Prosocial Decisions Research Articles

Pro-social preferences and risk aversion with different payment methods: Evidence from the laboratory

With the advance of smart devices and financial technologies in place, economic transactions involving mobile payments are becoming increasingly preferred. The COVID-19 pandemic has further promoted the adoption of mobile payment since it is faster and more hygienic than cash payment. However, empirical evidence is scarce on whether people would react differently when the transaction is made through mobile or cash payment. In this paper, we examine whether the payment method has an impact on prosocial decisions and risk attitudes using standard laboratory games such as the dictator game, the ultimatum game as well as the conventional Holt and Laury (2002) risk assessment. After controlling a rich set of demographic characteristics, including age and gender, we find subjects are more generous when they use mobile payment compared to cash, but the payment effect on risk attitude is not evident.

Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Prosocial Decision Making in Callous-Unemotional Traits.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by a lack of prosocial emotions, which has been demonstrated with prosocial behavior paradigms. While shaping our understanding of prosocial behavior in youth with CU traits, most of this work relies on outcomes that don't reliably capture cognitive processes during prosocial behavior. Examining prosocial cognitive processes can cue researchers into cognitive mechanisms underlying core impairments of CU traits. Drift diffusion modeling is a valuable tool for elucidating more precise outcomes of latent cognitive processes during forced choice tasks such as drift rate (information accumulation toward a decision boundary) and threshold separation (amount of information considered) as well as metrics outside of the decision-making processing including bias (starting point in decision process) and non-decision time (cognitive processes outside of choice). In a sample of 87 adolescents (12-14, 49% female) we applied diffusion modeling to a prosocial behavior task in which participants either accepted or rejected trials where a real monetary value was given to them and taken away from a charity (self-serving trial) or money was given to a charity and taken from them (donation trial). Results revealed that CU traits associated with information accumulation toward accepting self-serving trials. Exploratory sex differences suggested males trended toward rejecting donation trials and females considered more information during self-serving trials. CU trait associations were independent of conduct problems. Results suggest a unique cognitive profile that are differentiated by sex at higher CU traits when making prosocial decisions involving knowledge accumulation toward self-serving decisions.

The role of self-construal in decision making

This paper aims to explore the connection between self-construal and making choices. The existing research mainly used the research method of questionnaire survey, questionnaire data analysis form self-construction scale, self-construal scale for researchers to understand the relationship between individual perception and others. The concept and theory of self-construal are widely applied in various research fields, such as decision-making and pro-society. Self-decision theory was first proposed from the study of individual motivation. Through empirical analyses, self-control and moral decision-making factors, self-control and pro-social decision, personal needs and environmental needs were discussed. People’s self-construal of different categories for self-decision is one of the important factors. By applying the concept and theory of self-construal to decision, self-construal is an important factor. Self-decision theory is a continuous interpretation theory. Self-decision of individual self-realization is a dynamic process, involving internal motivation, internalized external motivation and emotional integration of three parts. The different classifications will have different psychological impulses and psychological demands, thus affect the motivation of individual tendency, ultimately affecting people’s decision making.

I really am more important than you: The relationship between the Dark Triad, cognitive ability, and social value orientations in a sample of Japanese adults

This study examined the relationship between the Dark Triad of personality, cognitive ability, and social value orientations. After gender and age were controlled for, dark personality traits and cognitive ability were examined for their predictive utility of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive social value orientations. A sample of 4730 Japanese adults (60.25% men, 39.75% women) aged between 18 and 71 (M = 49.62, SD = 11.06) completed a large-scale cross-sectional online survey. Results showed that dark personality traits negatively predict prosocial value orientation, whereas higher cognitive ability was linked with an increase in prosocial behavior. Further, higher scores in all dark personality traits predicted an individualistic social value orientation, while Machiavellianism and low cognitive ability predicted competitive behaviors. Results suggest that when there is a conflict between individual and collective interests, individuals high in dark personality traits have a preference for proself behavior and tend to avoid prosocial decisions, prioritizing their benefit over others'.

Age Differences in Prosocial Behavior Depend on Effort Costs.

