亲社会自主动机对青少年幸福感及亲社会行为的影响:基本心理需要满足的中介作用

本研究探讨了亲社会自主动机对青少年幸福感和亲社会行为的影响,并检验了基本心理需要满足的中介作用。研究1以293名青少年为研究对象,通过问卷法考察了亲社会自主动机、基本心理需要满足、幸福感和亲社会行为的关系;研究2以205名青少年为研究对象,通过实验法操纵亲社会自主动机（vs.受控动机）,并考察其对基本心理需要满足、幸福感和亲社会行为的影响。研究结果表明,亲社会自主动机显著正向预测青少年的幸福感和亲社会行为,并且基本心理需要满足在亲社会自主动机对幸福感和亲社会行为的预测中都起到了中介作用;相反,亲社会受控动机则不利于青少年基本心理需要的满足,进而不能有效地提升其幸福感和亲社会行为。     

孤芳自赏还是乐于助人?员工自恋对亲社会行为的影响

本研究通过整合自恋双元理论和特质激活理论, 探讨欣赏型自恋、敌对型自恋对员工亲社会行为的影响机制, 深入分析了员工关系趋近型动机和关系回避型动机的中介作用以及任务相互依赖性的调节作用。通过对来自员工-同事二阶段配对的235份数据进行分析, 结果发现: 欣赏型自恋对员工亲社会行为具有显著的正向影响, 敌对型自恋对员工亲社会行为具有显著的负向影响; 关系趋近型动机在欣赏型自恋与员工亲社会行为之间发挥着中介作用, 关系回避型动机在敌对型自恋与员工亲社会行为之间没有发挥中介作用; 任务相互依赖性不仅正向调节欣赏型自恋与员工关系趋近型动机的直接效应, 而且还正向调节着欣赏型自恋通过关系趋近型动机对亲社会行为的间接效应。     

Better to Give and to Compete? Prosocial and Competitive Motives as Interactive Predictors of Citizenship Behavior

Research has returned mixed results concerning the relationship between prosocial motivation and citizenship behavior. Building from research suggesting that mixed motives might explain these equivocal findings, we conducted two field studies examining the interaction between prosocial and competitive motives and two types of citizenship behavior. Prosocial motivation, but not competitive motivation, was positively related to citizenship behavior directed at others, though this relationship was weakened when prosocial motives were accompanied by competitive motives. Prosocial motives compensated for weak competitive motives to predict citizenship behavior directed toward the organization. Our studies expand research on prosocial and competitive motivation, mixed-motives, and citizenship behavior. Further, they carry personnel implications given that many organizations seek to hire employees high on both competitive and prosocial motivation.     

SAINTLY SACRIFICE: THE TRADITIONAL TRANSMISSION OF MORAL ELEVATION

Abstract This paper combines the social psychology concept of moral elevation with the evolutionary concept of traditions as descendant‐leaving strategies to produce a new explanation of the role of saints in Christianity. Moral elevation refers to the ability of prosocial acts to inspire people to engage in their own acts of charity and kindness. When morally elevating stories and visual depictions become traditional by being passed from one generation to the next, they can produce prosocial behavior advantageous to survival and reproduction among many generations of descendants. Traditions that increase the number of descendants in future generations can be seen as descendant‐leaving strategies. Stories and visual depictions of the sacrifices of saints appear to be designed to produce states of moral elevation, and they have been transmitted from one generation to the next for many centuries. We propose that this ability of sacrificing saints to inspire future generations to engage in prosocial acts has contributed to the continuation and spread of Christianity.     

服务型领导对员工工作结果的影响： 亲社会动机的中介效应和互动公平的调节效应

通过对201名员工及其领导的配对问卷调查,探讨服务型领导对员工工作结果的作用机制。研究发现：（1）服务型领导与下属的工作满意度、帮助行为正相关;（2）亲社会动机在服务型领导与工作满意度及帮助行为关系中起部分中介作用;（3）互动公平调节了服务型领导与亲社会动机之间的关系,即互动公平越高,服务型领导与亲社会动机之间的关系就越强;（4）互动公平调节了亲社会动机对服务型领导-帮助行为和工作满意度的中介作用。     

Motives matter: The emotional consequences of recalled self- and other- focused prosocial acts

Past research has demonstrated that engaging in and reflecting upon past instances of prosocial behavior promote happiness. Yet, people provide help for a myriad of reasons. Do the motives for giving impact its emotional consequences? In three experiments (N?>?680), we compared the emotional outcomes of recalling a past instance of prosocial behavior motivated by self-focused and other-focused concerns. Using both between and within subjects designs, we find that recalling an instance of other-focused helping leads to higher positive affect than recalling an instance of self-focused helping. This finding was mediated by feelings of morality. The present work suggests that not all acts of kindness offer equivalent well-being benefits and that selfish motives may undermine the emotional rewards that typically follow other-focused prosocial behavior.     

