Prosocial Approach Research Articles

Social Avoidance of Mice in Pain in Naturalistic Conditions

AbstractPain and social behavior are subject to reciprocal modulation. Social animals show attenuated pain behavior in the presence of conspecifics, while observers are in turn affected by exposure to another individual in pain. Both phenomena have been established in rodents, which in addition to experiencing emotional contagion from afflicted conspecifics may act to relieve their afflicted state. Little has been done to investigate the motivation of such prosocial behavior in naturalistic conditions. Here, using a novel formalin test targeting the nape of the neck, a socially relevant area, we investigated nocifensive behaviors and social interactions in mice group-housed in a seminatural environment (SNE). In the SNE, formalin-injected mice displayed fewer back-scratching occurrences than when housed alone, which was inversely correlated to the social behavior received. These mice also emitted and received fewer social interactions, attesting of social withdrawal. With respect to dyadic exchanges, saline-treated mice initiated fewer allosniffing and anogenital sniffing episodes towards formalin-treated mice than towards other saline-treated ones. These findings are counter to those showing empathy and prosocial approach in mouse pain models. It is possible that in naturalistic conditions that allow the mice to express a wide range of their behavioral repertoire, healthy mice simply avoid individuals in pain and the cost associated with emotional contagion. Interestingly, behaviors involving direct body contact, namely allogrooming and pair-resting, were not different between saline- and formalin-treated mice and thus may carry a prosocial, altruistic component. These findings unveil new patterns of social modulation by pain in a naturalistic laboratory setting holding high translational value.

Prosocial mission of education: regulatory framework and growth points

Introduction. In modern society it is necessary to acquire the new meanings and value orientations of the education mission. The context of understanding and the significant reference points hierarchy in the education sphere are constantly changing in the world. The ways to realize socially significant priorities in the sphere of education are widely represented in the international scientific and pedagogical space, but they are of a fragmented character, which does not allow a particular state, society, family and individual fully meeting the prosocial needs. The social demands in Russia are connected with a clear understanding of the need to educate a citizen and a patriot in accordance with the traditional spiritual and moral values and prosocial pedagogical attitudes. In terms of regulatory framework a serious groundwork for the realization of the prosocial mission of modern education has been created. Research goal is to determine the main characteristics of the prosocial mission of education in the current information and regulatory framework in order to identify the growth points and to develop the ways for their implementation in the Russian society. Research methodology and methods. The research is based on the methodology and basic pedagogical ideas of prosocial approach; the authors used qualitative analysis of data obtained from information, regulatory sources, scientific literature and expert opinion study, as well as observation, comparison, conceptual foresight and problem-logical methods. The empirical research was based on survey methods – questionnaires, expert survey (1,150 people) and discussion of the results obtained in focus groups of experts (more than 100 people) and representatives of five general education organizations in Belgorod and Belgorod region (53 people). Research insights. The actual source and regulatory framework of the phenomenon under study has been identified. It is defined that the prosocial mission of education considers the role of education in the development of positive traits of young people and sustainable development of society. Two groups of growth points of the prosocial mission of education are identified: 1) reflection of the international priorities (supporting the ideas of sustainable development of education at the political level; reforming the education and professional training spheres; improving professional level of pedagogical staff; involving young people; activating local population representatives); 2) national dominants (values and quality of education; social design and volunteering; teacher helping activity; communication and interaction in teaching). Conclusion. Understanding prosocial mission of education, teaching staff can choose the content, forms and ways to arrange the education process, to construct the communication style and use helping pedagogical strategies, to make the criteria choice to evaluate the educational outcome.

The common welfare human resource management system and innovativeness: the mediating role of altruism

PurposeThe paper analyzes and develops Chiva's (2014) proposal on the common welfare HRM system and uncovers its relationship with innovativeness, using altruism as a mediator.Design/methodology/approachThe common welfare HRM system implies a certain human and organizational development of the classic control and commitment HRM systems, and its main goal is to promote innovation through a prosocial approach. To this end, the authors investigated its HRM practices, developed a measurement instrument and provided initial illustrative evidence of some of its main implications for innovativeness and altruism. They tested these relationships on a sample of 269 Spanish firms using structural equations and bootstrapping to confirm the significance of the mediated effect.FindingsResults confirm the study’s hypotheses, thus supporting the common welfare HRM system as a relevant tool for developing innovativeness through the power of altruism. This paper therefore provides empirical evidence of these relationships.Practical implicationsThis study has implications that can help managers to increase innovativeness through a specific HRM system. The findings reveal that a coherent set of HRM practices based on common welfare principles and a high level of consciousness creates a climate of altruism that results in innovativeness.Originality/valueThis research shows that humanistic HRM practices also have an impact on performance variables such as innovativeness, through altruistic employees' behaviors. It also develops a measurement instrument for the common welfare HRM system and provides some initial illustrative evidence of some of its main implications.

