What Accounts for Prosocial Behavior? Roles of Moral Identity,Moral Judgment,and Self-Efficacy Beliefs

Prior research suggests that moral identity influences individuals’ willingness to engage in prosocial behavior. Little attention, however, has been given to the roles of and relations between moral identity and other factors, such as moral judgment, in accounting for types of prosocial behavior in adolescence. The current study examined the extent to which moral identity, moral judgment, and social self-efficacy contribute to prosocial behaviors in adolescence. Approximately 338 adolescents (M_age?=?13.4 years) completed measures of moral identity, moral judgment, social self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior. Teachers rated adolescents’ prosocial behaviors, which largely corroborated the adolescents’ self-reports. Moral identity was found to predict most types of prosocial behavior. Moral judgment and moral identity were related and jointly predicted altruistic prosocial behaviors, but did not predict helping in front of others. Further, moral identity mediated the relationships between moral judgment and some forms of prosocial behavior (e.g., emotional, volunteering). Self-efficacy beliefs were found to predict some types of prosocial behavior (e.g., public), perhaps providing adolescents with confidence to engage in prosocial action. Overall, moral identity was especially effective in directly accounting for prosocial behavior, and may act as a mediator to bridge the moral judgment–moral action gap among adolescents.     

Children's utilization of emotion expectancies in moral decision‐making

This study investigated the relevance of emotion expectancies for children's moral decision‐making. The sample included 131 participants from three different grade levels (M = 8.39 years, SD = 2.45, range 4.58–12.42). Participants were presented a set of scenarios that described various emotional outcomes of (im)moral actions and asked to decide what they would do if they were in the protagonists' shoes. Overall, it was found that the anticipation of moral emotions predicted an increased likelihood of moral choices in antisocial and prosocial contexts. In younger children, anticipated moral emotions predicted moral choice for prosocial actions, but not for antisocial actions. Older children showed evidence for the utilization of anticipated emotions in both prosocial and antisocial behaviours. Moreover, for older children, the decision to act prosocially was less likely in the presence of non‐moral emotions. Findings suggest that the impact of emotion expectancies on children's moral decision‐making increases with age. Contrary to happy victimizer research, the study does not support the notion that young children use moral emotion expectancies for moral decision‐making in the context of antisocial actions.     

Social Value Orientations and Decisions to Take Proenvironmental Action1

This study assessed whether social value orientations influence decisions to actively support a proposal for a transportation pollution reduction program. Participants with prosocial or proself orientations were given the opportunity to send letters of support or opposition to the program director. Proself participants were more likely to send letters opposing the program, whereas prosocial participants were more likely to send letters of support. Although proself and prosocial participants reported equivalent support for the program and equivalent perceptions of the program's environmental benefits, proself participants reported higher perceptions of personal costs associated with the program. Social value orientations may lead to differences in environmental behaviors, primarily because of differences in perceptions of the personal costs incurred from engaging in these behaviors.     

A role for affect in the link between episodic simulation and prosociality

Prospection and prosociality are hallmarks of our species. Little is known, however, about how our ability to imagine or simulate specific future events contributes to our capacity for prosociality. Here, we investigated this relationship, revealing how the affective response that arises from a simulated prosocial event motivates a willingness to help a person in need. Across two experiments, people reported being more willing to help in specific situations after simulating future helping events that elicited positive (versus negative or neutral) affect. Positive affect increased engagement of theory of mind for the person in need, which in turn informed prosocial responses. Moreover, the subjective experience of scene imagery and theory of mind systematically couple together depending on the affective valence of future simulations, providing new insight into how affective valence guides a prosocial function of episodic simulation.     

