Prior measures on rationality overlook the individual differences in the weight people place on social rationality versus individual rationality. The current research develops and validates an individual-collective dilemma task (ICDT) to distinguish different rationality types. It was translated from a reality that, at the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, a global shortage of face masks occurred because of the jumping demand for masks as a precautionary measure. The ICDT asked participants to decide how many masks to buy in front of a shortfall of masks, which facilitated coping with a hypothetical epidemic outbreak. Based on the number of masks they selected, three rationality groups emerged. preferred self-interest goals to goals of social interests; prioritized social-interest goals; assigned equal weight to both goals. The ICDT showed sound test-retest reliability and criterion-related, discriminant, and convergent validity. The present research contributes to the literature on rationality assessment and offers policy-makers a valid and reliable tool to understand the distribution of rationalists among the public.
Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03338-x.
