Prosocial Content Research Articles

Social Media and Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior: Evidence of the Interaction Between Short Videos and Social Value Orientation.

Social media significantly influences adolescents' prosocial behavior. With smartphones becoming ubiquitous, short videos have emerged as the predominant social media format for adolescents. However, the effects of adolescents' engagement with short videos on their prosocial behavior remain uncertain. This study aims to address the problem of how short videos (content and consequences) affect prosocial behavior in adolescents, and simultaneously explores the differences of this effect among individuals with different social value orientations. The current study conducted two research laboratory experiments using the between-subject study design of two factors. Study 1 (N=148) reveals that viewing prosocial short videos significantly predicts adolescents' prosocial behavior more so than neutral short videos. The interaction between short video content and social value orientation on prosocial behavior illustrates that the encouraging impact of prosocial content is primarily evident in prosocial individuals, rather than in pro-self individuals. In Study 2 (N=152), we introduce new dimensions by assessing adolescents' response to varying consequences of the same prosocial behavior (ie, reward, punishment) within the short video context. Findings indicate that reward consequences significantly bolster adolescents' prosocial behavior, whereas punitive measures tend to adversely affect it. Furthermore, the interaction between the consequences of prosocial short videos and social value orientation suggests that prosocial individuals exhibit no significant behavioral difference between rewards and punishments; instead, the reward/punishment consequences notably influence the prosocial behavior of pro-self individuals. Short videos (content and consequences) and social value orientations interactively influence adolescents' prosocial behaviors. This study underscores the need to recognize individual differences in adolescents' use of short videos and its impact on their prosocial behavior, particularly highlighting the crucial role of their social value orientations. Practically, the research offers valuable insights for parents and professionals seeking to foster adolescents' prosocial behavior.

Can User Characteristics Predict Norm Adherence on Social Media? Exploring User-Centric Misinformation Interventions

The work-in-progress explores user-centric misinformation interventions on social media as such tools are limited. Knowledge of relationships between online user characteristics and their expressed adherence to a desired norm (i.e., rejecting misinformation or supporting factual information) is understudied with limited integrated multi-modal machine-learning models to infer demographic and sociopsychological characteristics. Thus, we piloted 9,331 Twitter users tweeting COVID-19 vaccines between May 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021. Employing a CNN-LSTM framework, our model analyzes user biographies, profile images, and pre-COVID historical tweets to infer user traits over 90% accuracy for individual characteristics and an overall accuracy of 85.61%, which outperforms existing tools and other designs. Further, using multi-logistic regression, we identified significant predictors of users' adherence to desired norms, such as gender and pre-pandemic prosocial content engagement, while finding no significant age correlation. Our findings illuminate pathways for targeted misinformation mitigation strategies during critical public health crises.

친사회적 그림책 내용 기반 종이접기놀이가 유아의 자기조절능력과 친사회적 행동에 미치는 영향

Objectives The purpose of this study is to develop origami play based on prosocial picture books to develop children's self-regulations and pro-social behavior and to analyze its effects.
 Methods For this purpose, we applied origami play based on the contents of prosocial picture books to 40 4-year-old children (20 experimental group, 20 comparison group) attending kindergarten B in W city, K province, and conducted an experiment to verify its effectiveness. Pre- and post-tests were conducted on the group and comparison group. Data analysis was performed using a t-test using the SPSS 22.0 statistical program.
 Results There were significant differences in self-regulation and its sub-factors, and pro-social behavior and sub-factors between the experimental group that applied origami play based on the content of pro-social picture books and the comparison group that performed origami play based on picture book content related to daily life topics.
 Conclusions Origami play based on prosocial picture book content had a positive effect on the development of children's self-regulation and prosocial behavior. It was confirmed that reading picture books with prosocial content and origami are friendly and accessible educational activities that help young children learn self-regulation and develop pro-social behavior to form harmonious social relationships at home or in educational institutions.

The Relationship Between Cognitive Resource Consumption During Gameplay and Postgame Aggressive Behaviors: Between-Subjects Experiment.

