Browsing by Subject "prosocial behavior"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Differences in Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking Across 63 Countries
    (Sage, 2017-01) Chopik, William J.; O'Brien, Ed; Konrath, Sara H.; School of Philanthropy
    Cultural practices socialize people to relate to others in different ways. One critical way in which these interpersonal bonds are formed and maintained is via empathy, our emotional reactivity toward others’ experiences. However, the extent to which individuals from different cultures vary in their dispositional empathy, and the correlates of these differences, are relatively unknown. Thus, the current study explored cultural variation in empathy, and how this variation is related to psychological characteristics and prosocial behavior across cultures. Evidence from an original sample of 104,365 adults across 63 countries reveals that higher empathy countries also have higher levels of collectivism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, emotionality, subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior. These findings reveal that empathy is situated within a broader nomological network of other psychological characteristics, emotional expression and experiences, and prosocial behavior across cultures. The current study expands our understanding about how psychological characteristics vary across cultures and how these characteristics can manifest in broader national indicators of prosocial behavior.
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    The Gendered Pathways Into Giving and Volunteering: Similar or Different Across Countries?
    (Sage, 2023-02) Wiepking, Pamala; Einolf, Christopher J.; Yang, Yongzheng; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    There has been a steady increase in research studying the role of gender in prosocial behavior, such as charitable giving and volunteering. We provide an extensive review of the interdisciplinary literature and derive hypotheses about three different pathways that lead men and women to differ in their display of giving and volunteering: pathways through social capital, motivations, and resources. We test these hypotheses across 19 countries by analyzing 28,410 individuals, using generalized structural equation models. Our results support previous research, conducted in single countries, that there are distinct different pathways that lead men and women to engage in giving and volunteering: Women report stronger motivations to help others, but men report more of the financial resources that make giving and volunteering possible. The gendered pathways to giving and volunteering that lead through social capital, educational achievement, and financial security vary by country.
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    Narcissism and prosocial behavior
    (2017) Konrath, Sara H.; Tian, Yuan
    There are many motivations for prosocial behavior, some more altruistic and some more egoistic. We posit that more narcissistic people may perform prosocial acts strategically, for example, to improve their reputations or to receive something in return.
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    Social norms offer explanation for inconsistent effects of incentives on prosocial behavior
    (Elsevier, 2023-07) Graf, Caroline; Suanet, Bianca; Wiepking, Pamala; Merz, Eva-Maria; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    Humans are widely considered to be susceptible to incentives, which are frequently employed to encourage specific behaviors. However, incentives have surprisingly inconsistent effects when used to motivate prosocial behavior – sometimes producing no behavioral change or even backfiring. To explain these inconsistencies, we extended a prominent image-based model of prosocial behavior, based on the idea that social norms shape the reputational consequences of receiving incentives. We tested the key predictions of this model by examining the blood donation behavior of 26,000 individuals from 28 European countries. Our preregistered analyses revealed that social norms can indeed predict how incentives, either in the form of financial payments or time off work, relate to individual-level blood donation behavior. Incentives are associated with higher levels of prosociality if they align with existing norms. The results suggest that humans may not be universally persuaded by incentives to behave prosocially, but that the effectiveness of incentives depends on social norms.
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    The strategic helper: Narcissism and prosocial motives and behaviors
    (Springer, 2016-06) Konrath, Sara H.; Ho, Meng-Han; Zarins, Sasha; Department of Philanthropy, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
    Across three studies, we examined the relationship between narcissism, prosocial behaviors, and the reasons why people engaged in them. Specifically, we examined how narcissistic people engaged in charitable donations, taking advantage of a naturally occurring mass charitable donation campaign, the ALS “ice bucket challenge” (Study 1). We also examined how narcissism was related to volunteering and other types of prosocial behaviors (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, we compared and contrasted the prosocial responses of more empathic versus more narcissistic people (Studies 2 and 3). This paper can help scholars and practitioners to determine under which circumstances, and for which reasons, narcissistic people may exhibit prosocial behaviors.