“Put a Little Love in Your Heart”: Acceptance of Paternalistic and Ally Political Discourses Both Predict Pro-Roma Solidarity Intentions Through Moral Inclusion

The way politicians talk about minorities institutes the normative context of intergroup relations. We investigated how endorsement of different political discourses predicts donation and collective action intentions by majority members toward the Roma in five European countries. The survey was conducted online using samples demographically similar to the populations of Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, France, and Ireland (N = 5,054). First, results showed that accepting paternalistic discourse versus discourse promoting allyship were not distinguishable; both promoted higher moral inclusion which in turn predicted higher prosocial intentions. Second, donations (i.e., immediate relief) and collective action (i.e., social change action) were driven by identical factors. Third, acceptance of openly hostile political discourse neither predicted moral exclusion, nor lower prosocial intentions. In summary, our research provides important evidence that when it comes to Roma—non-Roma relations, the previously established distinction between solidarity intentions that aim to solidify status relations versus bring about social change is completely blurred, presumably because of the social context in which any positive message communicates moral inclusion challenging the hostile status quo.     

Having versus doing: The roles of moral identity internalization and symbolization for prosocial behaviors

Moral identity has been identified as a consistent predictor of prosocial behavior, but the specific relationship and predictive strength of its two dimensions, internalization (“having”) and symbolization (“doing”), are less clear. The current article explores this through two self-report studies. In study 1 (N = 228) a series of hierarchical regression analyses showed that, for three out of four domains of prosocial behavior, symbolization was the only significant predictor, and that its strength differed across outcomes. Building on these results, Study 2 (N = 299) proposed that the observed vs. anonymous nature of prosocial behavior could account for these differences. Unexpectedly, symbolization predicted both public and private behaviors, whereas internalization generally did not. Significant interactions between internalization and symbolization were also observed. These findings are discussed in relation to their theoretical implications and future moral identity research.     

The egocentric nature of procedural justice: Social value orientation as moderator of reactions to decision-making procedures

In four studies, the authors investigated the individual-oriented versus social-oriented nature of procedural justice effects by comparing fairness-based responses to decision-making procedures among proself versus prosocial oriented individuals. In Studies 1 through 3, we measured participants’ social value orientation and manipulated whether or not they were granted or denied voice in a decision-making process. Results consistently revealed that the effects of voice versus no-voice on fairness-based perceptions, emotions, and behavioral intentions were significantly more pronounced for individuals with proself orientations than for individuals with prosocial orientations. These findings were extended in Study 4, a field study in which perceived procedural justice was a stronger predictor of satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors among proselfs than among prosocials. These findings suggest that procedural justice effects can be accounted for by self-oriented motives or needs, rather than prosocial motives that are often conceptualized as being associated with justice.     

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.     

父亲将心比心与儿童早期亲社会行为的关系：儿童心理理论的中介作用

本研究采用纵向研究设计对130名儿童（平均月龄M = 63.15,SD = 4.37;其中男孩69名）进行调查,探究父亲将心比心、儿童心理理论、儿童亲社会行为三者之间的关系。时间点1由父亲完成将心比心访谈、时间点2由母亲完成儿童长处与困难问卷、儿童完成错误信念理解任务、皮博迪图片词汇测验任务。结果表明：（1）父亲将心比心、儿童心理理论与儿童亲社会行为呈显著正相关;（2）儿童的心理理论在父亲将心比心与儿童亲社会行为间起完全中介作用。     

The argument from agreement: How universal values undermine moral realism

The most popular argument against moral realism is the argument from disagreement: if there are mind‐independent moral facts, then we would not expect to find as much moral disagreement as we in fact do; therefore, moral realism is false. In this paper, I develop the flipside of this argument. According to this argument from agreement, we would expect to find lots of moral disagreement if there were mind‐independent moral facts. But we do not, in fact, find much moral disagreement; therefore, moral realism is false. I defend the argument, explain the empirical evidence that supports it, and show what makes this challenge novel and powerful.     