The question of how video games can shape aggressive behaviors has been a focus for many researchers. Previous research has focused on how violent video game content leads to postgame aggressive behaviors. However, video games not only convey violence or prosocial content to players but also require cognitive effort from individuals. Since human cognitive resources are limited, consuming more cognitive resources in a game leads to less cognitive resources to suppress aggressive impulses. Therefore, the depletion of cognitive resources from playing video games may also lead to changes in postgame aggressive behaviors. This study aimed to examine the relationship between cognitive resources consumed in video games and postgame aggressive behaviors. A total of 60 participants (age: mean 20.22; range 18-24 y) were randomly assigned to either the high-load group or the low-load group. Participants from both groups played a video game centered around college life. In the low-load group, participants followed the gameplay instructions to complete it. In the high-load group, participants were given an extra digital memory task to complete while playing the game. Participants in both groups played the video game for about 25 minutes. A maze selection task was then conducted to measure the participants' helping and hurting behaviors. The independent samples 2-tailed t tests showed that the high-load group had significantly higher hurting scores (mean 3.13, SD 2.47) than the low-load group (mean 1.90, SD 2.12; t58=-2.07, P=.04; Cohen d=-0.535), whereas helping behaviors were not significantly affected (t58=1.52, P=.13; Cohen d=0.393). As more cognitive resources are consumed in a video game, more hurting behaviors are exhibited after the game. This finding proposes an alternative route by which video games impact aggressive behaviors, adding to previous theories and raising concerns about the popularity of cognitive training games.

Impact of Hate Speech on Building the Value of Pro-Social Activities. Perspective of Author and Social Media User

Theoretical background: The value of a given project (including those of a pro-social nature) is determined by a number of factors, not only those of a financial nature. Within the corporate social responsibility concept, ethics was indicated as one of the factors influencing the value of the project. Currently, one of the problems in the field of ethics is the widespread online hate speech, affecting also the effectiveness of the processes of building the value of pro-social activities that fit into the concept of social marketing. Hate speech has come to form a significant portion of online communication. Only in the first quarter of 2022, Facebook removed 15.1 million pieces of content with hate speech, constituting only a minor part of the problem. Purpose of the article: The authors have noted a research gap in the area of analysing the impact of hate speech on building the value of pro-social activities. The intention of the authors was to evaluate whether the analysis of the phenomenon in question will allow to verify whether there is a relationship between online hate speech and building the value of online pro-social activities. The following research question was formulated: Can online hate speech have an impact on building the value of pro-social activities? Research methods: The authors decided that the quality dimension of the conducted studies should have the form of an individual in-depth interview (the author’s perspective) and a focus group interview supplemented with projection techniques – connotation test, evaluation of emotions and level of controversy (the perspective of the user of social media). Main findings: Hate actions significantly impede the functioning of profile with pro social content which is meant to function as the so-called safe space, which may have an impact on building the value of the influencer’s pro-social activities. During the interview with the recipients of controversial social campaigns, the occurrence of contradictory emotions was confirmed. The paper may offer a basis for further deepened scientific studies in the area of building the value of pro-social activities and a guideline for authors of social activities. Further research in the discussed direction may indicate new modes of using the social media with the participation of influencers who are active in the pro-social area and who have a community of engaged followers.

Hearing Prosocial Stories Increases Hadza Hunter-Gatherers' Generosity in an Economic Game.

Folk stories featuring prosocial content are ubiquitous across cultures. One explanation for the ubiquity of such stories is that stories teach people about the local socioecology, including norms of prosociality, and stories featuring prosocial content may increase generosity in listeners. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of 185 Hadza hunter-gatherers. We read participants a story in which the main character either swims with another person (control story) or rescues him from drowning (prosocial story). After hearing the story, participants played a dictator game with dried meat sticks and then were given a recall test of facts presented in the story. There was moderate evidence for a small effect of the prosocial story: participants who heard the prosocial story gave an estimated 0.22 [90% HDI: -0.12-0.57] more meat sticks than those who heard the control story. However, the association between generosity and sex, marital status, and region of residence was stronger; men gave more than women, unmarried participants gave more than married participants, and participants living in a region with more exposure to markets gave more than participants living further from markets. There was no evidence that the prosocial story was more easily recalled than the control story. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that prosocial stories can increase prosociality in listeners, though the effect of hearing a single story is small.

Will exposure to different consequences of prosocial behavior always lead to subsequent prosocial behavior among adolescents: An experimental study of short videos.

The relationship between exposure to prosocial media content and prosocial behavior has been extensively explored. However, previous studies mainly explore the effect of prosocial media content exposure by comparing an individual’s exposure to the different types of content (i.e., prosocial content or neutral content), and generally focus on traditional media and video games, with less attention given to the increasingly popular new media platforms. In this study, we explored new dimensions by considering individuals’ exposure to different consequences of the same prosocial behavior (i.e., reward, punishment, or no consequences) in the context of short videos. Drawing upon Social Cognitive Theory and the General Learning Model, this experimental study identified the effect of such exposure on subsequent prosocial behavior among adolescents. We found that compared to the no consequences group, exposure to the reward consequence did not significantly predict moral elevation and subsequent prosocial behavior. Meanwhile, exposure to the punishment consequence had a significantly negative effect on subsequent prosocial behavior via moral elevation. Furthermore, the results revealed that empathy moderated the relationship between moral elevation and prosocial behavior, and moral elevation only positively predicted prosocial behavior among those with low empathy. Theoretically, this study deepens our understanding of the impact of exposure to different consequences of prosocial behavior on adolescents’ subsequent prosocial behavior, and highlights the importance of moral elevation and empathy to understand the underlying mechanism. The study also provides some practical implications for parents and practitioners to nurture prosocial behavior among adolescents.