This study examined age differences in willingness to engage in effortful and effortless prosocial behavior for a fully anonymous recipient. Participants were recruited through the Prolific online recruitment platform. In Experiment 1, older (N = 46) and younger (N = 65) adults completed the "pay-it-forward" effortful decision-making task with fixed effort demands and a version of the Dictator Game, an effortless prosocial decision-making task. In Experiment 2, older (N = 38) and younger (N = 42) adults completed the Dictator Game and a modified pay-it-forward decision-making task in which effort demands were calibrated to one's ability. In both Experiments 1 and 2, older adults were more prosocial than younger adults on the effortless Dictator Game. In Experiment 1, older adults were less prosocial across all trials of the effortful pay-it-forward task. However, when the task was more achievable in Experiment 2, older adults were only less prosocial when the probability of a reward was low. In everyday life, many prosocial contexts depend on effort expenditure. When prosocial activities are effortful, older adults are less willing to engage in prosocial behavior, particularly when reward likelihood is low, and instead focus on resource conservation. In the absence of such effort costs, older adults are more prosocial than younger adults. This work suggests that older adults may prefer to engage in prosocial behavior more than younger adults, but physical resource constraints may limit their ability to engage in such effortful prosocial activities.

The bright and dark sides of egoism.

Despite its negative reputation, egoism - the excessive concern for one's own welfare - can incite prosocial behavior. So far, however, egoism-based prosociality has received little attention. Here, we first provide an overview of the conditions under which egoism turns into a prosocial motive, review the benefits and limitations of egoism-based prosociality, and compare them with empathy-driven prosocial behavior. Second, we summarize studies investigating the neural processing of egoism-based prosocial decisions, studies investigating the neural processing of empathy-based prosocial decisions, and the small number of studies that compared the neural processing of prosocial decisions elicited by the different motives. We conclude that there is evidence for differential neural networks involved in egoism and empathy-based prosocial decisions. However, this evidence is not yet conclusive, because it is mainly based on the comparison of different experimental paradigms which may exaggerate or overshadow the effect of the different motivational states. Finally, we propose paradigms and research questions that should be tackled in future research that could help to specify how egoism can be used to enhance other prosocial behavior and motivation, and the how it could be tamed.

The effects of ritual and self-control resources depletion on deceptive behavior: Evidence from behavioral and ERPs studies.

Although researchers have indicated that individuals with depleted self-control resources have lower self-control behavior and exhibit more deceptive behaviors, recent psychological studies have shown that ritual can improve self-control and increase the likelihood that the individual makes prosocial decisions. However, little is known about whether ritual can regulate an individual's engagement in deceptive behavior when their self-control resources are depleted. This study adopted the spot-the-difference task to investigate the influences of ritual and self-control resources depletion on simple self-control behavior and deceptive behavior (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2); furthermore, relevant neural processes were explored using event-related potentials (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 showed that individuals with depleted self-control resources had lower self-control behavior and individuals performing a ritual had higher self-control behavior. Experiment 2 showed that individuals with depleted self-control resources exhibited more deceptive behaviors and individuals performing a ritual exhibited fewer deceptive behaviors; furthermore, ritual reduced deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self-control resources. Experiment 3 found that individuals with depleted self-control resources had larger P2 amplitudes after performing a ritual. Moreover, individuals with depleted self-control resources had larger LPP amplitudes over parietal sites after performing a ritual. These findings suggested that performing ritual may be an effective measure of inhibiting individuals with depleted self-control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior. Our findings verify the ego-depletion model and provide a new perspective for reducing deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self-control resources. We provide evidence that rituals could modulate deceptive behaviors in individuals with depleted self-control resources. This reveals that performing rituals may be an effective measure for inhibiting individuals with depleted self-control resources from engaging in deceptive behavior.

Reciprocal cortico-amygdala connections regulate prosocial and selfish choices in mice.

Decisions that favor one's own interest versus the interest of another individual depend on context and the relationships between individuals. The neurobiology underlying selfish choices or choices that benefit others is not understood. We developed a two-choice social decision-making task in which mice can decide whether to share a reward with their conspecifics. Preference for altruistic choices was modulated by familiarity, sex, social contact, hunger, hierarchical status and emotional state matching. Fiber photometry recordings and chemogenetic manipulations demonstrated that basolateral amygdala (BLA) neurons are involved in the establishment of prosocial decisions. In particular, BLA neurons projecting to the prelimbic (PL) region of the prefrontal cortex mediated the development of a preference for altruistic choices, whereas PL projections to the BLA modulated self-interest motives for decision-making. This provides a neurobiological model of altruistic and selfish choices with relevance to pathologies associated with dysfunctions in social decision-making.