Formal, Non-formal, and Informal Approaches in Prosocial Crisis Communication while Dealing with Refugees from Conflict Areas

The way formal organisations (governmental), non-formal (non-governmental) organisations, and informal citizen communication deal with social crisis pro-socially, that is, to the benefit of others, accounts for some characteristics that are worth fathoming in order to create the framework for the development of better communication strategies and better and faster prosocial reaction within socially challenging crisis contexts. Crisis communication has been tackled in public relations mostly with regard to governmental and nongovernmental organisations, whilst citizen informal communication has not been a matter of PR scientific focus so far, and neither has a comparison between these ways to communicate been approached for that matter. As speed is key in communication, and mostly within a refugee crisis, a double fold quantitative and qualitative analysis of the communication content and strategies used by key social actors in a hub-country of refugee reception like Romania in the emergency context created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may provide useful scientific information to generate consequent strategic improvements. This content analysis methodological approach on communication in the social media and on websites of such various outlets (the Facebook pages and groups of the Romanian Red Cross, UNICEF, Romanian Government, the “Uniţi pentru Ucraina” group, the Romanian government, UNICEF and Red Cross websites) from 24th February 2022, the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, to the moment, allows intriguing conclusions about the effectiveness, timeliness, and constancy in communicating support in times of social crisis within a prosocial approach in Romania to receiving refugees from the conflict areas in Ukraine.

A prosocial fake news intervention with durable effects

The present online intervention promoted family-based prosocial values—in terms of helping family members—among young adults to build resistance against fake news. This preregistered randomized controlled trial study is among the first psychological fake news interventions in Eastern Europe, where the free press is weak and state-sponsored misinformation runs riot in mainstream media. In this intervention, participants were endowed with an expert role and requested to write a letter to their digitally less competent relatives explaining six strategies that help fake news recognition. Compared to the active control group there was an immediate effect (d = 0.32) that persisted until the follow-up four weeks later (d = 0.22) on fake news accuracy ratings of the young, advice-giving participants. The intervention also reduced the bullshit receptivity of participants both immediately after the intervention and in the long run. The present work demonstrates the power of using relevant social bonds for motivating behavior change among Eastern European participants. Our prosocial approach with its robust grounding in human psychology might complement prior interventions in the fight against misinformation.

Voluntary and instrumental information security policy compliance: an integrated view of prosocial motivation, self-regulation and deterrence

Understanding employees’ motivations and behaviors toward compliance with information security policies (ISPs) remains a theoretical and practical challenge. Although previous information security researchers have investigated different motivational factors related to ISP compliance, most have not recognized different forms of ISP compliance behaviors characterized by their levels of willingness and persistence, nor have they noted the importance of adopting an other-oriented lens to examine such behaviors. In this paper, we propose and test an integrated model that investigates how various motivational factors affect different ISP compliance behaviors. Specifically, the model anchors on the prosocial motivational perspective in addition to the instrumental and self-regulatory motivational perspectives and investigates two types of compliance behaviors (voluntary ISP compliance and instrumental ISP compliance). We tested our model using survey data collected from 407 employee respondents. Our results show that the three sets of motivational factors have different effects on the two types of ISP compliance behaviors. Prosocial motivation and self-regulatory motivation positively affect voluntary ISP compliance behavior. Deterrence as an instrumental control leads to instrumental ISP compliance behavior but undermines voluntary ISP compliance behavior. Our study highlights that, to foster employees’ voluntary ISP compliance, organizations need to take a more holistic approach by integrating the prosocial approach with the instrumental and self-regulatory approaches in managing voluntary compliance behaviors, while being mindful of the negative effects of instrumental controls (e.g., deterrence) on such behaviors.

Operationalising sustainability in volunteer tourism by power-sharing with the receiving organisation

ABSTRACT The outcomes of volunteer tourism have rarely evaluated, and the sustainable practices, such as equality within this sector, are questionable. Extant research has indicated that miscommunication and poor volunteer placement management can lead to ineffectiveness and negative experiences for stakeholders such as host project staff and volunteers. Collaborative relations between the main stakeholders at a local level were evaluated and deconstructed to enable a better understanding of operational practices that influence sustainable outcomes for host projects. This evaluative study examined the role of the receiving organisation at the host destination in achieving sustainable outcomes utilising a case study in South Africa. An evaluative framework integrating realistic evaluation, collaboration theory and supply chain analysis offered in-depth insights into why the local contextual settings influence how collaborative relations among stakeholders can influence sustainable outcomes. The receiving organisation’s knowledge of the local socio-economic contextual settings of each host project is critical to the successful engagement between hosts and volunteers which leads to equality. The evaluative framework offers an understanding of how and why the local contextual settings and the prosocial approach by the local agent are essential in enabling sustainability performance in volunteer tourism.

