Prosocial Choice Research Articles

Empathic concern drives costly altruism

Why do we self-sacrifice to help others in distress? Two competing theories have emerged, one suggesting that prosocial behavior is primarily motivated by feelings of empathic other-oriented concern, the other that we help mainly because we are egoistically focused on reducing our own discomfort. Here we explore the relationship between costly altruism and these two sub-processes of empathy, specifically drawing on the caregiving model to test the theory that trait empathic concern (e.g. general tendency to have sympathy for another) and trait personal distress (e.g. predisposition to experiencing aversive arousal states) may differentially drive altruistic behavior. We find that trait empathic concern – and not trait personal distress – motivates costly altruism, and this relationship is supported by activity in the ventral tegmental area, caudate and subgenual anterior cingulate, key regions for promoting social attachment and caregiving. Together, this data helps identify the behavioral and neural mechanisms motivating costly altruism, while demonstrating that individual differences in empathic concern-related brain responses can predict real prosocial choice.

Replication of “Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth” by

We report the results of three high-powered, independent replications of Study 2 from Williams and Bargh (2008) . Participants evaluated hot or cold instant therapeutic packs before choosing a reward for participation that was framed as a prosocial (i.e., treat for a friend) or self-interested reward (i.e., treat for the self). Williams and Bargh predicted that evaluating the hot pack would lead to a higher probability of making a prosocial choice compared to evaluating the cold pack. We did not replicate the effect in any individual laboratory or when considering the results of the three replications together (total N = 861). We conclude that there is no evidence that brief exposure to warm therapeutic packs induces greater prosocial responding than exposure to cold therapeutic packs.

Eager to Help Yet Reluctant to Give: How Pro-Social Effort and Pro-Social Choices Diverge

Eager to Help Yet Reluctant to Give: How Pro-Social Effort and Pro-Social Choices Diverge

Who's Naughty? Who's Nice? Experiments on Whether Pro-Social Workers are Selected Out of Cutthroat Business Environments

Levitt and List (2007) conjecture that selection pressures among business people will reduce or eliminate pro-social choices. While recent work comparing students with various adult populations often fails to find that adults are less pro-social, this evidence is not necessarily at odds with the selection hypothesis, which may be most relevant for behavior in cutthroat competitive industries. To examine the selection hypothesis, we compare students with two adult populations deliberately selected from two cutthroat internet industries --- domain trading and adult entertainment (pornography). Across a range of indicators, business people in these industries are more pro-social than students: they are more altruistic, trusting, trustworthy, and lying averse. They also respond differently to shame-based incentives. We offer a theory of reverse selection that can rationalize these findings.

Imagination and Development: The Salience of Social Values, Entrepreneurship and Cooperation

Rational behaviour is required for markets to function efficiently; but myopic rational behaviour could work against pro-social choice, limit creativity, and minimise the extent of cooperative action. This tension is a serious drawback of the recent promotion of markets in developing countries because economic development will only occur if some significant set of individuals have coherent preferences for the enhancement of relevant social or public values (a social vision); the capacity for and commitment to invention, innovation and entrepreneurship (an entrepreneurial social ethic); and a willingness to act cooperatively and voluntarily in dealing with non-market issues (a cooperative social ethic). In other words, social vision and an entrepreneurial and cooperative social ethic are sufficient conditions, while investment, freedom, appropriate formal and informal institutions, are necessary for economic development. These sufficient conditions for development are themselves enshrined in a country’s ‘collective imagination,’ which constitutes the somewhat neglected demand-preference dimension of development.The paper’s main contribution is its argument that education, culture and religion, which are the things that create, mediate and transmit a society’s shared values across people and over time, fundamentally affect economic performance; and they do so through their effects on people’s capacity to imagine a better, more developed, and more life enhancing socio-economic space.

Experimental, cultural, and neural evidence of deliberate prosociality

A recent PNAS paper proposed that prosocial choice might be due to mistakes that disappear with learning. The authors' method for comparing preferences and mistakes might prove useful in other species. However, human evidence from various treatments, cultures, and the brain support the idea that humans are prosocial rather than mistaken.

