IF-THEN METHOD - international version - [page 2]
Some of these characteristics seems to be quite effective for the detection of fundamental social
motives in a social interaction situation. Particularly important is the property that the subjects'
judgments in responding to each task in this test would be essentially based upon only the comparison
between the pairs of two numerals in a matrix. This means that this test does not contain any part for
which subjects need some help based on the concrete language components in responding to each decision
task involved in the problem series. Therefore, it seems that this test would be structurally suitable
to some cross-cultural studies in social psychology. At least, this is one of the fundamental reasons
that the construction of an international version of the "IF-THEN method" has been planned.
BASIC CONCEPTS
PAYOFF MATRICES
In the test called the "IF-THEN method", "the symmetrical two-person non-zero sum matrix games of
2x2 type with 4 payoff levels" means that some standard matrix games are used. The matrix games in-
volved in this category have fundamentally only twelve types (G01-G12) in the form of abstract payoff
levels, such as a, b, c and d (a < b < c < d). However, even if the matrix game situation of the same
type described above is used, the player's responses sometimes have some possibility of differing with
each other in the situation where the values of the payoff are concrete. This is because the player's
choice for the alternatives, I or II, would logically depend upon the relative relationships concern-
ing the summations (sometimes called "joint gains" in game research) or the differences between the
two concrete values on the payoff levels used in the matrix. Therefore, when we think of game situa-
tions to be determined with not the absolute levels but some relative relationships concerning the
concrete size of values among the payoff levels in the matrix, more sorts of matrix games (which
differ in relation to the difference between the joint gains in two cells) should be prepared in order
to construct a more complete psychological test by using all 12 kinds of matrices. As a result, a
total of 28 simple concrete Payoff matrices were prepared for this test as shown in Figure 1. Thus,
it would be clear that several games in the 12 fundamental matrices (indicated by only the abstract
levels a, b, c or d) could have three or five types concerning the structure of differences between
the joint gains in two adjacent cells. In other words, these concrete matrices are logically necessary
at least for the symmetrical game situations of the 2x2 type with 4 payoff levels. In the "IF-THEN
method", each of the 28 matrix games would appear at least once in the task series, except for four
games (G0l, G02, G11 and G12), so that as many as possible matrix games are used in this test.
Fig.1