Nudging primary care providers to expand the opioid use disorder workforce.

To examine the responsiveness of primary care providers to pro-social and financial incentives to participate in a learning collaborative for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). We conducted a statewide experiment in North Carolina from January 2019 to November 2019 to expand access to support for providers learning to treat opioid use disorder using different types of messaging and incentives. We randomly assigned 15,835 primary care providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) in North Carolina (NC) to receive one of four letters recruiting providers to participate in an online learning collaborative for providers learning to treat opioid use disorder. The four versions of the recruitment letters contained either pro-social messaging, mention of financial reimbursement for time spent in the learning collaborative, both, or neither. We created a primary data source, tracking provider responses to the recruitment letters and emails. We found a 47.5% greater (p < 0.05) response rate using pro-social recruitment messaging that provided a greater description of the local conditions in each provider's region compared to the control group; this effect increased with higher overdose opioid death rates. Mention of financial reimbursement only modestly increased provider response rates. Some heterogeneity was observed by provider type, with NPs having the largest response to pro-social messaging. Prosocial nudges had strong effects on efforts to enhance the behavioral health workforce in NC through participation in an ECHO for medication-assisted treatment (MAT) learning collaborative. The prosocial approach can and should be employed by states and professional societies in their efforts to create training programs for medication for OUD (MOUD), in order to expand access to lifesaving treatments for opioid use disorder.

ИДЕИ ПРОСОЦИАЛЬНОГО ПОДХОДА К РАЗВИТИЮ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

The emergence of new methodological approaches to the organization of activities is due to socio-cultural, economic transformations in the life of society. With regard to the education system and pedagogical activity, the prosocial approach is strengthening its position, aimed at promoting the well-being of the individual, as a metaprinciple that is not yet sufficiently substantiated in modern scientific knowledge. The purpose of the article is to identify and substantiate the main ideas of the prosocial approach to the development of education and pedagogical activity. Research methods are a theoretical analysis, synthesis, generalization, abstraction, concretization of data, publicationsand materials presented on official websites, in open access databases. As a result, the main ideas were identified that consider the prosocial orientation of education and pedagogical activity: 1) as an orientation towards the values of the good and benefit to a person and society (education, professional pedagogical activity are considered in the context of the idea of a teacher's activity for the good, benefit of society, communities, individuals); 2) as a response to the challenges of our time (pedagogical activity, meeting the criterion of social responsibility, is aimed at the future, relies on and takes into account current needs, approved at a specific time and for the future by the state, society, and the world community); 3) as a specific behavior, a way of helping activities (pedagogical actions based on a helping attitude towards the student and aimed at initiating self-help, helping in the adaptation and development of his personality); 4) as a «safe» vector of pedagogical communication, humanization of the environment (dominance of benevolence, friendliness, trust, tolerance, compromise and cooperation). Their characteristics are given. The prospects for the development of the methodology of the prosocial approach as the formation of fairly new scientific constructs – pro-social education and pro-social pedagogy – have been determined. The study has been carried out within the framework of the State Assignment of the National Research University «BelSU» № 0624-2020-0012 «Justification of the integrative methodology of higher professional education: the dominants of the formation of universal competencies, prosocial attitudes and polysubjectivity of a future teacher» for the period 2020-2022

LANGUAGE AND PEACE EDUCATION

Peace education is a concept, this is a not to be treated as a subject like Statistics, Mathematics if it has to be successfully incorporated in life. It is a concept beyond border conflicts and heavy jargons of concordats and treaties. This baffles people most of the time. I would like to discuss language and Peace Education from a teacher’s perspective. Education is the process which helps an individual to learn to analyze, to understand and then to act. When a class of students are taught peaceful co-existence, conflict resolutions, multicultural education they go out into the world as ambassadors of Peace. The language which they speak is also language of Peace. As a teacher we should be able to create an atmosphere where we teach the language not to divide but to bring all together. The spoken or written communication language is important while learning to address issues or to justify an action. The core areas could be the Conflict resolution, accepting each other, addressing Xenophobia, multicultural education and such other social issues Another reason when we need competency in language is to save another language! The age old blinders can be removed; we can show our respect for the language by speaking a few words, a sentence or so. This entire attitude towards learning is all inclusive in the making of Peace Education. Pro-social approach in class by teachers itself models as a preface to Peace Education. The goal finally is to establish a link between behavior and language that will remain an intrinsic part of the student’s focus and also get spread at large. Concept, Border conflicts, Perspective, Multicultural Education, Conflict Resolutions, Xenophobia, and Pro- Social.LANGUAGE AND PEACE EDUCATION

Anger Can Help: A Transactional Model and Three Pathways of the Experience and Expression of Anger.

