Prosocial Manner Research Articles

Phubbing Makes the Heart Grow Callous: Effects of Phubbing on Pro-social Behavioral Intentions, Empathy and Self-Control

Previous research has shown that phubbing (phone snubbing) negatively impacts the quality of social interaction and undermines connectedness between interaction partners. Furthermore, studies indicate that feelings of connection to others are vital to fostering empathy, which in turn is an important facet of prosociality. The current investigation explores whether this effect extends to one’s inclination to act in a pro-social manner, as well as the mediating roles of empathy and self-control. Two studies, one correlational (Study 1, N = 220) and one experimental (Study 2, N = 362) show that phubbing negatively predicts empathy, which in turn negatively impacts prosociality. Self-control was a significant mediator in the correlational design, but not in the experimental design, suggesting that repeated occurrences of phubbing, but not momentary ones, are negatively associated with self-control. The findings expand upon existing literature by providing information regarding the effects of phubbing on the person engaging in phubbing, rather than the recipient, as well as provide insights into the underlying mechanism.

Youth-led community street sport in practice: balancing programme intentions and peer leadership

ABSTRACT Peer-led sport programmes can provide supportive social relations and opportunities for role modelling and identification. These features can support the inclusion of groups who usually do not participate in sport activities and provide an environment that fosters personal and social development. However, it is important to assess the implementation of peer-led activities to understand whether such potentials are fulfilled. Therefore, we investigated the quality of delivery of peer-led street sport activities implemented by the street sport organisation GAME. The study combined quantitative and qualitative observations. Peer leader practices were assessed quantitatively with 40 observation items scored on a Likert scale. In addition, qualitative observations could be noted on the observation form. We conducted 49 observations at 15 different peer-led street sport activities delivered in low-resource neighbourhoods. We compared peer leader practices with the intentions of the programme as described in the programme logic model and explored influences on delivery in the physical and social setting. Quantitative data showed that pedagogical competencies (‘role modelling’, ‘body language’ and ‘conflict management’) scored highest for quality of delivery. Sport instruction elements, particularly the categories ‘technique’ and ‘instruction’, scored lower. The qualitative analysis suggested that programme features and structure as well as the (mostly outdoor) community setting influenced the possibility of peer leaders for implementing the programme as intended. Peer leaders were often observed to function as role models, mostly in a prosocial manner, although role modelling was also observed to not support programme intentions. The study provided insight into some of the challenges in and potentials inherent to peer-led sport activities in the setting of low-resource neighbourhoods where youth peer leaders are responsible for implementation.

Teaching Core Values through Physical Activity Using a Tangible Item

To foster positive youth development (PYD), sport organizations, programs, coaches, and program leaders should use holistic youth development in a pro-social manner and provide a nurturing climate. This article offers an idea for a tangible way to promote PYD in sport and physical activity settings via a patch system.

Grandiose narcissism, unfounded beliefs, and behavioral reactions during the COVID-19 pandemic

A theoretical perspective on grandiose narcissism suggests four forms of it (sanctity, admiration, heroism, rivalry) and states that these forms conduce to different ways of thinking and acting. Guided by this perspective, we examined in a multinational and multicultural study (61 countries; N = 15,039) how narcissism forms are linked to cognitions and behaviors prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, differences in cognitions and behaviors across narcissism forms emerged. For example, higher narcissistic rivalry predicted lower likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors, but higher narcissistic sanctity predicted higher likelihood of enactment of COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Further, whereas the heroism, admiration, and rivalry narcissism forms acted in a typically antisocial manner, with high narcissism predicting greater endorsement of unfounded health beliefs, the sanctity form acted in a prosocial manner, with higher narcissism being linked to lower endorsement of unfounded COVID-19 health beliefs. Thus, the findings (a) support the idea of four narcissism forms acting differently, and (b) show that these differences reflect a double-edged sword, sometimes linking to an anti-social orientation, and sometimes linking to a pro-social orientation.

Prosocial or photo preferences? Gorillas' prosocial choices using a touchscreen.

Three male Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) were given the opportunity to select their own or conspecific photos on a touchscreen to indicate whether they wished the experimenter to deliver a food reward only to them or to them and the selected conspecific(s). This is only the second symbolic test of prosocial preferences with apes using a touchscreen, and the first with gorillas. The use of self and other photographs as symbols of prosocial choices was intuitive while controlling for the distraction of visible food rewards, and allowing for tests of transfer to further validate apparent prosocial intentions. Gorillas rapidly learned to avoid selecting a photograph of an empty enclosure that resulted in no rewards for any of the gorillas and transferred this learning to a novel photograph. The gorillas did not behave in a consistently self-interested or prosocial manner but they clearly rejected the opportunity to choose spitefully. Their preferences for certain photographs did not necessarily reflect a preference to be prosocial toward that particular individual because these preferences did not transfer to novel photographs of the same individuals. The results call into question whether gorillas recognize themselves and conspecifics in photographs but cannot conclusively speak to whether gorillas have prosocial preferences. They do stress the importance of carefully probing alternative explanations when inferring intentions from observable behaviors.

