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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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    7. 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).
    8. Bosworth, Steven & Snower, Dennis J., 2020. "Technological advance, social fragmentation and welfare," Kiel Working Papers 2177, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. 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).
    10. 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..
    11. Bicchieri, Cristina & Dimant, Eugen & Gächter, Simon & Nosenzo, Daniele, 2022. "Social proximity and the erosion of norm compliance," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 59-72.
    12. 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.
    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. 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.
    15. 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).
    16. 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.
    17. Arnold, René & Schneider, Anna & Lennartz, Jonathan, 2020. "Interoperability of interpersonal communications services – A consumer perspective," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    18. 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.
    19. 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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