Anger is a significant human emotion with far-reaching implications for individuals and relationships. We propose a transactional model of anger that highlights its relational relevance and potentially positive function, in addition to problematic malformations. By evolutionary design, physical, self-concept, or attachment threats all similarly trigger diffuse physiological arousal, psychologically experienced as anger-emotion. Anger is first a signaling and motivational system. Anger is then formed to affirming, productive use or malformed to destructive ends. A functional, prosocial approach to anger organizes it for protective and corrective personal and relational adaptation. In our model, threat perception interacts with a person's view of self in relation to other to produce helpful or harmful anger. Inflated or collapsed views of self in relation to other produce distinct manifestations of destructive anger that are harmful to self, other, and relationship. Conversely, a balanced view of self in relation to other promotes constructive anger and catalyzes self, other, and relationship healing. Clinical use of the model to shape healing personal and relational contact with anger is explored.

Contextual Behavioral Science and Global Mental Health: Synergies and opportunities

Global Mental Health (GMH) initiatives aim to address inequities in mental health care across the world. Particular emphasis is placed on building mental health service capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) where over 80% of the global population live. Consistent with this approach, concerted efforts are being made to globally disseminate psychological interventions. These initiatives must negotiate tensions that exist between making interventions sufficiently scalable, whilst retaining aspects of the psychotherapy process that maximize both the acceptability and efficacy of psychological interventions. This paper reflects on the important contribution that Contextual Behavioral Science (CBS) can make to GMH. CBS draws on behavioral and environmental principles that translate into various therapeutic applications [including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP)] and social change initiatives (such as the PROSOCIAL approach). Consideration will be given to the cross-cultural utility and validity of CBS approaches, and the way in these can help ensure that GMH initiatives extend beyond narrow efforts to address symptoms of mental disorders to include a focus on enhancing wellbeing. It is proposed that knowledge from ACT and FAP can help build sophistication in efforts to develop and deliver ‘therapist-free’ psychological interventions that will need to retain sensitivity to clients’ emotional expressions. In addition, the PROSOCIAL approach provides opportunities for groups of people to cooperate effectively to achieve shared aspirations and build ‘communities of support’ that can serve to optimize peoples’ mental health and wellbeing.

Desenvolvimento moral: vertentes pró-social e pró-ambiental

Objetivou-se conhecer as vertentes pró-social e pró-ambiental do desenvolvimento moral na área da Psicologia. Realizou-se um levantamento bibliográfico (2005-2010) em uma base de dados internacional referenciada (PsycINFO). Constatou-se que a vertente pró-social aborda o desenvolvimento moral em quase todo o ciclo vital humano, analisando a aquisição de virtudes e julgamentos morais. A vertente pró-ambiental foca na idade adulta, buscando correlações entre variáveis psicossociais e a emissão do comportamento desejado. As vertentes se assemelham quando consideram as motivações altruístas para o comportamento moral. Discutiu-se o quanto a vertente pró-ambiental se beneficiaria do olhar investigativo da vertente pró-social em seus estudos.

Oxytocin selectively increases perceptions of harm for victims but not the desire to punish offenders of criminal offenses

The neuropeptide oxytocin functions as a hormone and neurotransmitter and facilitates complex social cognition and approach behavior. Given that empathy is an essential ingredient for third-party decision-making in institutions of justice, we investigated whether exogenous oxytocin modulates empathy of an unaffected third-party toward offenders and victims of criminal offenses. Healthy male participants received intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subjects design. Participants were given a set of legal vignettes that described an event during which an offender engaged in criminal offenses against victims. As an unaffected third-party, participants were asked to rate those criminal offenses on the degree to which the offender deserved punishment and how much harm was inflicted on the victim. Exogenous oxytocin selectively increased third-party decision-makers' perceptions of harm for victims but not the desire to punish offenders of criminal offenses. We argue that oxytocin promoted empathic concern for the victim, which in turn increased the tendency for prosocial approach behavior regarding the interpersonal relationship between an unaffected third-party and a fictional victim in the criminal scenarios. Future research should explore the context- and person-dependent nature of exogenous oxytocin in individuals with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, in whom deficits in empathy feature prominently.

