Prosociality.docx

Prosociality and implications for wellbeing Sarah M. Tashjian, 28 August 2023 How do we define prosociality? Psychological basis of prosociality Prosocial trends across development Implications for wellbeing Defining prosociality Any behaviour intended to benefit or help others, whether it stems from empathy, altruism, moral values, or social norms. Researchers don’t always agree about how they define prosociality – sometimes they don’t define it at all – see new slide Pfaff… et al., It is a multifaceted construct: the main facet being that it is intended to benefit another being (doesn’t have to be human recipient) Is intentional but not necessary voluntary (can be directed as often is with children). Evidence shows prosocial behavior that is involuntary is less likely to be repeated. Can involve personal cost or personal benefit: often behaviors that involve a personal cost are defined as altruistic rather than prosocial because prosocial behavior can benefit the actor as well as the recipient whereas true altruistic behavior ostensibly does not benefit the actor (but then there is the feel-good factor of giving so maybe no act of giving is truly altruistic: ref Abigail Marsh studies extreme altruists) A core definition: prosociality is a behavior that is intended to benefit others. Focus is on the consequence of the behavior for the recipient – the intended benefit – rather than the motivation of the actor. However, understanding the motivators for pro-social behavior is important when wanting to figure out how to encourage people to do more prosocial acts Affective motivators: empathy to another person’s distress – evident in 2 year olds - self -motivated trends in cooperation and helping which seems to underlie prosocial behaviour. Self-directed - intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation direction: self-directed vs other directed = intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Evidence that prosocial behavior increases when intrinsically motivated. Adult intervention can undermine prosocial behavior. in children reinforcement: evidence that rewards (or threats of punishment/shame etc) reduce tendencies to engage in prosocial behavior Categorizing prosocial behavior based on the motivation of the actor and the needs of the beneficiary: what: behaviours that benefit another person who: directed towards others. how the behaviours meet that criterion: they are positive, they are other benefiting why: the motivators of prosocial behavior Wu and Hong (2022) Diagram A: X axis – self benefitting vs benefitting others; Y axis – valence: is it positive affiliative or negative antagonistic prosocial behavior This goes to the “who”, “what” and “how” of prosocial behavior: “who”: the people who benefit; i.e., the targets; the “what” are the behaviors that benefit another person; the “how” the behaviors meet that criteria ie they are positive and other-benefitting Diagram B: Wu and Hong argue that prosocial behavior is based on the needs of the target individual and there are 3 types of need: emotional need (e.g., pro-social response might be providing comfort) goal-related need (e.g., helping a person achieve a goal; a targeted pro-social behavior) material need (e.g., resource sharing) So we can consider all of these different sort of categories to think about how prosocial behaviour is generated and whether or not it's benefiting someone else. Observed in animal behavior: Bartal et al 2011 (a pivotal study in science): Rats were placed in an arena with a cage mate and that cage mate was trapped in a restraint. The rats learned to intentionally and quickly open the restraint and free the cage mate. They didn't open empty restraints nor restraints that had objects in them suggesting this wasn't just some kind of like operant conditioning where they opened the restraint because they were curious about what was in there. It wasn't just a desire to get to the social other because they had an empty condition where the cage mates were separated by a screen and the rats could open the door, but the cage mate wasn't trapped. The rats in this condition didn't open the door. So the opening of the restraint seems to benefit the other rat, but it's not a self-benefitting act like social engagement because they're not opening the restraint just to be with the other rat. The rat opened the door more often when their cage mate was trapped supporting the idea that it was targeted helping. But interestingly the trapped cage mates also elicited a far greater percentage of alarm calls vocalizing their distress. This suggests the prosocial behavior was motivated by a combination of an emotional and goal directed need. Goal related need and emotional need do not have to co-occur for behavior to be prosocial: there just must be an intention to benefit. SUMMARY We define prosociality as: Behaviours that are positive (affiliative) benefit others They do not need to be Be voluntary Involve personal cost (but often do) Motivated by empathy (but is highly correlated with successful – or ignorantly unsuccessful - prosociality) Not exclusive to humans (Bartal et al., 2011) Wu & Hong model suggests prosocial behaviour is motivated by another person’s need that it is but can be motivated by a perception of another’s need (which might be different from the recipient’s perception of their own needs. (e.g., giving a homeless person food when what they might want is $$) If measuring how engaging in prosocial behaviour impacts well-being then it is the actor’s perception of benefit that will matter – if it is societal benefit that’s being measured then the perspective of the recipient (and the end outcome) is probably more relevant Thinking about another person’s need sit at the intersection of empathy and theory of mind: both are highly correlated with prosocial behaviors. Psychological