All creatures great and small: Faith, spirituality, environmental-animal rights activism and public relations as covenantal stewardship

This study extends the historical record of faith/spirituality-inspired social activism, an under-explored area of advocacy, by examining such campaigning for environmental and animal rights and the worldview and model of public relations that guide such efforts. A combination of qualitative methods was used to obtain data on public relations as conceptualized and practiced including a textual analysis of historical material and institutional media. Throughout history faith/spirituality has inspired Indigenous peoples, governments, and individuals to advocate for environmental and animal rights, playing a central role in the formation and practice of a worldview, caritas, embracing an approach to relationship-building – covenantal stewardship – that guides behavior in a pro-social manner toward an inclusive set of “publics” – humans living, unborn, and ancestral, animals, and the natural world as well as alternative views of public relations. Moreover, individuals of faith/spirituality have created NGOs to institutionalize such activism. The influence of faith/spirituality upon environmental and animal rights activism points toward a re-thinking of the nature of public relations and its “publics” given emerging sensitivities to the principles of inclusion necessary for the harmonious functioning of society and requires a new definition, worldview, and model of practice.

The benefits of prosocial power motivation in leadership: Action orientation fosters a win-win.

Power motivation is considered a key component of successful leadership. Based on its dualistic nature, the need for power (nPower) can be expressed in a dominant or a prosocial manner. Whereas dominant motivation is associated with antisocial behaviors, prosocial motivation is characterized by more benevolent actions (e.g., helping, guiding). Prosocial enactment of the power motive has been linked to a wide range of beneficial outcomes, yet less has been investigated what determines a prosocial enactment of the power motive. According to Personality Systems Interactions (PSI) theory, action orientation (i.e., the ability to self-regulate affect) promotes prosocial enactment of the implicit power motive and initial findings within student samples verify this assumption. In the present study, we verified the role of action orientation as an antecedent for prosocial power enactment in a leadership sample (N = 383). Additionally, we found that leaders personally benefited from a prosocial enactment strategy. Results show that action orientation through prosocial power motivation leads to reduced power-related anxiety and, in turn, to greater leader well-being. The integration of motivation and self-regulation research reveals why leaders enact their power motive in a certain way and helps to understand how to establish a win-win situation for both followers and leaders.

Pengaruh Perkembangan Sosial Emosional pada Perilaku Anak Usia Dini

In early childhood, children experience a golden age, which is where children begin to be sensitive and sensitive to receive stimuli or stimuli. Social and emotional development in children is the emotional condition and ability of children to respond to their environment at an earlier age. Children's socio-emotional development aims to find out how they are. How to relate to other people, namely peers and people who are older than him. Be responsible for yourself and others and behave in a pro-social manner. Social Emotional Development in School Children. Socio-emotional development is increasingly understood as a crisis in children's development. This is because children are shaped through development in the learning process. Children's social development is strongly influenced by the process of parental care or guidance for children in introducing various aspects of social life or norms in society.
 Keyword: Socio-Emotional, Early Childhood

Ostracism and sharing in an intergroup context.

Previous research suggests that social exclusion is linked to a decrease in individuals' prosocial behavior. However, this effect has not been examined in an intergroup context. We manipulated social acceptance (using the Cyberball game) to examine participants' sharing with ingroup or outgroup members in a minimal group paradigm. Results revealed that when the prospective recipient was a group member who rejected them, socially excluded participants shared less than their socially accepted counterparts. However, when faced with members of an outgroup, socially excluded participants showed similar levels of prosocial behavior as their socially accepted counterparts. Further results suggest that the tendency of socially excluded participants to act in a less prosocial manner toward members of a group that had rejected them was generalized to the group as a whole (including group members with whom there had been no previous interaction). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Charitable Giving in Times of Covid-19: Do Crises Forward the Better or the Worse in Individuals?

Why did some individuals react to the Covid-19 crisis in a prosocial manner, whereas others withdrew from society? To shed light onto this question, we investigate changing patterns of charitable giving during the pandemic. The study analyzes survey data of 2000 individuals, representative of the populations of Germany and Austria. Logistic regressions reveal that personal affectedness by Covid-19 seems to play a crucial role: those who were personally affected either mentally, financially, or health-wise during the first 12 months of Covid-19 were most likely to have changed their giving behavior. The observed patterns fit psychological explanations of how human beings process existential threats. Our findings indicate that a profound societal crisis in itself mainly leads to changes in charitable giving if individuals are severely affected on a personal level. Thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying individuals’ charitable giving behavior in times of crisis.