Importing Peace Education from Belfast: A Prosocial Approach to School Improvement in the US

This paper presents the results and experiences of one school within a unique university/K-12 school district partnership that approached school reform through a framework of peace education. Faced with the challenge of improving academic achievement in a district with a history of five years failing to meet Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act, university faculty collaborated with elementary school teachers to implement principles of peace education that have been successfully applied at Oldwood Integrated Primary School in Belfast, Northern Ireland. As two university faculty involved in the project, we present challenges, theoretical perspectives, and the model that guided our initiative, the process, and results of social change in teaching practice.

Oxytocin increases trust in humans

Trust pervades human societies. Trust is indispensable in friendship, love, families and organizations, and plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down. In the absence of trust in a country's institutions and leaders, political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that trust contributes to economic, political and social success. Little is known, however, about the biological basis of trust among humans. Here we show that intranasal administration of oxytocin, a neuropeptide that plays a key role in social attachment and affiliation in non-human mammals, causes a substantial increase in trust among humans, thereby greatly increasing the benefits from social interactions. We also show that the effect of oxytocin on trust is not due to a general increase in the readiness to bear risks. On the contrary, oxytocin specifically affects an individual's willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions. These results concur with animal research suggesting an essential role for oxytocin as a biological basis of prosocial approach behaviour.

Neuroeconomic Foundations of Trust and Social Preferences

This paper discusses recent neuroeconomic evidence related to other-regarding behaviors and the decision to trust in other people's other-regarding behavior. This evidence supports the view that people derive non-pecuniary utility (i) from mutual cooperation in social dilemma (SD) games and (ii) from punishing unfair behavior. Thus, mutual cooperation and the punishment of free riders in SD games is not irrational, but better understood as rational behavior of people with corresponding social preferences. We also report the results of a recent study that examines the impact of the neuropeptide Oxytocin (OT) on trusting and trustworthy behavior in a sequential SD. Animal studies have identified Oxytocin as a hormone that induces pro-social approach behavior, suggesting that it may also affect pro-social behavior in humans. Indeed, the study shows that subjects given Oxytocin exhibit much more trusting behavior, suggesting that OT has a direct impact on certain aspects of subjects' social preferences. Interestingly, however, although Oxytocin affects trusting behavior, it has no effect on subjects' trustworthiness.

Coregulation of Balance Between Children's Prosocial Approaches and Acts of Compliance: A Pathway to Mother-Child Cooperation?

Examined the free-field interaction of 32 mother-child dyads who volunteered to participate in a 1-hr home observation. Observers coded mother instructions, child compliance, and child prosocial approaches plus mothers' social attention as potential reinforcers for the children's compliance and social approaches. Herrnstein's matching law was used to analyze covariations between mothers' attention and the children's 2 responses. This analysis was followed by correlational and sequential probability analyses to determine linkages between these 2 child responses and the children's willingness to obey their mothers' instructions. Results showed consistent matching between mothers' social attention and the children's production of prosocial approaches and acts of compliance. An index of the proportions of these 2 responses also covaried with the children's compliance probabilities, and the prosocial approach component was the direct covariate. These findings are discussed within an interactional synchrony framework in which children's willingness to obey their mothers is influenced by opportunities for the dyad to engage each other in specific forms of social interaction.

Promoting prosocial pupil behaviour and the roles of counselling.

Antisocial behaviour of pupils isgetting more and more attention in many countries.Information is given about relevant definitions andthe prevalence of antisocial behaviour of pupils inthe Netherlands. Policy strategies and actions toreduce antisocial behaviour at the national level,regional or municipal level, school and class level,and individual or pupil level are focussed. Researchto explain antisocial behaviour and to promoteprosocial behaviour provides clues to a moresystematic prosocial approach, which is formulated infive guidelines towards optimum education. Practiceexperiences in developing optimum education since thebeginning in kindergarten also suggest roles ofcounselling.

Working with mandated clients: A pro-social approach

This paper outlines an approach to routine work with mandated clients using child protection as a case example. It refers to a study undertaken in corrections in Victoria which found that the use of a pro-social approach (i.e. use of skills in modelling and encouraging desirable or pro-social behaviour and challenging anti-social or pro-criminal behaviour) integrated with other casework skills led to a reduction in re-offending of 30 to 50 percent. It is pointed out that a number of research studies have found that this approach is related to improved outcomes with a range of other mandated clients. It is argued that the systematic use of rewards and encouragement and the challenging of anti-social or unacceptable comments and behaviour should be seen as one of a range of key skills in casework with mandated clients. The detail of how such an approach might be used in child protection work is discussed and some possible objections to the approach are considered.