Monkeys benefit from reciprocity without the cognitive burden

The debate about the origins of human prosociality has focused on the presence or absence of similar tendencies in other species, and, recently, attention has turned to the underlying mechanisms. We investigated whether direct reciprocity could promote prosocial behavior in brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Twelve capuchins tested in pairs could choose between two tokens, with one being "prosocial" in that it rewarded both individuals (i.e., 1/1), and the other being "selfish" in that it rewarded the chooser only (i.e., 1/0). Each monkey's choices with a familiar partner from their own group was compared with choices when paired with a partner from a different group. Capuchins were spontaneously prosocial, selecting the prosocial option at the same rate regardless of whether they were paired with an in-group or out-group partner. This indicates that interaction outside of the experimental setting played no role. When the paradigm was changed, such that both partners alternated making choices, prosocial preference significantly increased, leading to mutualistic payoffs. As no contingency could be detected between an individual's choice and their partner's previous choice, and choices occurred in rapid succession, reciprocity seemed of a relatively vague nature akin to mutualism. Having the partner receive a better reward than the chooser (i.e., 1/2) during the alternating condition increased the payoffs of mutual prosociality, and prosocial choice increased accordingly. The outcome of several controls made it hard to explain these results on the basis of reward distribution or learned preferences, and rather suggested that joint action promotes prosociality, resulting in so-called attitudinal reciprocity.

Ravens (Corvus corax) are indifferent to the gains of conspecific recipients or human partners in experimental tasks

Although cooperative behaviours are common in animals, the cognitive processes underpinning such behaviours are very likely to differ between species. In humans, other-regarding preferences have been proposed to sustain long-term cooperation between individuals. The extent to which such psychological capacities exist in other animals is still under investigation. Five hand-reared ravens were first tested in an experiment where they could provide food to a conspecific at no cost to themselves. We offered them two behavioural options that provided identical amounts of food to the actor and where one of the two options additionally delivered a reward to a recipient. Subsequently, we made the ravens play a no-cost cooperation game with an experimenter. The experimenter had the same options as the animals and matched the ravens' choices, making the prosocial choice the more profitable option. In both conditions, ravens were indifferent to the effects of their choices and hence failed to help conspecifics and to cooperate with the experimenter. While our negative results should be interpreted with care, overall, our findings suggest that the ravens had no understanding of the consequences of their actions for a potential recipient. This study adds to several others that have used a similar set-up and have reported negative results on other-regarding preferences in animals.

The development of social value orientation across different contexts

This study aimed to explore Chinese children's social value orientation across different ages and contexts. Revised decomposed games were used to measure the social value orientation of 9-, 11-, and 14-year-old children and college students as an adult group. About half of them were assigned to the hypothetical context of "equal payment group," providing equal compensation for participation in the study, and the others to the "real payment group," who got payment according to their own choices in the games. Results showed that 9- and 11-year-old children's choices differed between the two contexts: They made more prosocial choices in the hypothetical context, and more competitive choices in the "real payment" context. The 14-year-olds' and adults' choices were not significantly different in the two contexts. These results may imply that by 14 years of age, children have stable social value orientation, and their behavior reflects this value.

Oxytocin boosts social awareness

Sensitivity to the experiences of others contributes to many social behaviours including empathy and cooperation. Here, the authors show that oxytocin influences social behaviour in rhesus macaques in a context-dependent manner. When the monkeys had to choose whether to deliver a reward to another monkey or to no one, inhaled oxytocin increased the number of prosocial choices. By contrast, when monkeys had to choose between rewarding themselves or others, oxytocin enhanced selfish behaviour. Thus, as in humans, oxytocin enhances social information processing in situations in which sensitivity to another's experience is important.

Inhaled oxytocin amplifies both vicarious reinforcement and self reinforcement in rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta )

People attend not only to their own experiences, but also to the experiences of those around them. Such social awareness profoundly influences human behavior by enabling observational learning, as well as by motivating cooperation, charity, empathy, and spite. Oxytocin (OT), a neurosecretory hormone synthesized by hypothalamic neurons in the mammalian brain, can enhance affiliation or boost exclusion in different species in distinct contexts, belying any simple mechanistic neural model. Here we show that inhaled OT penetrates the CNS and subsequently enhances the sensitivity of rhesus macaques to rewards occurring to others as well as themselves. Roughly 2 h after inhaling OT, monkeys increased the frequency of prosocial choices associated with reward to another monkey when the alternative was to reward no one. OT also increased attention to the recipient monkey as well as the time it took to render such a decision. In contrast, within the first 2 h following inhalation, OT increased selfish choices associated with delivery of reward to self over a reward to the other monkey, without affecting attention or decision latency. Despite the differences in species typical social behavior, exogenous, inhaled OT causally promotes social donation behavior in rhesus monkeys, as it does in more egalitarian and monogamous ones, like prairie voles and humans, when there is no perceived cost to self. These findings potentially implicate shared neural mechanisms.