Pengaruh Perkembangan Sosial Emosional pada Perilaku Anak Usia Dini

In early childhood, children experience a golden age, which is where children begin to be sensitive and sensitive to receive stimuli or stimuli. Social and emotional development in children is the emotional condition and ability of children to respond to their environment at an earlier age. Children's socio-emotional development aims to find out how they are. How to relate to other people, namely peers and people who are older than him. Be responsible for yourself and others and behave in a pro-social manner. Social Emotional Development in School Children. Socio-emotional development is increasingly understood as a crisis in children's development. This is because children are shaped through development in the learning process. Children's social development is strongly influenced by the process of parental care or guidance for children in introducing various aspects of social life or norms in society.
 Keyword: Socio-Emotional, Early Childhood

Connectome-based predictive modeling of trait forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a positive, prosocial manner of reacting to transgressions and is strongly associated with mental health and well-being. Despite recent studies exploring the neural mechanisms underlying forgiveness, a model capable of predicting trait forgiveness at the individual level has not been developed. Herein, we applied a machine-learning approach, connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM), with whole-brain resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) to predict individual differences in trait forgiveness in a training set (dataset 1, N = 100, 35 men, 17-24 years). As a result, CPM successfully predicted individual trait forgiveness based on whole-brain rsFC, especially via the functional connectivity of the limbic, prefrontal and temporal areas, which are key contributors to the prediction model comprising regions previously implicated in forgiveness. These regions include the retrosplenial cortex, temporal pole, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex. Importantly, this predictive model could be successfully generalized to an independent sample (dataset 2, N = 71, 17 men, 16-25 years). These findings highlight the important roles of the limbic system, PFC and temporal region in trait forgiveness prediction and represent the initial steps toward establishing an individualized prediction model of forgiveness.

The Medical Metaverse, Part 1: Introduction, Definitions, and New Horizons for Neuropsychiatry.

The Medical Metaverse, Part 1: Introduction, Definitions, and New Horizons for Neuropsychiatry.

Cooperation in the name of God? Experimental evidence from Ghana and Tanzania

How is religion linked to prosocial behavior? Theoretically, religion is expected to increase prosocial behavior toward in-group members: believers are assumed to fear supernatural entities that punish or reward their deeds and therefore behave in a prosocial manner. However, empirical evidence for this relationship remains rare. The paper presents the results from artefactual field experiments that were conducted with 1,249 Christian and Muslim believers in Accra, Ghana, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Applying a prisoner’s dilemma game, following a between-subject design a non-religious control treatment versus two religion treatments were tested: (1) the idea that God punishes bad deeds and (2) the idea that God rewards good deeds . Contrary to expectations, the study finds that religious reminders can even decrease cooperation rates. Thus, reminders of God punishing or rewarding actions on Earth can, under certain conditions, backfire and reduce levels of cooperation.

Under watching eyes in news comment sections: effects of audience cue on self-awareness and commenting behaviour

ABSTRACT The watching-eye effect proposes that others’ eyes cause people to behave in a prosocial manner. The current study tested this in the context of an online news website, by investigating whether a watching-eye icon influences users’ attention to themselves and expressions of their opinions in a comment section. In an online experiment, participants (N = 741) used an online news website in the presence (vs. absence) of a watching eye as a visual cue for an imagined audience, who reportedly presented their opinions in a comment section. Results showed that the watching eye did influence participants’ private and public self-awareness and the quality of their comments. Presence of the visual cues, compared to its absence, increased female participants’ self-awareness, specifically when others’ opinions revealed in the comment section were mixed or opposed to the news article topic. This increased private self-awareness was positively associated with the comment quality. These findings indicate the importance of social cues on interfaces in mitigating the negative consequences of anonymity in online environments.

Toward feeling, understanding, and caring: The development of empathy in young autistic children.