‘It’s up to you’: Experimentally manipulated autonomy support for prosocial behavior improves well-being in two cultures over six weeks

Previous research has demonstrated a strong link between prosocial behavior – particularly autonomous prosocial behavior – and well-being. Little is known, however, about whether and how autonomy might be boosted in the context of everyday kindnesses. We tested the effect of supporting students’ autonomy on well-being gains from practicing acts of kindness in a six-week randomized experimental study in the United States and South Korea. As predicted, performing kind acts while receiving autonomy support led to greater improvements in well-being than performing kind acts without autonomy support or engaging in comparison activities (i.e. focusing on one’s academic work, with or without autonomy support). Notably, these well-being improvements were mediated by feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The current study is one of the first to demonstrate the causal effect of autonomous prosocial behavior on well-being, as well as the psychological mechanism (i.e. need satisfaction) explaining this effect.     

伦理型领导、互动公平与员工帮助行为：亲社会动机的调节作用

通过分析由问卷调查获得的323个配对样本的数据,探讨伦理型领导对员工帮助行为的影响机制.发现：伦理型领导与互动公平显著正相关;互动公平在伦理型领导与帮助行为之间起完全中介作用;亲社会动机调节了互动公平在伦理型领导与帮助行为关系的中介作用.结论：伦理型领导通过互动公平激发员工帮助行为的发生,且员工的亲社会动机会增强伦理型领导的效力.     

Linking servant leadership to positive deviant behavior: The mediating role of self-determination theory

How can servant leadership focused primarily on developing employees help them to become more ethical and prosocial, and to achieve positive results reaching beyond mere compliance with their tasks? More specifically, we propose that servant leadership may influence employees to engage in positive deviant behavior (PDB), meaning non-conforming behavior that is positive and ethical. Using self-determination theory (SDT), our research examines the effect of perceived servant leadership on the adoption of PDB by employees, mediated by basic psychological needs satisfaction and intrinsic motivation. To this end, we conducted a quantitative study of 344 French employees’ answers to an online survey. Structural equation modeling results indicated that the relationship between perceived servant leadership and innovative PDB is strongly predicted by SDT. Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between perceived servant leadership, satisfaction of basic psychological needs, and innovative PDB. Several limitations and implications will be discussed.     

Gender differences in the person-activity fit for positive psychology interventions

Research on positive psychology interventions (PPIs) has established the value of activities such as acts of kindness, gratitude, and savoring life’s joys, for increasing individuals’ sense of well-being. Critical to the efficacy of PPIs is person-activity fit – the degree activities stem from intrinsic motivation. Although person-activity fit effects are well documented, gaps remain in our understanding of how sociodemographic variables, particularly age and gender, play a role. We investigated how gender may affect self-reported person-activity fit across three PPIs: A gratitude journal; Acts of Kindness; and Savoring life’s joys. Age was explored since the subject sample ranged widely, from 18 to 51?years. Twenty-eight men and 82 women completed person-activity fit questionnaires. A multiple analysis of variance resulted in a main effect for gender, with women showing greater person-activity fit for all three PPIs. Among women only, age correlated significantly with person-activity fit for all three PPIs, suggesting greater maturational variability among men.     

Identity, Reasoning, and Emotion: An Empirical Comparison of Three Sources of Moral Motivation

Prior research on moral motivation has primarily emphasized moral reasoning and moral emotion; however, identity may also play an important role. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relative importance of prosocial identity, prosocial moral reasoning, and empathy in predicting prosocial behavior. The sample included 91 university students, ages 19–35 years (M=21.89; SD=3.01; 80% European American; 65% female). Prosocial identity and empathy, but not prosocial moral reasoning, were positively associated with overall prosocial behavior. Exploratory analyses examined how these three sources of prosocial motivation differentially related to six forms of prosocial behavior. Results suggest the importance of considering the roles of all three sources of moral motivation.     