Reducing developmental risk for emotional/behavioral problems: A randomized controlled trial examining the Tools for Getting Along curriculum

Researchers have demonstrated that cognitive–behavioral intervention strategies – such as social problem solving – provided in school settings can help ameliorate the developmental risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties. In this study, we report the results of a randomized controlled trial of Tools for Getting Along (TFGA), a social problem-solving universally delivered curriculum designed to reduce the developmental risk for serious emotional or behavioral problems among upper elementary grade students. We analyzed pre-intervention and post-intervention teacher-report and student self-report data from 14 schools, 87 classrooms, and a total of 1296 students using multilevel modeling. Results (effect sizes calculated using Hedges' g) indicated that students who were taught TFGA had a more positive approach to problem solving (g=.11) and a more rational problem-solving style (g=.16). Treated students with relatively poor baseline scores benefited from TFGA on (a) problem-solving knowledge (g=1.54); (b) teacher-rated executive functioning (g=.35 for Behavior Regulation and .32 for Metacognition), and proactive aggression (g=.20); and (c) self-reported trait anger (g=.17) and anger expression (g=.21). Thus, TFGA may reduce risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties by improving students' cognitive and emotional self-regulation and increasing their pro-social choices.

Chimpanzees make mean-spirited, not prosocial, choices

Horner et al. (1) argued that chimpanzees “overwhelmingly” favor “prosocial choices” in preference to “selfish” ones. However, their findings are better interpreted as evidence that chimpanzees make “mean-spirited” decisions.

Reply to Skoyles: Misplaced assumptions of perfect human prosociality

In his letter (1), the author argues against prosocial tendencies in chimpanzees because the chimpanzees in our study (2) failed to select the prosocial option all of the time. Instead, he suggests that they show evidence for “mean-spirited” motivations, because any deviation from a perfectly prosocial score must indicate purposeful withholding of benefits for the partner. However, behavioral studies are not conducted in a vacuum, informed by hypothetical analogies. Our study involved real participants in a social environment in which they express myriad conflicting motivations, inhibitions, distractions, emotions, and preexisting social “baggage” brought with them into an experimental setting. Before discussing the potential influence of these factors, let us review some human prosocial choice tests (PCTs) because they yield results that do not substantially differ from our chimpanzee study.

Spontaneous prosocial choice by chimpanzees

The study of human and primate altruism faces an evolutionary anomaly: There is ample evidence for altruistic preferences in our own species and growing evidence in monkeys, but one of our closest relatives, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), is viewed as a reluctant altruist, acting only in response to pressure and solicitation. Although chimpanzee prosocial behavior has been reported both in observational captive studies and in the wild, thus far Prosocial Choice Tests have failed to produce evidence. However, methodologies of previous Prosocial Choice Tests may have handicapped the apes unintentionally. Here we present findings of a paradigm in which chimpanzees chose between two differently colored tokens: one "selfish" token resulting in a reward for the actor only (1/0), and the other "prosocial" token rewarding both the actor and a partner (1/1). Seven female chimpanzees, each tested with three different partners, showed a significant bias for the prosocial option. Prosocial choices occurred both in response to solicitation by the partner and spontaneously without solicitation. However, directed requests and pressure by the partner reduced the actor's prosocial tendency. These results draw into question previous conclusions indicating that chimpanzees have a limited sensitivity to the needs of others and behave prosocially only in response to significant prompting.