Empathy is a highly valued human capacity. Yet, autistic people are often portrayed as lacking in empathy. Recent research, which views empathy as a complex construct emerging from multiple interrelated emotional and cognitive processes, argues that, although many autistic people do have difficulty understanding others' emotions, and this may hinder them from responding to others in a prosocial manner, they are not indifferent to other people's feelings. Hoping to contribute to a better understanding of the unique challenges that autistic children face in their empathy development, we followed the development of four empathy abilities: emotion contagion, attention to others, emotion acknowledgment, and prosocial actions, in 1- to 6-year-old autistic children, in comparison with non-autistic children. Once a year, for 4 consecutive years, children's empathy abilities were evaluated by experimenters who acted out emotional episodes to provoke empathy in children, and by parents who filled out empathy questionnaires. We found that autistic children experienced indeed more difficulty attending to others, acknowledging others' emotions, and initiating prosocial actions toward others. However, according to parents, they did not differ from their non-autistic peers in feeling along with others' negative emotions. This indicates that it might not be the case that autistic children did not want to act empathetically toward others. Rather, they might not know how to do so. Notably, despite these difficulties, when looking at children's developmental trajectories, autistic children showed similar improvements over time as non-autistic children. This provides evidence that autistic children have the potential to learn and to improve their empathy skills.

Sharing and belonging: Children's social status and their sharing behavior with in-group and out-group members.

The association between children's social-status within their peer-group and their prosociality was examined among fourth and sixth graders (N = 276), using sociometric nominations, and actual sharing with a fellow in-group member, or a member of an out-group. Results show an overall increase in sharing with age, and an overall correlation between children's social status among peers and their sharing behavior-however, across both age groups, this association was significant only in the in-group condition, not when the recipient child was an out-group member. Specifically, less accepted children behaved in a less prosocial manner only toward in-group members, not toward out-group ones. This suggests that situational factors and characteristics of the prospective recipient play an important part in the degree to which less socially accepted children are willing to act prosocially. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Are social desirability scales desirable? A meta‐analytic test of the validity of social desirability scales in the context of prosocial behavior

Social desirability (SD) scales have been used for decades in psychology and beyond. These scales are sought to measure individuals' tendencies to present themselves overly positive in self-reports, thus allowing to control for SD biases. However, research increasingly questions the validity of SD scales, proposing that SD scales measure substantive trait characteristics rather than response bias. To provide a large-scale empirical test of the validity of SD scales, we conducted a meta-analysis (k=41; N=8980) on the relation between SD scale scores and prosocial behavior in economic games (where acting in a prosocial manner is highly socially desirable). If SD scales measure what they are supposed to (namely, SD bias), they should be negatively linked to prosocial behavior; if SD scales measure socially desirable traits, they should be positively linked to prosocial behavior. Unlike both possibilities, the meta-analytic correlation between SD scores and prosocial behavior was close to zero, suggesting that SD scales neither clearly measure bias nor substantive traits. This conclusion was also supported by moderation analyses considering differences in the implementation of games and the SD scales used. The results further question the validity of SD scales with the implication that scholars and practitioners should refrain from using them.

The impact of financial deprivation on prosocial behaviour: Comparing the roles of face‐saving consciousness versus status/success‐gaining intention

This research investigates the mechanism (Face‐saving consciousness versus status/success‐gaining intention) underlying the effect of financial deprivation on prosocial behaviour among participants in China. A total of three studies were conducted. Findings across the three studies reveal that individuals who were financially deprived (versus privileged) acted in a more prosocial manner. Findings in Studies 1–2 indicate that Face‐saving consciousness, but not status/success‐gaining intention, suitably accounted for the impact of financial deprivation on prosocial behaviour. Furthermore, such an increase in prosocial behaviour was found in a public context, but diminished in a private context, in Study 3. These findings demonstrate the importance of Face‐saving consciousness in the effect of financial deprivation among Chinese.

The Socialization of Young Children's Empathy for Pain: The Role of Mother- and Father-Child Reminiscing.

Empathy for pain allows one to recognize, understand, and respond to another person's pain in a prosocial manner. Young children develop empathy for pain later than empathy for other negative emotions (e.g., sadness), which may be due to social learning. How parents reminisce with children about past painful events has been linked to children's pain cognitions (e.g., memory) and broader socioemotional development. The present study examined how parent-child reminiscing about pain may be linked to children's empathic behaviors toward another person's pain. One hundred and fourteen 4-year-old children (55% girls) and for each, one parent (51% fathers) completed a structured narrative elicitation task wherein they reminisced about a past painful autobiographical event for the child. Children were then observed responding in a lab-based empathy task wherein they witnessed a confederate pretending to hurt themselves. Children's empathic behaviors and parent-child narratives about past painful events were coded using established coding schemes. Findings revealed that parents who used more neutral emotion language (e.g., How did you feel?) when discussing past painful events had children who exhibited more empathic concern in response to another's pain. Similarly, children who used more explanations when reminiscing about past painful events displayed more empathic concern about another's pain. Findings highlight a key role of parent-child reminiscing about the past pain in the behavioral expression of empathy for pain in young children.