Reading prosocial content in books and adolescents' prosocial behavior: A moderated mediation model with evidence from China.

Drawing upon the General Learning Model, the present study developed a moderated mediation model to provide an in-depth understanding of whether and how adolescents’ reading prosocial content in books predicts their prosocial behavior. The target population in this study is Chinese adolescents, and we adopted a paper-based survey to collect data (N = 602). The age range of the sample was from 12 to 19 (M = 15.198, SD = 1.596). Among all participants, 49.3% were female, and 50.7% were male. PROCESS SPSS Macro was used to analyze the proposed moderated mediation model. The results showed that prosocial content reading was positively associated with adolescents’ prosocial behavior. The positive association included a direct relationship and an indirect relationship through the mediation of moral identity. Furthermore, this study revealed the moderation effect of age on the relationships among prosocial content reading, moral identity, and prosocial behavior. Specifically, as age increases, the effects of prosocial content reading on moral identity and prosocial behavior attenuate, and the mediation effect of moral identity also decreases. The study adds to the body of knowledge on the prosocial media effect by extending it to book reading.

Effects of reward and punishment in prosocial video games on attentional bias and prosocial behaviors

Based on the General Learning Model, previous studies have examined how video game content affects players' post-game attentional bias toward prosocial information and prosocial behaviors. However, these studies ignored the reward and punishment players received for their behaviors in video games. In this study, we tested the effects of reward and punishment on players' post-game attentional bias toward prosocial information measured by the spatial cueing task and their prosocial behaviors measured by the maze selection task. In Experiment 1, reward and punishment were controlled to reconfirm the effect of prosocial content in the video game. In Experiment 2, participants were assigned to one of three conditions: being rewarded for prosocial behaviors, being punished for not performing prosocial behaviors, or not receiving feedback in the video game. The results showed that prosocial content in the video game predicted increased post-game attentional bias toward prosocial information and prosocial behaviors, and the attentional bias was amplified through punishments. In addition, the results from a reinforcement learning computational model suggested that participants learned prosocial behaviors faster in the punishment condition than in the reward condition. The results contribute to fostering players’ prosocial behaviors through video games.

Prosocial Video Game Content, Empathy and Cognitive Ability in a Large Sample of Youth.

Whether playing video games with prosocial content has an influence on empathy among players remains contentious in the research literature. Some evidence suggests playing cooperatively with other gamers enhances empathy, but data have not conclusively linked prosocial content with empathy. Further, mechanisms of this potential relationship are unclear, and little work has been conducted on how cognitive skills, such as fluid reasoning, may mediate this relationship. The current study examines these relationships with a large sample of 3034 youth (27.2% female, Mage = 11.2; range 8-17 at time 1) in Singapore. Data were considered longitudinally across two years in three waves. Ultimately, no evidence emerged that prosocial content in video games had any impact on empathy related outcomes, nor was fluid reasoning a mediator variable for any relationship. However, variables such as social competence and depression and anxiety symptoms were highly related to empathy measures. This evidence adds to the growing debate in the field that video games may not dramatically alter, whether positively or negatively, the development of emotional and behavioral outcomes for youth.

Which reviewers are honest and caring? The effect of constructive and prosocial information on the perceived credibility of online reviews

Consumers often infer review credibility based on the content of online reviews. This study explores the influences of three positive review types on consumers’ perceptions of posters’ honesty and caring and subsequently review credibility. An experiment was conducted and the participants included 931 online travel community users. The results found that compared with positive reviews that contain only complimentary information, reviews that also contain constructive or prosocial information improve subjects’ perception of posters’ honesty and caring, respectively, and that this influence is particularly significant for participants with low propensity to trust. Second, compared with hotels with high reputation, consumers have significantly reduced perceptions of reviewers’ honesty if the reviewers provide only complimentary information in positive reviews for hotels with low brand reputation rather than both complimentary and constructive information. Finally, the higher the subjects’ perception of the reviewers’ honesty and caring is, the higher the consumers’ perception of review credibility. • Constructive information increases perceptions of reviewers’ honesty. • Prosocial content in positive reviews increases perceptions of reviewers’ caring. • Low trustors respond negatively to the absence of constructive and prosocial content. • Absence of constructive information decreases reviewers’ honesty while commenting for low brand reputation. • Reviewers’ honesty and caring positively affect online review credibility.