Benefiting friends or dominants: prosocial choices mainly depend on rank position in long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis)

Long-term observational studies in a number of animal species suggest that exchange patterns of social acts depend on long-term emotional bonds. Therefore, it is expected that the frequency of prosocial behavior will depend on the strength of such a bond. In this study we tested whether variation in relationship quality among unrelated individuals, i.e., "friends" and "nonfriends," is predictive of the prosocial behavior of long-tailed macaques in two experiments. First, we related relationship quality to prosociality in a dyadic prosociality test, and second, we gave subjects the choice to give to either a friend or a nonfriend in a triadic choice test. We show that prosocial behavior of long-tailed macaques in the dyadic test is not related to relationship quality. When given the choice to give to either a friend or a nonfriend in the triadic test, there is a minor indication that long-tailed macaques show a preference to give to their friends, yet this indication is neither significant nor consistent. In contrast, subordinate long-tailed macaques make a more "competitive" choice and avoid giving to the individual closest in rank. Therefore, in the short-term situation of experimental tests, prosocial behavior of long-tailed macaques seems unaffected by the relationship quality of the dyad/triad tested, and the relative dominance position of these dyads/triads seems to have a much stronger effect on their prosocial behavior.

The Effects of Goal Involvement on Moral Behavior in an Experimentally Manipulated Competitive Setting

In this experiment we examined the effects of task and ego involvement on three measures of moral behavior--prosocial choice, observed prosocial behavior, and observed antisocial behavior--in a competitive setting. We also investigated sex differences in moral behavior. Male (n = 48) and female (n = 48) college students were randomly assigned to a task-involving, an ego-involving, or a control condition. Participants played two 10-min games of table soccer and completed measures of prosocial choice, goal involvement, goal orientation, and demographics. The two games were recorded, and frequencies of prosocial and antisocial behavior were coded. Players assigned to the task-involving condition were higher in prosocial choice than those in the ego-involving or control conditions. Individuals in the ego-involving condition displayed more antisocial behaviors than those in the task-involving or control conditions. Finally, females displayed more prosocial behaviors than males.

An Evaluation of the Social Desirability of Prosocial Self—Other Allocation Choices

Abstract New Zealand university students participated in two studies that assessed the effect of social desirability on prosocial choice options in two-person decomposed games used to measure social values. Study 1 indicated that the prosocial option was very socially desirable. Study 2 indicated that the individuals who chose the prosocial option did not differ in their expression of general social desirability motives from the individuals who chose other nonprosocial options. These data suggest that, although the structure of the task offered the participants a salient, socially desirable way to respond, a choice of the prosocial option was probably more a reflection of the participants' true social value orientations than of the effect of social desirability.

Relationships between Children's Prosocial Behaviors and Choices in Story Dilemmas

A measure of prosocial choice in story dilemmas was created by adding 23 stories to an original 4 studied by Eisenberg-Berg and Hand (1979). Each story called upon the child to make either a prosocial or a hedonistic choice in the hypothetical situation. Adding more items improved the internal consistency of the measure, as predicted by the Spearman-Brown formula. In our Head Start sample, the children's prosocial responses significantly predicted more prosocial ratings of child behavior by parents. The same relationship held, although less consistently, with behavior ratings carried out by observers in the Head Start classroom. Parents' ratings of themselves on mental health and parenting variables were not related to the measure of prosocial choice in story dilemmas. These findings as a whole provide some exception to past findings of lack of correspondence between responses to hypothetical situations and real-life behavior.

Atlas of cardiovascular disease mortality for cities, towns and villages in Japan, 1969–1974

Researchers have struggled to obtain a clear account of the evolution of prosocial behaviour despite a great deal of recent effort. The aim of this review is to take a brief step back from addressing the question of evolutionary origins of prosocial behaviour in order to identify contextual factors that are contributing to variation in the expression of prosocial behaviour and hindering progress towards identifying phylogenetic patterns. Most available data come from the Primate Order, and the choice of contextual factors to consider was informed by theory and practice, including the nature of the relationship between the potential donor and recipient, the communicative behaviour of the recipients, and features of the prosocial task including whether rewards are visible and whether the prosocial choice creates an inequity between actors. Conclusions are drawn about the facilitating or inhibiting impact of each of these factors on the expression of prosocial behaviour, and areas for future research are highlighted. Acknowledging the impact of these contextual features on the expression of prosocial behaviours should stimulate new research into the proximate mechanisms that drive these effects, yield experimental designs that better control for potential influences on prosocial expression, and ultimately allow progress towards reconstructing the evolutionary origins of prosocial behaviour.