Empathy and correct mental state inferences both promote prosociality

In a world with rapidly increasing population that competes for the earth’s limited resources, cooperation is crucial. While research showed that empathizing with another individual in need enhances prosociality, it remains unclear whether correctly inferring the other’s inner, mental states on a more cognitive level (i.e., mentalizing) elicits helping behavior as well. We applied a video-based laboratory task probing empathy and a performance measure of mentalizing in adult volunteers (N = 94) and assessed to which extent they were willing to help the narrators in the videos. We replicate findings that an empathy induction leads to more prosocial decisions. Crucially, we also found that correct mentalizing increases the willingness to help. This evidence helps clarify an inconsistent picture of the relation between mentalizing and prosociality.

Doing well while doing good? Gender effects in pro-social peer-to-peer lending

PurposeThe 2008 and 2020 crises reinvigorated discussions on the need to deepen financial inclusion through fintech. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending facilitates pro-social direct lending to less “bankable” strangers while providing returns to at-times less experienced lenders. Information asymmetries and credit risk are substantial, and previous research finds suboptimal heuristics in for-profit lenders (Gonzalez, 2022). This study examines further the role of gender to facilitate “doing well while doing good”.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines 663 pro-social lending decisions by finance students on a mock P2P site. Testimonials were used to condition participants towards pro-social decision-making. Each participant was asked to make three lending decisions. The three loan applications were identical except for a female or male headshot (vs a control icon), and a randomly assigned difference in the trustworthiness or popularity of the male vs female loan applications among other lenders. Loan popularity is reported as a lower number of days needed to fund half the identical loan amount requested in the three loan applications (3 vs 11 days for headshot applications, and 7 days for control one).FindingsSelf-recognition in similar-age borrowers is more pronounced for lenders who have experienced financial trauma. Second, male lenders report higher confidence in their financial literacy and cash collateral. Third, cash collateral increases lending only to female borrowers. Fourth, higher perception of one's financial literacy increases confidence only when lending to females.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the role of gender, financial literacy, identification with borrowers, and collateral perception in pro-social P2P lending.

Financial literacy in for-profit vs pro-social peer-to-peer lending

PurposePeer-to-peer (P2P) lending facilitates direct online lending and aims to provide financial inclusion and investment returns. Lender goals range from for-profit to pro-social and objective information is limited, which highlights the need to examine heuristics.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines 1,347 lending decisions by finance students on a mock P2P site. Testimonials were used to randomly condition the financially literate lenders towards for-profit or pro-social decision-making. Each investor evaluated three loans. The three loan applications were identical except for a female or male headshot (vs an icon) and random reports of 50% funding for the female or male loan in 3 days (vs 11 days for opposite gender and 7 for icon). Previous research surveys students on a mock platform (Gonzalez, 2020) and reports similar heuristics and lifelike decisions in student and general population samples (Gonzalez and Komarova, 2014).FindingsLenders randomly conditioned towards pro-social lending state lower trust in borrowers. However, pro-social investors state lower risk in P2P lending and higher financial literacy. Second, pro-social investors are more confident when lending to borrowers highly trusted by other lenders, especially if the popular loan applicant is female. Third, pro-social conditioning increases lending to male applicants when the popular loan applicant is female. Fourth, pro-social investors who have experienced financial trauma have greater confidence in bad loan recovery.Originality/valueThis is the first study of heuristics in pro-social vs for-profit P2P lending. In addition, it shows that testimonials can effectively condition lending goals and affect trust and risk perceptions.

Financial incentives facilitate stronger neural computation of prosocial decisions in lower empathic adult females

ABSTRACT Financial incentives are commonly used to motivate behaviors. However, there is also evidence that incentives can impede the behavior they are supposed to foster, for example, documented by a decrease in blood donations if a financial incentive is offered. Based on these findings, previous studies assumed that prosocial motivation is shaped by incentives. However, so far, there is no direct evidence showing an interaction between financial incentives and a specific prosocial motive. Combining drift-diffusion modeling and fMRI, we investigated the effect of financial incentives on empathy, i.e., one of the key motives driving prosocial decisions. In the empathy-alone condition, participants made prosocial decisions based on empathy. In the empathy-bonus condition, they were offered a financial bonus for prosocial decisions, in addition to empathy induction. On average, the bonus enhanced the information accumulation in empathy-based decisions. On the neural level, this enhancement was related to the anterior insula, the same region that also correlated with empathy ratings. Moreover, the effect of the financial incentive on anterior insula activation was stronger the lower a person scored on empathy. These findings show that financial incentives enhance prosocial motivation in the absence of empathy.

