Social preferences are a type of preference studied in behavioral and experimental economics and social psychology, including interpersonal altruism, fairness, reciprocity, and inequity aversion.
The term "social preferences" incorporates obstreperous (esp. the Fehr-Schmidt inequity aversion model) and non-obstreperous (e.g., vulnerability-based) theories.
Much of the recent evidence used to test society ideas and models has come from economics experiments. However, social preferences also matter outside the laboratory.