Characteristics of affected third parties and cooperative behavior in social dilemmas

ABSTRACT

The studies described in this article explore the influence of an under-emphasized determinant of cooperative behavior in social dilemmas: affected third parties. Two experiments examined the effect of characteristics of third parties on individual cooperative behavior in social dilemmas, and identified mechanisms associated with these relationships. Study 1 demonstrated that third-party need affects individual cooperative behavior, and tested prosocial motivation and intra-group trust as mediators of this relationship. Study 2 provided further elaboration by demonstrating that individual cooperative behavior was reduced when a needy third party was low on reliability, and by showing that prosocial motivation and intra-group trust mediated this relationship. This research connects the literatures on individual cooperation in social dilemmas and relational job design, and demonstrates why third parties influence individuals’ cooperative behavior.     

Pleasure and pressure based prosocial motivation: Divergent relations to subjective well-being

We propose two fundamentally different motives for helping: gaining pleasure and fulfilling one’s duty (“pressure”). Using the newly developed Pleasure and Pressure based Prosocial Motivation Scale, we demonstrated the distinctiveness of pleasure and pressure based prosocial motivation in three studies. Although the two motives exhibited different relations to a variety of personality characteristics, they were similarly related to trans-situational helping. Of particular interest, pleasure based prosocial motivation was positively related to self-actualization, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and positive affect and negatively related to negative affect. On the contrary, pressure based prosocial motivation was unrelated to self-actualization, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and positive affect but positively related to negative affect. These results qualify research showing that prosocial life goals generally increase subjective well-being.     

Learning how to help others: Two-year-olds’ social learning of a prosocial act

Engaging in prosocial behaviors (acts that benefit others) is associated with many positive outcomes in children, including the development of positive peer relationships, academic achievement, and good psychological functioning. This study examined the social learning mechanisms toddlers use to acquire prosocial behaviors. This brief report presents a new experimental procedure in which 2-year-olds (28–32 months, N = 30) saw a video of an adult performing a novel prosocial behavior in response to another person’s distress. Children then had the opportunity to imitate and implement the behavior in response to their own parent’s physical distress. Children who saw the video were more likely to perform the novel action and to display non-demonstrated prosocial behaviors relative to (a) children who did not view the video but saw a parent in distress and (b) children who saw the video but witnessed their mother engage in a neutral activity. These results suggest that toddlers imitate and emulate prosocial behaviors for social interaction and that children can apply such behaviors in appropriate situations.     

The propagation of everyday prosociality in the workplace

Prosocial behaviors typically benefit those who perform them but can create mixed emotions in recipients. Yet, how does prosociality affect the well-being of those who merely observe it? The current study aimed to answer this question by experimentally prompting employees to perform prosocial acts at work (Givers), be the recipient of such acts (Receivers), or to do neither (Observers). Our focus was on everyday prosociality, which involves kind acts directed at those in one’s social circle, rather than at individuals in need. Social proximity to Givers, but not Receivers, positively predicted boosts in well-being. Indeed, social proximity to Receivers was associated with a nonsignificant trend toward decreased well-being. However, both social proximity to Givers and social proximity to Receivers predicted increases in prosocial behavior among Observers. These results suggest that prosocial behavior and its emotional benefits propagate through social networks, particularly for those in close social proximity to prosocial actors.     

Witnessing excellence in action: the ‘other-praising’ emotions of elevation,gratitude, and admiration

People are often profoundly moved by the virtue or skill of others, yet psychology has little to say about the ‘other-praising’ family of emotions. Here we demonstrate that emotions such as elevation, gratitude, and admiration differ from more commonly studied forms of positive affect (joy and amusement) in many ways, and from each other in a few ways. The results of studies using recall, video induction, event-contingent diary, and letter-writing methods to induce other-praising emotions suggest that: elevation (a response to moral excellence) motivates prosocial and affiliative behavior, gratitude motivates improved relationships with benefactors, and admiration motivates self-improvement. Mediation analyses highlight the role of conscious emotion between appraisals and motivations. Discussion focuses on implications for emotion research, interpersonal relationships, and morality.     