basis of prosociality Prosociality and Affect Emotions have different utilities: help us stay alive, they motivate behavior etc., but utility can depend upon whether is the emotion is negative or positive. Negative versus positive emotional response Negative emotions: prompt specific, immediate responses to aid survival (self & other). Typically, negative emotions generate responses that are specific in response to an immediate need. The need to reducing the individual's negative experience can result in avoidance. Survival responses can both motivate and inhibit prosocial behavior too much empathy can result in a level of distress that might inhibit (or cause people to avoid) prosocial behavior. Positive emotions: prompt more general responses, cause us to be curious, broaden actor’s mindset and behavioral repertoire, promoting advantageous behavior (e.g., building physical, cognitive, and social resources to manage future threats). Tend to draw attention away from ourselves and towards others. Why positive emotions are often thought of as motivating prosocial behavior – is a reciprocal relationship between positive emotions and prosocial behavior Positive emotions be experienced with empathy (helps us look outside ourselves towards others. Aknin et al. (2018) Current Opinion in Psychology Positive affect and emotions (e.g., feelings of happiness, gratitude, and empathy both cause and result from prosocial behaviour. May be a positive feedback loop: emotional rewards of giving promotes future prosocial action. DON’T GET CONFUSED: Prosociality is motivated by positive emotions (not negative) because that is what helps us look outside ourselves towards others, negative emotions are going to prompt survival responses, which could be good or bad but too much can hamper the ability to act pro socially. Evidence for a reciprocal relationship between affect and prosocial behavior comes from two types of studies: Randomly assign individuals to experience positive affect and then have them engage in prosocial behaviour. Moore et al. (1973). Seven- and eight-year-olds were asked to think about things that made them happy, neutral things or sad things. Just mentalizing on things that made them happy made children donate more to peers than if thinking about neutral or sad things Secondly people who engage in prosocial activities report more positive emotions - prosocial behavior led to higher positive affect than those engaged in behavior benefitting themselves. Varma et al 2022: subjects were randomly assigned to engage in prosocial or self-beneficial action. Engaging in prosocial behavior (blue) led to higher levels of positive effect compared to the non-prosocial behavior (orange). Raposa et al., 2016: higher prosocial behavior buffering the effects of stress. Levels of positive effect remain high for people with high prosocial tendencies regardless of the level of stress experienced. One explanation might be that they have stronger support networks because of their prosocial behaviors. Individuals with low prosocial tendencies experience declines in positive effect during those increased stressful periods. Prosociality and Empathy Empathy (ability to understand and share the emotions of others) is not a requirement (but it is a robust predictor of prosocial behavior) . Akin et al 2018 – argue that empathy is a positive emotion and is highly correlated with prosocial behavior. - Sarah would say that whether empathy is a positive emotion is debatable because of the distress it can cause in individuals (probably a curve in the relationship – up to a point it is positive then can be negative) Prosocial behavior is pften measured as the behavior and the object of the behavior is more the focus that the state of the actor which is why it is said that prosocial behaviors does not require empathy on the part of the actor – sympathy-based prosociality: actor is engaging in the behavior because they want to benefit another person with strategic prosociality: actor engages in the behavior that benefits another person and also reciprocally benefits the actor Grueneisen & Warneken (2022) Current Opinion in Psychology Strategic prosociality also has its own spectrum- has been shown to increase with age. The prosocial repertoire becomes broader. Probably because as individuals age, they can be more strategic and goal directed and they plan more prospectively in general Behaviour strategical prosociality increases with age – the motivations broaden. Children demonstrate a high prosociality even in the absence of strategic benefits suggesting there are multiple motives at play simultaneously. Empathy is related to costly prosociality Even though empathy isn't required for prosocial, it is highly associated with prosocial behaviour and higher levels of empathy are associated with costly helping. This is an interesting differentiation. FeldmanHall et al 2015 shows empathic concern is associated with more money given to others – suggesting greater cost is associated with greater empathy. Greater activation in the dlPFC (cognitive control) suggests it might be controlling the impulse to engage in self benefitting behavior - in controlling the impulse to do what feels good to us, or to protect ourselves, to help someone else. If a negative emotion is experienced when giving up money - then will also need to regulate that emotion to do the prosocial behavior. So can override the negative emotions if have sufficient control over these regulatory regions. If we experience giving as a positive effect, we probably don't need as many resources to do it and it's more easily feeding into that pro social behavior loop. But we can override the negative effect involved with costly giving if we have sufficient engagement of these cognitive control regions. Prosociality and Cognitive Control Empathy is related to costly prosociality … through cognitive control. This helps in understanding how prosocial behavior changes over development. One reason empathy is related to prosociality through self-control is because empathy results in emotional arousal, which may cause self-stress and lead to self-protective behaviors or avoidance, which hinders prosocial. So, self-regulation helps redirect that arousal to prosocial behavior. Empathy is related to costly prosociality...but is not necessary Reward is also related to costly prosociality: ventral striatum tracks rewards for the self when costly e.g., I’m giving to you, but I expect it will benefit me in the long run. Reward is not always beneficial for prosociality: intrinsic > extrinsic When people invest money for their own groups benefit, they show a stronger reward signal in the ventral stratum (graph above). The ventral striatum is a region of the striatum, the reward region or socio emotional region that's highly active in response to anticipating or receiving rewards. It's also activated in response to risk taking likely because of the anticipation of reward. When participants had a costly sacrifice for someone who is an in group member (orange), they get an amplified reward signal than when for an out group member (blue). This is one of the reasons we see in group/out group biases and people sort of engaging in what may be more prosocial behavior for people who they identify with more – people direct prosocial behavior to a limited group of people. The striatum tracks outcomes that are rewarding for the self when costly. The motivation for self-reward is not always beneficial for prosocial behaviors: Extrinsic rewarding can undermine motivation towards prosociality by undermining the feeling of goodness for doing something. Chao 2017. Behavioral economics study – if want people to donate, don’t send them stuff – want to feel they’re doing something good not because they’re getting something extrinsic for it – suggests even social reciprocity or social recognition might also undermine prosocial tendencies. SUMMARY We know there is a reciprocal relationship between positive affect and prosocial behavior such that inducing positive effect increases prosocial behavior and prosocial behavior increases positive affect. We also know that empathy is often considered an important factor for motivating prosocial behavior because it can lead to a greater understanding of another's needs and it can motivate a desire to help, but it isn't necessary for the execution of prosocial behavior. individuals might engage in prosocial act due to a variety of things like moral values, a sense of duty, social norms or even the expectation of reciprocation. strategic prosocial behavior - we know that cognitive control or self-regulation as well as reward processes are involved. cognitive control helps facilitate prosocial behavior through impulse control. Cognitive control is also related to perspective-taking, moral reasoning, cognitive flexibility, and response inhibition, prosocial giving is associated with greater reward signals: positive affect can be motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards intrinsic rewards are more powerful motivators of prosocial behaviour - they are inherently satisfying. Adolescents are trying to develop a sense of identity/self – engaging in intrinsically. Motivated prosocial behavior it feels good, and it aligns with their sense of self, perhaps compounding the reward signal if a teen’s social group is more prosocial, they are then more likely to engage in more pro social behavior. And that is because it is aligning with the values both for their social environment as well as probably their sense of self. extrinsic rewards or external reinforcements such as praise, recognition or material incentives can diminish prosocial behavior. Prosocial trends across development Prosocial Development: difficult to establish a clear developmental trajectory of prosocial behavior because it varies depending on the construct in question Children exposed to high inequality give at different rates. Children exposed to high inequality are more likely to give to poor individuals, but only at older ages of 7 to 9 years old, and they're able to justify their giving behavior as being about a distribution of inequality. Older children might be more prosocial in certain situations – context is important – older children might understand inequality better or maybe they're able to hold multiple pieces of information in mind or maybe they've had more experience, we don't know what the mechanism is for this. In Adolosence: prosocial behavior towards friends increases steadily. Prosocial behavior towards family is relatively stable until about mid adolescence and then it increases into late adolescence. And we also see that girls and boys demonstrate different levels but not necessarily different trajectories This study shows that during experimental examinations of prosocial behavior through reciprocal giving, there is a decrease in giving to antagonists that emerges between 15 and 18. So it's not that individuals just give generally, but they are more selective in who they give to. Infant Prosociality: starts to develop very early in childhood Overarching trends – develops in early childhood – as young as three months old – individuals engage in helping behaviour (based on parent report which is a bit tricky because reports includes a lot of behaviors that parents deem prosocial). Aknin et al 2012: Pay Attention to this study!! Children before the age of 2 are happier after engaging in costly giving where they forfeit their own resources than when they give at no cost to themselves or when they receive a treat themselves. Hamlin 2014: Children (as young as 4.5 months) display context dependent social preferences - they're more likely to reach for helpers of prosocial others