The Effects of Prosocial Cartoon Examples on Children's Donating Behavior.

PurposeIn this study, we examined whether prosocial cartoons could inspire children to donate toys to others immediately upon exposure.Participants and MethodsCartoons were rated as prosocial or control via 80 adults. One hundred and fifty-six children participated in the study (Mage = 5.29, SD = 0.79). Children in the experimental group were exposed to cartoons in which the main character had a large number of donating behaviors, while children in the control group watched cartoons without donating behaviors (randomized controlled study). They watched these cartoons for 4 consecutive days. Afterwards, children’s donating behaviors toward their peers were assessed in the Toy Donation Task (TDT). An analytic method of 2 (cartoon: prosocial vs control) × 2 (gender: male vs female) × 3 (age: 4 vs 5 vs 6) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to make result analyses.ResultsThe empirical results indicated that watching cartoons specifically depicting charitable donations (and not cartoons with other prosocial content) increased donations for charitable causes, whilst watching the control cartoons (cartoons without prosocial content) which did not depict characters acting in an antisocial way did not increase donating behavior. Specifically, 5-year-old female children reported more donating behavior than 6-year-old female children and 4-year-old female children, whilst no significant age effects were found among male children. Here, 4–6-year-old female children and 4–5-year-old male children in the prosocial cartoon condition reported more donating behavior than those in the control cartoon condition.ConclusionThese findings indicated an accumulating positive effect of watching cartoons with donating content on children’s donating behavior, especially for 4–6-year-old female children and 4–5-year-old male children.

A novel content analysis framework for investigating young children’s television diets: results of a UK-based television content analysis

ABSTRACT Screen time is increasingly pervasive in children’s lives and, despite shifts in screen usage, television remains pre-eminent, especially for young children. As such, viewing content merits investigation. The current study applied a novel coding scheme to assess the relative prominence of prosocial and antisocial content in 90 programmes watched by a sample of 180 British two-year-old children. As well as providing a framework for future use in television research, our study highlights the wide variance of prosociality in children’s programming. Future directions for coding and research are discussed. IMPACT SUMMARY a. Prior State of Knowledge: Children’s television content has been under scrutiny for decades. Studies involving researcher-chosen content have shown links between prosocial content and young children’s prosocial behaviour, as well as between antisocial content and aggressive behaviour. b. Novel contributions: The current methodological brief outlines a novel coding scheme for investigating prosocial and antisocial content that young children view in their everyday lives, taking into account prosocial and antisocial behaviour, as well as format features of the television programmes. c. Practical implications: The current work can be utilized and adapted for research in diverse disciplines by investigators interested in how prosocial and antisocial content are associated with child behavioural outcomes.

Prosocial television and prosocial toddlers: A multi-method, longitudinal investigation

How screen use might affect early childhood outcomes is an important question for parents, but existing research is patchy. In particular, screen time is often examined in relation to sleep and aggression, but much less is known about its links with prosocial behaviour. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured observations and interviews / questionnaires with both mothers and fathers in a sample of 195 (predominantly affluent and educated) British families tracked across three time-points, when the first-born child was 14-, 24-, and 36-months old. We also applied an objective coding scheme to assess the relative frequency of prosocial behaviour in the programmes and films children were watching at age 24-months. While our results showed no overall associations between prosocial behaviour and either screen time or screen content, there were interaction effects. Specifically, children whose favourite programmes were slow-paced and rich in prosocial content were particularly likely to show developmental gains in sharing. We discuss these findings in terms of their implications for parents, researchers, and policy makers.

ETHICAL DILEMMAS OF PRO SOCIAL TELEVISION

The use of television to promote social development has generated ethical dilemmas that will affect several billion television viewers during 1990s. Development is defined as a widely participatory process of directed social change in a society, intended to bring about both social and material advancement (Rogers, 1976). Television has a greater potential impact on social development now than ever before in human history. Several countries are systematically producing television programs with prosocial messages. Prosocial television content refers to televised performances that depict cognitive, affective, or behavioral activities considered to be socially desirable by most members of a television audience (Rushton, 1982). Ethical concerns regarding the responsible use of television are prompting television producers and officials to reduce the antisocial effects of television by increasing the prosocial content of television programs.