Why and for whom does the pressure to help hurt others? Affective and cognitive mechanisms linking helping pressure to workplace deviance

Scholars are paying increasing attention to the “dark side” of citizenship behavior. One aspect of this dark side that has received relatively scant attention is “helping pressure”—an employee's perception that s/he is being encouraged to, or otherwise feels that s/he should, enact helping behavior at work. Drawing from theory associated with work stress, we examine affective and cognitive mechanisms that potentially explain why helping pressure, counterintuitively, may lead employees to engage in deviant behavior instead. Beyond examining these possible mechanisms, we also answer calls to identify a potential buffer to these effects. Drawing from self-determination theory, we examine how an employee's intrinsic motivation for citizenship may lessen the deleterious consequences of helping pressure at work. In two studies (a within-individual experience-sampling study and a two-wave between-individual study), we find consistent evidence that helping pressure has a positive indirect relationship with deviant behavior through increased negative affect. Further, we find evidence that intrinsic motivation for citizenship weakens the positive relationship of helping pressure with negative affect, buffering the indirect effect on subsequent deviant behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the study of helping pressure at work are discussed.     

Exercisers' perceptions of their fitness instructor's interacting style, perceived competence, and autonomy as a function of self-determined regulation to exercise, enjoyment, affect, and exercise frequency

Puente, R. & Anshel, M. H. (2010). Exercisers' perceptions of their fitness instructor's interacting style, perceived competence, and autonomy as a function of self-determined regulation to exercise, enjoyment, affect, and exercise frequency. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 38–45.
The primary purpose of the present investigation was to test the hypothesis, derived from Self-Determination Theory (SDT), that an individual's perceived competence and autonomy mediate the relationship between the exercisers' perception of their instructor's interaction style and the exercisers' motivation to exercise. A secondary purpose was to identify the affective and behavioral outcomes derived from self-determined regulation. It was hypothesized that SDT would significantly explain and predict exercise behavior. Participants consisted of 238 college students, 103 males and 135 females ( M age = 20.4 years, SD = 2.16), who volunteered to participate in the study. They were asked to complete a battery of questionnaires measuring instructor's interacting style, self-regulation to exercise, perceived autonomy and competence, enjoyment, positive and negative affect, and exercise frequency. Using structural equation modeling with observed variables, the results showed that perceived competence and autonomy mediated the relationship between perceived instructor's interacting style and self-determined regulation. It was also found that self-determined regulation was significantly related to exercise enjoyment, positive affect, and exercise frequency. It was concluded that understanding the motivational factors and emotional and behavioral consequences of physical activity will partially explain an individual's motives to engage regularly in exercise.     

Unravelling the motivational yarn: A framework for understanding the instigation of implicitly motivated behaviour resulting from deprivation and positive affect

Research suggests that the motivation to perform specific behaviours can originate in the unconscious. This implicit motivation can generally be traced to two basic sources: Deprivation of essential resources and positive affect attached to the specific behaviour. Yet, whereas previous research has increased our understanding of the emergence of implicit motivation, there is little theoretical analysis and empirical research that addresses how these sources interact in producing motivation. This chapter presents a framework for the comprehension of implicitly motivated behaviour resulting from deprivation and positive affect. The framework consists of two essential components. First, it proposes that mental representations of behaviour direct and prepare individuals to engage in behaviour. Second, it suggests that a reward signal either emanating from deprivation or positive affect acts upon behaviour representations to produce motivated behaviour. We present several findings supporting the framework and discuss these findings in the context of non-conscious goal pursuit and needs.     

Preschool Children’s Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Mother–Child,Father–Child and Teacher–Child Relationships

Prosocial behavior is considered an important dimension of positive development. Although previous research suggests the quality of children’s early relationships may influence prosocial behaviors, the specific contributions of mother, father and teacher to children’s prosocial behavior have been less examined. This is a cross-sectional study that investigates (a) the combined associations between mother–, father– and teacher–child relationships, and prosocial behavior in 168 children aged 36–72 months, and (b) the mediating role of the teacher–child relationship in the association between the parent–child relationship and prosocial behavior. Results suggested a positive link between the quality of relationships with early caregivers and children’s prosocial behavior. The quality of both father– and teacher–child relationships were found to have a direct association with children’s prosocial behavior. The quality of the mother–child relationship was indirectly linked to children’s prosocial behavior, via the teacher–child relationship. Results suggesting connections between multiple relational contexts were discussed based on the notion of internal working models proposed by attachment theory. Mothers’ and fathers’ contributions to children’s prosocial behavior were also discussed considering differences on relational styles and changing roles of mothers and fathers from dual-earner families.