The Games We Play: Prosocial Choices Under Time Pressure Reflect Context-Sensitive Information Priorities

Time pressure is a powerful experimental manipulation frequently used to arbitrate between competing dual-process models of prosocial decision-making, which typically assume that automatic responses yield to deliberation over time. However, the use of time pressure has led to conflicting conclusions about the psychological dynamics of prosociality. Here, we proposed that flexible, context-sensitive information search, rather than automatic responses, underlies these divergent effects of time pressure on prosociality. We demonstrated in two preregistered studies (N = 304 adults from the United States and Canada; Prolific Academic) that different prosocial contexts (i.e., pure altruism vs. cooperation) have distinct effects on information search, driving people to prioritize information differently, particularly under time pressure. Furthermore, these information priorities subsequently influence prosocial choices, accounting for the different effects of time pressure in altruistic and cooperative contexts. These findings help explain existing inconsistencies in the field by emphasizing the role of dynamic context-sensitive information search during social decision-making, particularly under time pressure.

Responsible Leadership Process in Organizations in India: A Qualitative Study

Using an inductive grounded theory approach, we aimed to understand the responsible leadership process (RL) in India which is an emerging economy, and put forth challenges to the business leaders different from those in the western institutions. We interviewed 26 executives from three organizations in India. The analysis of data revealed certain individual-level variables as a source of conferred legitimacy which further influence leaders’ ability to reconcile dilemmas and conflicts of interest and equip them with the strategies to deal with the challenges posed by the institution and the uncertain business environment in which they operate. This results in prosocial decisions and outcomes which further builds on to sources of legitimacy and works recursively as a process. Findings of the study resolve a few inconsistencies and suggest unique factors responsible for driving the process and are not evident or figured importantly in the literature on RL so far. Amongst this paternalistic ownership is a necessary mechanism unique to the cultural context for the process to occur. Contrary to the previous studies this study suggests the presence of mere ethical climate as insufficient and organization must build a constellation of holistic values climate to ensure the socially responsible behavior of employees.

What's charisma got to do with it? Three faces of charismatic leadership and corporate social responsibility engagement.

In response to both internal and external expectations and pressures, companies increasingly consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an essential factor in their strategic planning, but in a very diverse manner. To help synthesize the flourishing research in CSR variation across firms, we propose a three-orientation framework to map out a wide range of CSR strategies in current literature. Furthermore, we emphasize the importance of executive leadership and suggest that differences in leader’s values are the key drivers of CSR heterogeneity. This study offers a parsimonious model that maps out three primary pathways between leadership values and CSR strategic configurations. Drawing from charismatic leadership theory, we argue that three distinct types of leader power motives define three modes of leader’s strategic decision frames, which, in turn, influence corresponding CSR orientations. Specifically, socialized charismatic leaders favor prosocial decision frame that results in integrative CSR orientation; neutralized charismatic leaders embrace instrumental decision frame leading to strategic CSR mode; and personalized charismatic leaders tend to adopt self-serving CSR strategies driven by the self-serving decision frame. This holistic view advances the knowledge about the micro-foundations of CSR drivers and the essential role of leader values.

Incentives and intertemporal behavioral spillovers: A two-period experiment on charitable giving

We test whether and, if so, how incentives to promote prosocial behavior affect the extent to which they spill over to subsequent charitable giving. To do so, we conduct a two-period framed field experiment to study repeated prosocial decisions of more than 700 participants. We vary how participants’ first prosocial behavior is incentivized by a wide range of interventions ranging from soft to hard paternalism. Our design allows us to decompose spillover effects into a pure spillover effect, which identifies the impact of previous prosocial behavior on subsequent donation decisions and crowding effects, which capture the extent to which the spillover effects are affected by the intervention exerted on the previous prosocial behavior. We find evidence for negative spillover effects. Participants donate less if they completed a prosocial task prior to the donation decision. Most importantly, we find that the spillover effects depend on how the initial prosocial behavior has been incentivized. Especially participants who are incentivized to donate through social comparisons are more willing to give to charity thereafter compared to participants whose initial prosocial behavior is incentivized by monetary rewards.