and hinders of antisocial others i.e., they prefer those who help “good” people and those who hurt “bad” people: Phase 1: The cow puppet is trying to open the box. In the prosocial condition, the pig helps the cow open the box. In the antisocial condition, the pig sits on the box and prevents the cow from opening it. Phase2: A new bear puppet is introduced, and the cow is gone The bear either gives the pig a ball or takes the ball away. Now, if the pig was helpful in phase one, so the pig that helped the cow open the box, then the infant likes the bear that gives the pig the ball. So they like who plays with the helpful pig. If the pig was mean in phase one, the infants like the bear that punishes the pig that takes the ball away. So they like the bears that are prosocial to prosocial others and they like the bears that are punishing to antisocial others. punishing anti-social individuals seems to be similarly preferred by infants as helping pro-social individuals. So you might interpret this as a sign of moral development rather than just a preference for positive acts. So if they were just happy about happy things, they would just like the bear that played with the pig and they'd be like, that's cool. This is all good. But actually, this is a moral development where they're like, if you are not a good person yourself, then you need to be punished. Summary: Infants as young as 4.5 months can evaluate social context and prefer those who help “good” people and those who hurt “bad” people Adolescent Prosociality Second overarching trend is that prosocial behaviour in adolescence is based on individual difference factors - some people show increases, others show decreases and some show no change. Prosociality can be influenced and driven by risk taking during adolescence or by empathy, which can lead to individual differences. Motivational component might send people on different trajectories Increased social sensitivity during adolescence means costly prosocial behavior (i.e., “risky” prosocial behaviours) are most likely to occur in the social domain: Do et al. (2017) Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Same neural circuitry that typically underlies risky behaviors also contributes to prosocial behaviors in adolescents: “Prosocial Risk Taking”: teens can make risky decisions with the intention of helping others. Adolescence is a sensitive period for emergence of prosocial especially within a wide variety of social context when increased sensitivity to social evaluation and belonging impacts their behaviors (from Do et al Abstract) Born out of idea have mixed trends in adolescence compared to more general trends in other life periods. Teens are more socially sensitive - like to take risks and like to make friends – interact To result in individual differences in prosocial behavior. prosocial behavior in adolescence seems to be more based on individual difference factors and some people show increases whereas others show decreases or no change. prosocial behavior in adolescence isn't universal. one reason for this might be the influence of whether prosocial is driven by risk taking during adolescence or by empathy, which can lead to individual differences. the motivational component here might send people on different trajectories, e.g., individuals with high pro social tendencies, but low risk taking, are “empathetic bystanders”. They might feel very empathetic, but they might not engage in prosocial behavior because it feels too risky or they're risk averse or individuals with high risk-taking tendencies, but low prosocial tendencies are anti-social risk takers and they may engage in risks that are more maladaptive like bullying or drug use, but not so much with pro social behavior, there’s also the social component: adolescents show a peak in social sensitivity so the most likely time when they're going to engage in costly prosocial behavior is in the social domain when there may be a lot of cost to their social standing the reason the development of prosocial behaviour goes awry in adolescence (and why there is such a high degree of individual differences in prosocial behaviour) might be due to this interaction between risk taking and social salience. the individual differences in engaging in risk taking and social sensitivity lead to inconsistent trends in prosocial behavior – so they take risks but they also care about what’s going on socially – it’s messy Risk Taking and Prosocial Behaviour Reward and cognitive control regions overlap for prosocial behavior and risk taking and for prosocial behavior. It may be that during adolescence, when the reward system is heightened and drives behavior., so the individual doesn’t receive reward signals for the risky behavior, they might not behave pro socially. If the reward system is not really amplified, they may not be motivated to engage in risky pro-social behavior and they may not have that cognitive control system to override their natural inclination to protect themselves and behave in a self-interested manner. Social salience increases prosocial & antisocial influences Heightened social salience means they are susceptible to both prosocial and antisocial influences. The susceptibility decreases across the adolescent period as we would expect. Ahmed et al 2020: In this study, adolescents were shown statements like “I'd help raise money for charity” and then they rate their own likelihood of engaging in that behavior. They then see a peer rating for the same statement (ie on average your peers said they would be ### likely to do that thing). The individuals then rated the likelihood of them doing that behavior again. The graph at the bottom shows the shift in rating. The younger participants shifted their rating more than older participant and this was the same for both prosocial and antisocial behaviors. So one of the drivers is