道德认同对大学生亲社会行为倾向的影响：共情的中介作用和正念的调节作用

采用道德认同量表、人际反应指针量表、亲社会行为倾向量表和五因素正念度量表对533名大学生进行调查,探讨道德认同对大学生亲社会行为倾向的影响机制。结果表明：（1）道德认同的两个维度—道德认同内化和道德认同符号化均能正向预测大学生亲社会行为倾向;（2）共情在道德认同内化和符号化对大学生亲社会行为倾向的影响过程中起部分中介作用;（3）正念在道德认同内化和符号化通过共情对大学生亲社会行为倾向的影响过程中起调节作用,正念减弱了道德认同符号化对亲社会行为倾向的正向影响,增强了共情对亲社会行为倾向的正向影响。     

The development of bystander intentions and social–moral reasoning about intergroup verbal aggression

A developmental intergroup approach was taken to examine the development of prosocial bystander intentions among children and adolescents. Participants as bystanders (N = 260) aged 8–10 and 13–15 years were presented with scenarios of direct aggression between individuals from different social groups (i.e., intergroup verbal aggression). These situations involved either an ingroup aggressor and an outgroup victim or an outgroup aggressor and an ingroup victim. This study focussed on the role of intergroup factors (group membership, ingroup identification, group norms, and social–moral reasoning) in the development of prosocial bystander intentions. Findings showed that prosocial bystander intentions declined with age. This effect was partially mediated by the ingroup norm to intervene and perceived severity of the verbal aggression. However, a moderated mediation analysis showed that only when the victim was an ingroup member and the aggressor an outgroup member did participants become more likely with age to report prosocial bystander intentions due to increased ingroup identification. Results also showed that younger children focussed on moral concerns and adolescents focussed more on psychological concerns when reasoning about their bystander intention. These novel findings help explain the developmental decline in prosocial bystander intentions from middle childhood into early adolescence when observing direct intergroup aggression.     

The virtues of gossip: reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior

Reputation systems promote cooperation and deter antisocial behavior in groups. Little is known, however, about how and why people share reputational information. Here, we seek to establish the existence and dynamics of prosocial gossip, the sharing of negative evaluative information about a target in a way that protects others from antisocial or exploitative behavior. We present a model of prosocial gossip and the results of 4 studies testing the model's claims. Results of Studies 1 through 3 demonstrate that (a) individuals who observe an antisocial act experience negative affect and are compelled to share information about the antisocial actor with a potentially vulnerable person, (b) sharing such information reduces negative affect created by observing the antisocial behavior, and (c) individuals possessing more prosocial orientations are the most motivated to engage in such gossip, even at a personal cost, and exhibit the greatest reduction in negative affect as a result. Study 4 demonstrates that prosocial gossip can effectively deter selfishness and promote cooperation. Taken together these results highlight the roles of prosocial motivations and negative affective reactions to injustice in maintaining reputational information sharing in groups. We conclude by discussing implications for reputational theories of the maintenance of cooperation in human groups.     

Orientations to Happiness and Subjective Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents: The Roles of Prosocial Behavior and Internet Addictive Behavior

Researchers have studied individual’s pursuit of well-being through two perspectives: the eudaimonic perspective and the hedonic perspective. Peterson and his colleagues (2005) introduced their Orientations to Happiness scale, a self-report measure assessing individual’s pursuit of well-being that corresponds to these two perspectives. Specifically, the Life of Meaning subscale is the index of the eudaimonic pursuit; the Life of Pleasure subscale is the index of the hedonic pursuit. Previous research has demonstrated that orientations to happiness are positively associated with individual’s subjective well-being, whereas little research has addressed the mechanisms underlying the associations. Based on goal theory of happiness, the present study investigated how orientations to happiness were associated with subjective well-being by examining the indirect effects of the prosocial behavior and Internet addictive behavior in a sample of Chinese adolescents aged between 13 and 18 (N = 2082). The results showed that: (1) both life of meaning and life of pleasure were positively associated with adolescents’ subjective well-being; (2) prosocial behavior partially mediated the positive association between life of meaning and subjective well-being; and (3) prosocial behavior also partially mediated the positive association between life of pleasure and subjective well-being, whereas Internet addictive behavior undermined the positive association here. The findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms between orientations to happiness and subjective well-being.     