The effect of video games on positive and negative cognitions

Os efeitos dos videogames atraíram a atenção de muitos pesquisadores em psicologia, especialmente quando se sugere comportamentos agressivos relacionados a jogos violentos. Os jogos com conteúdo pró-sociais despertaram menos atenção, mas as pesquisas na área revelam que os jogos pró-sociais aumentam as cognições positivas e que os jogos violentos aumentam a incidência de cognições agressivas. O objetivo do atual estudo foi verificar o efeito de jogos violentos e pró-sociais sobre as cognições dos jogadores dentro de dois dias de experimentos. Para este fim, 30 participantes estudantes de graduação jogaram durante 20 minutos um tipo de jogo em cada dia de experimento e responderam a uma tarefa de associação livre de palavras para categorizar suas cognições em positivas ou negativas. Os principais achados mostraram que os jogos violentos aumentaram a ocorrência de cognições negativas, mas os jogos pró-sociais não aumentaram as cognições pró-sociais. Por fim, essas descobertas são discutidas com base em pesquisas anteriores sobre o efeito de jogos de videogames violentos e pró-sociais.

Parental media monitoring, prosocial violent media exposure, and adolescents' prosocial and aggressive behaviors.

Prosocial violent media (e.g., media that combines both violent and prosocial content) is especially popular in entertainment media today. However, it remains unclear how parental media monitoring is associated with exposure to prosocial violent content and adolescent behavior. Accordingly, 1,193 adolescents were asked about parental media monitoring, media content exposure, and behavior. Main findings suggest that autonomy supportive restrictive monitoring was associated with lower levels of exposure to prosocial violent content, but only among older adolescents. Additionally, autonomy supportive restrictive monitoring was the only form of parental media monitoring associated with lower levels of violent content and higher levels of prosocial content, and autonomy supportive active monitoring was the only parental monitoring strategy that promoted prosocial behavior via exposure to prosocial media content. Discussion focuses on the importance of autonomy supportive parental monitoring, as well as the implications of parents encouraging their children to watch media with limited violent content-even if it is prosocial violent content.

Stereotypes vs. Strategies for Digital Media Artists: The Case for Culturally Relevant Media Production

Digital media arts programs continue to be added to school curricula throughout the United States. Education through digital media arts also occurs outside school settings. We need to ensure that educational digital media arts programs actively and consciously teach students to critique societal stereotypes and biases they encounter in their media training as well as in their own artwork. This article argues for the inclusion of pedagogical approaches that encourage critical thinking in digital media arts production spaces. In response to this need, culturally relevant media production is proposed as a set of criteria that media producers and instructors can use to create effective prosocial content for educational and/or entertainment purposes. The 3 criteria for culturally relevant media production are instructional methods and theories, culturally conscious content, and critical thinking skills support. These criteria and examples of existing forms of media that meet these criteria are explored in this article.

Social responsibility and civic engagement as factors in the formation of safe prosocial behaviour

The article deals with the phenomena of social responsibility and civic activity, acting as factors of safe prosocial behaviour. Various approaches of the studied phenomena are presented. The results of empirical research of social responsibility, civic activity and prosocial identity among students are presented. Correlation analysis using Pearson correlation revealed a strong direct correlation between the content of prosocial identity and social responsibility, prosocial content of identity and citizenship, respondents' citizenship and social responsibility, as well as inverse correlation between social isolation of individual and social responsibility. Students are dominated by moderate levels of social responsibility and civic engagement, as well as low levels of social exclusion.

“If you wanna make the world a better place”: Factors influencing the effect of songs with prosocial lyrics

Although there has been an increase in research considering the positive effects of music with prosocial lyrics on people’s behavior, little is known about the process by which this happens or about the factors that influence the effect of listening to songs with prosocial content. This study focused on the interaction between attention level and familiarity, two factors that, to some degree, determine the effect of this kind of music. Based on the general learning model, the reciprocal feedback model of music perception, and the elaboration likelihood model, an online experiment ( n = 220) was conducted to test how people listening attentively to familiar or unfamiliar music with prosocial lyrics are affected, in comparison with those listening inattentively. The results yielded a significant interaction effect between attention and familiarity on prosocial behavior, indicating that only familiar songs with prosocial lyrics affect inattentive listeners, whereas attentive listeners are affected similarly by familiar and unfamiliar songs. Effects on emotions and an indirect effect of familiarity on prosocial behavior via activated pre-knowledge and positive emotions were also found. The results are discussed regarding their role in understanding the music reception process and their meaning for listeners’ prosocial behavior.