who they’re spending time with and the perceived risk in their behaviors Adult Prosociality How much effort and under what circumstances will adults behave prosocially? Here adults had to put in physical effort to engage in a self or another benefiting act. Younger adults are somewhat selfish, choosing to work at higher levels for themselves. But as people age, they are more likely to put in physical effort at equal levels for themselves and others. This is interesting because physical effort might be more difficult for people as they age – so perhaps the costs are actually greater for older adults. Cutler et al 2021. There is also an effect of recipient with older participants being more prosocial with in group (national) recipients than out group (international) recipients. SUMMARY Prosocial trends across development: Context or inequity, identity, and experience of the recipient and of the actor Prosocial behaviour is observed in infancy (3 months) with increasing complexity by 4.5 months. Toddlers that preferred giving away candy than getting it back Prosocial behaviour seems to vary more individually during adolescence Perhaps due to interaction between reward & cognitive control (prosocial risk taking) Prosocial behaviour increases across adulthood and there is an effect of the recipient and the actor. Implications for wellbeing Generally prosocial behaviour is corelated with increased wellbeing – is nuanced Prosociality and Wellbeing: Children: effects across multiple contexts More prosocial behaviour had multiple effects Prosocial behaviour reduced psychopathological symptoms over time (and vice versa) This is called a “positive cascade”. children engage in prosocial behaviour they develop patterns that are adaptive – becomes incompatible with problematic outcomes. Adolescent Prosociality: Peers Chavez et al 2022 longitudinal study inferred causal relationships between the acceptance of peers and prosociality : positive relationship between acceptance and prosociality negative relationship between rejection and prosociality Did not show bi-directionality (but it might be) as rejection seems to be bi-directional – rejection at T1 predicted less prosociality at T2. Adolescent Prosociality: Emotion Regulation High prosociality is correlated with higher emotion regulation. Adolescents who are prosocial also demonstrate better emotion regulation capacity Individuals who use cognitive emotion regulation strategies can create greater cognitive flexibility and more cognitive control to respond to the environment (and the needs of others) and promotes caring of others. Suppression also requires regulatory capacity but not necessarily of the same kind of cognitive flexibility and engaging in shifting negative affect down and positive affect/aspect up – suppression does not change the emotional state it just changes the behavioural display and we know that positive emotion is related to prosocial behaviour Li et al 2020: cognitive reappraisal is positively associated with prosocial behaviour, whereas expressive suppression, a less advantageous emotion regulation strategy, was negatively associated with prosocial behaviour. Adolescent Prosociality: Psychopathology There's something about down regulating negative emotion, and increasing positive emotion that can help prosocial adolescents have fewer internalising and externalising symptoms Lacey et al 2021: Having less adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may help children develop better emotion regulation skills, which in turn make them better at interacting in social context, gaining social support, feeding back into that pro social cascade. There's evidence in adults to show that prosocial behaviour safeguards against mental health problems and fosters well-being. In this study, subjects were assigned to a five week intervention where they engaged in either prosocial acts or in neutral acts. Prosocial individuals saw a reduction in anxiety and depression and an increase in happiness and valued life SUMMARY: Implications for wellbeing We see a positive cascade: increased prosociality is associated with increased wellbeing (across cultures) increased peer acceptance (and less peer rejection which also improves prosocial behavior) better emotion regulation (or at least selection of more adaptive emotion regulation strategies such as cognitive reappraisal). fewer internalizing and externalizing symptoms as well as with psychopathology SO prosociality has these positive effects but we do not know how to increase prosocial behaviour 1. A rat intentionally and quickly opens a restraint to help a distressed cage mate to escape is an example of prosocial behaviour, specifically A. Emotional need by giving comfort B. Goal directed need by giving targeted help C. Material need by sharing resources D. A and B are true. 2. The dlPFC region of the brain is activated when engaging in what type of prosociality? A. Giving away money to help others B. Costly prosociality C. All of the answers are correct D. When controlling impulses to protect ourselves and also think of others 3. According to Wu and Hong (2022) prosocial behaviour sits in which quadrant A. Between antagonistic and primarily other-benefiting B. Between antagonistic and primarily self-benefiting C. Between affiliative and primarily other-benefiting D. Between affiliative and primarily self- benefiting 4. Prosociality is motivated by positive emotions because A. It prompts survival responses. B. It helps us look outside ourselves towards others. C. It’s often in response to an immediate need. D. it’s connected to empathy. 5. Costly giving is involved in A. cognitive control B. when toddlers forfeits a found treat as opposed to their own treat C. dlPFC regions of the brain D. A and C Answers: Q1 (D), Q2 (C), Q3 (C), Q4 (B), Q5 (D)

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