用典型相关进一步研究大学生亲社会倾向和亲社会推理的关系

本研究使用修订后的亲社会倾向量表(PTM)和亲社会客观推理量表(PROM),对大学生群体进行了测查,并采用简单相关和典型相关探讨亲社会倾向和亲社会推理的关系。结果表明:大学生的亲社会倾向由高到低依次为:紧急的、利他的、情绪的、依从的、匿名的和公开的;他们的亲社会推理由高到低依次是:需要定向、刻板定向、内化价值定向、享乐主义定向和赞扬定向。6种亲社会倾向都与刻板定向推理、内化价值定向推理正相关;紧急的、依从的亲社会倾向与需要定向推理正相关;匿名的亲社会倾向与享乐主义定向推理负相关。从典型相关分析结果来看,两者间的整体关联程度没有理论预期的高,典型变量所代表的亲社会倾向主要是紧急的、匿名的、依从的亲社会倾向,而这些亲社会倾向主要由内化价值定向推理、刻板定向推理、需要定向推理来解释。     

Effect of Religious Day on Prosocial Behavior: A Field Study

It has previously been suggested that prosociality is correlated with the degree of religiousness. However, experimental and meta-analytical studies cast doubt on the existence of such a relationship. Due to the controversy over the link between religiousness and prosocial behavior, and the existence of only a small number of ecological experiments focusing on this relationship, we tested the effect of a religious salient day, a previously uninvestigated effect, on prosocial behavior. Specifically, across two experiments (N = 405) and in an ecological setting in Portugal, we tested whether prosocial behavior would increase on a religious salient day compared to a non-religious regular day. We found a gender-related effect: Women, on a religious day, were more inclined to agree to a prosocial behavior than on a non-religious day, whereas men did not change their behavior. We discuss such a difference in behavior, as well as the implications of our studies.     

Aspects of identity: From the inner-outer metaphor to a tetrapartite model of the self

Abstract

We review a program of research on identity orientations – the relative importance or value that individuals place on various identity attributes when constructing their self-definitions. We first provide a brief history of the development of our measure of identity orientations – the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ) – after which we present our tetrapartite model of the self that distinguishes among individual, relational, public, and collective aspects of identity. We then review previous research on how the four identity orientations uniquely influence cognition, emotion, and behavior, and close by highlighting what we see as interesting and important directions for future research.     

Oxytocin Receptor Gene Relates to Theory of Mind and Prosocial Behavior in Children

Individual social differences have been addressed in recent studies, and the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is the major candidate in explaining various social phenotypes. To study the association between a well-known haplotype (rs53576) of OXTR and children's prosocial behavior and its relationship with theory of mind (ToM) ability, 87 children (aged 3 to 5 years old) participated in 3 prosocial tasks and ToM performance experiments. Participants who were homozygous for the G allele (GG) exhibited more prosocial behaviors than did those with 1 or 2 copies of the A allele (AA), and GG carriers also displayed better ToM ability than did AA individuals. Further tests showed differences between genotypes in helping and comforting, albeit not in sharing. The results demonstrated that OXTR rs53576 was related to individual differences in ToM and was associated with prosocial behavior.     

大学生亲社会倾向、亲社会推理以及它们的相关模式

采用《亲社会倾向测量》和《亲社会推理客观测量》研究了17至20岁大学生的六类亲社会倾向和亲社会推理的状况。发现大学生将利他的亲社会倾向列为六类倾向中的首位,接下来依次是紧急的、情绪性的、依从的、匿名的和公开的亲社会倾向;在亲社会推理五种类型中大学生选择比率最高的是内化价值定向的推理,接下来依次是刻板定向、需要定向和享乐主义定向的推理,所占比率最低的是赞扬定向的推理;六类亲社会倾向与亲社会推理之间具有特定的棚关模式．利他的和匿名的亲社会倾向与内化价值定向和刻板定向的推理正相关、与享乐主义定向及赞扬定向的推理负相关,公开的亲社会倾向与赞扬定向的推理正相关、与需要定向的推理负相关。跨文化比较证实,中美大学生的上述三个方面表现出一定的差异。