Morality in the time of cognitive famine: The effects of memory load on cooperation and honesty

Though human social interaction in general seems effortless at times, successful engagement in collaborative or exploitative social interaction requires the availability of cognitive resources. Research on Dual-Process suggests that two systems, the affective (non-reflective) and the cognitive (reflective), are responsible for different types of reasoning. Nevertheless, the evidence on which system leads to what type of behavioral outcome, in terms of prosociality, is at best contradicting and perplexing. In the present paper, we examined the role of the two systems, operationalized as working memory depletion, in prosocial decision-making. We hypothesize that the nature of the available cognitive resources could affect whether humans engage in collaborative or exploitative social interaction. Using Operation Span to manipulate the availability of working memory, we examined how taxing the cognitive system affects cooperation and cheating. In two experiments, we provide evidence that concurrent load, but not cumulative load is detrimental to cooperation, whereas neither concurrent nor cumulative load seems to affect cheating behavior. These findings are in contrast to several previous assumptions. We discuss limitations, possible explanations, and future directions.

Impaired social decision-making in males with methamphetamine use disorder.

Individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) commonly exhibit socially problematic behaviours. Investigating the prosocial decision-making of individuals with MUD could enable a better understanding of their impaired social functioning and help improve their social relationships. We conducted two studies to examine the performance of individuals with MUD and healthy controls on a modified dictator game. In Study 1, 55 male individuals with MUD and 34 healthy male participants made a series of choices between two pairs of monetary prizes for themselves and for others. In Study 2, 62 male individuals with MUD and 31 healthy male participants made the same choices as in Study 1 after a brief exposure to methamphetamine-related pictures. In both studies, we consistently found a context dependency of decreased prosociality in individuals with MUD. That is, individuals with MUD made fewer prosocial choices than healthy individuals in disadvantageous contexts (but not advantageous contexts). The results of the computational model suggested that the lower prosociality of individuals with MUD in disadvantageous contexts could be attributed to the lower weight placed on others' benefits. Moreover, when exposed to methamphetamine-related pictures, individuals with MUD showed less caution and slower encoding/motor speed than healthy individuals, and individuals with MUD with a longer history of methamphetamine use tended to respond less cautiously. Our findings provide evidence that in disadvantageous contexts, individuals with MUD show reduced prosociality and less consideration of others' benefits. Identifying the origin of the alterations in prosocial decision-making has implications for diagnosis and treatment.

Prosocial Norm Emergence in Multi-agent Systems

Multi-agent systems provide a basis for developing systems of autonomous entities and thus find application in a variety of domains. We consider a setting where not only the member agents are adaptive but also the multi-agent system viewed as an entity in its own right is adaptive. Specifically, the social structure of a multi-agent system can be reflected in the social norms among its members. It is well recognized that the norms that arise in society are not always beneficial to its members. We focus on prosocial norms, which help achieve positive outcomes for society and often provide guidance to agents to act in a manner that takes into account the welfare of others. Specifically, we propose Cha, a framework for the emergence of prosocial norms. Unlike previous norm emergence approaches, Cha supports continual change to a system (agents may enter and leave) and dynamism (norms may change when the environment changes). Importantly, Cha agents incorporate prosocial decision-making based on inequity aversion theory, reflecting an intuition of guilt arising from being antisocial. In this manner, Cha brings together two important themes in prosociality: decision-making by individuals and fairness of system-level outcomes. We demonstrate via simulation that Cha can improve aggregate societal gains and fairness of outcomes.

Effects of psychological stress and cortisol on decision making and modulating factors: A systematic review.

Evidence suggests that psychological stress has effects on decision making, but the results are inconsistent, and the influence of cortisol and other modulating factors remains unclear. Based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria, 18 studies carried out between 2015 and 2020 that examined the effects of psychological stress on decision making and measured cortisol levels were selected. Eight studies employed uncertainty-based economic tasks, five studies used decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations that can be encountered in real life or in a specific setting and five studies employed prosocial decision tasks. Seventeen studies assessed acute stress, and two assessed chronic stress; eight evaluated the influence of sex. Most of the studies that explored the association between stress and decision making using uncertainty-based economic tasks found statistically significant differences as a function of stress exposure and the cortisol response to stress, whereas most of the studies that employed non-economic decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations did not find statistically significant differences. When prosocial decision making was evaluated, more altruistic decisions were found after acute stress, and these decisions were positively associated with cortisol. Half of the studies that assessed the role of sex observed a greater impact on decision making after stress in women. Results suggest that it is important to consider modulating factors-the type of decision-making task, the cortisol response to stress, the characteristics of the psychological stressor or the subject's sex-when trying to understand psychosocial stress phenomena.