similarity and social proximity on the formation of prosocial preferences," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    16. Kroon, Peter & Arnold, René, 2018. "Die Bedeutung von Interoperabilität in der digitalen Welt – Neue Herausforderungen in der interpersonellen Kommunikation," WIK Discussion Papers 437, WIK Wissenschaftliches Institut für Infrastruktur und Kommunikationsdienste GmbH.
    17. Ranehill, Eva & Weber, Roberto A. & Wu, Keyu, 2024. "Does redistribution affect cooperation and trust?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    18. Morvinski, Coby & Shani, Yaniv, 2022. "Misaligned mindsets between borrowers and lenders of small interpersonal loans," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    19. Gächter, Simon & Starmer, Chris & Thöni, Christian & Tufano, Fabio & Weber, Till O., 2022. "Social closeness can help, harm and be irrelevant in solving pure coordination problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    20. Patrick Maus & Maria Montero & Martin Sefton, 2023. "Social reference points and real-effort provision," Discussion Papers 2023-03, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    21. Montinari, Natalia & Rancan, Michela, 2020. "A friend is a treasure: On the interplay of social distance and monetary incentives when risk is taken on behalf of others," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    22. Arnold, René & Schneider, Anna & Lennartz, Jonathan, 2020. "Interoperability of interpersonal communications services – A consumer perspective," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    23. Lian Xue & Stefania Sitzia & Theodore L. Turocy, 2017. "What’s ours is ours: An experiment on the efficiency of bargaining over the fruits of joint activity," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 17-12, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    24. Bauer, Kevin, 2020. "How did we do? The impact of relative performance feedback on intergroup hostilities," SAFE Working Paper Series 281, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    25. Hofmann, Elisa & Fiagbenu, Michael E. & Özgümüs, Asri & Tahamtan, Amir M. & Regner, Tobias, 2021. "Who is watching me? Disentangling audience and interpersonal closeness effects in a Pay-What-You-Want context," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).

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