Intertemporal prosocial behavior: a review and research agenda

Research on intertemporal and prosocial decisions has largely developed in separate strands of literature. However, many of the decisions we make occur at the intersection of these two dimensions (intertemporal and prosocial). Trust is an example, where a decision today is made with the expectation that another person will reciprocate (or betray) later. A new literature is emerging to explore the role of time in these types of situations, where time and social considerations are intertwined. In many cases, time introduces (or magnifies) an element of uncertainty about future outcomes and utility that people need to deal with - what will happen, how good will it be, how will it feel. We review this emerging literature on intertemporal prosocial decision-making and discuss how new research can fill existing knowledge gaps.

Victim identifiability, number of victims, and unit asking in charitable giving

This study examines the identifiable victim effect (being more willing to help an identified victim than an unidentified), the singularity effect (i.e., being more willing to help a single identified victim than a group of identified victims), and unit asking (first asking donors for their willingness to donate for one unit and then asking for donations for multiple units) in charitable giving. In five studies (N = 7996), we vary the level of identifiability, singularity, and group size. We find that unit asking is making people more sensitive to the number of people in need. Further, while the level of identifiability influences affective reactions, this effect does not extend to donations and, thus, is not affected by unit asking. We do, however, find an "emotion asking effect" where asking donors to rate their affect before donating increase donation levels (compared to donors asked to rate affect after). Emotion asking was attenuated when combined with unit asking.

Anger and disgust shape judgments of social sanctions across cultures, especially in high individual autonomy societies

When someone violates a social norm, others may think that some sanction would be appropriate. We examine how the experience of emotions like anger and disgust relate to the judged appropriateness of sanctions, in a pre-registered analysis of data from a large-scale study in 56 societies. Across the world, we find that individuals who experience anger and disgust over a norm violation are more likely to endorse confrontation, ostracism and, to a smaller extent, gossip. Moreover, we find that the experience of anger is consistently the strongest predictor of judgments of confrontation, compared to other emotions. Although the link between state-based emotions and judgments may seem universal, its strength varies across countries. Aligned with theoretical predictions, this link is stronger in societies, and among individuals, that place higher value on individual autonomy. Thus, autonomy values may increase the role that emotions play in guiding judgments of social sanctions.

Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Effectively reducing climate change requires marked, global behavior change. However, it is unclear which strategies are most likely to motivate people to change their climate beliefs and behaviors. Here, we tested 11 expert-crowdsourced interventions on four climate mitigation outcomes: beliefs, policy support, information sharing intention, and an effortful tree-planting behavioral task. Across 59,440 participants from 63 countries, the interventions' effectiveness was small, largely limited to nonclimate skeptics, and differed across outcomes: Beliefs were strengthened mostly by decreasing psychological distance (by 2.3%), policy support by writing a letter to a future-generation member (2.6%), information sharing by negative emotion induction (12.1%), and no intervention increased the more effortful behavior-several interventions even reduced tree planting. Last, the effects of each intervention differed depending on people's initial climate beliefs. These findings suggest that the impact of behavioral climate interventions varies across audiences and target behaviors.

Affective responses drive the impact neglect in sustainable behavior

We need unparalleled human behavioral changes to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, recent studies suggest that people are not good at identifying mitigative behaviors that are effective in reducing carbon emissions. Thus, even when there is an intention to engage in climate action, people are not necessarily making the most effective choices. This suggests that there is an impact of neglecting in evaluative judgments about mitigative behaviors. Here, using an online survey (N = 555), we show that people have a rather poor understanding of the mitigation potential of human behaviors, and both impact judgments and the likelihood of adoption of mitigative behaviors are largely influenced by emotional processes. These findings have potential implications for how to motivate impactful climate action in the future and point toward the importance to fully understand how affect and emotions influence impact judgments and pro-environmental behavior.

Dual-process theory is Barbapapa

The biggest benefit of dual-process theory lies in its role as a benchmark theory that, regardless of its empirical plausibility, serves as a starting point for better and more domain-specific models. In this sense, dual-process theory is the Barbapapa of psychological theory - a blob-shaped creature that can be reshaped and adapted to fit in the context of any human behavior.

A causal link between mental imagery and affect-laden perception of climate change related risks

Previous studies have shed light on the importance of affect in risk perception and the role of mental imagery in generating affect. In the current study, we explore the causal relationship between mental imagery, affect, and risk perception by systematically varying the level of mental imagery in three levels (i.e., enhanced, spontaneous, or prevented). In light of the increasing environmental risk of adverse events caused by climate change, we operationalize risk as participants' perceived risk of climate change. One-thousand-fifty-five participants were recruited online and randomized to one of three levels of mental imagery. As predicted, we found a causal link between the level of mental imagery, affective experience, and perceived risk of climate change, in that enhanced mental imagery caused a larger decrease in positive affective valence and a larger increase in perceived risk of climate change. We argue that mental imagery enhances the negative affect associated with the risk event by creating a perceptual experience that mimics seeing the environmental risk events.

Social and moral psychology of COVID-19 across 69 countries

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables.

Individual differences in environmental wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviors explained by self-control

Climate change is an increasing problem, with more extreme weather conditions and rising temperatures. To fulfill the temperature goals of the Paris agreement a societal change is needed, a change that requires a shift of lifestyle from all of us. If we want to change our behaviors to more sustainable ones, we need to sacrifice substantial things today to improve a future, which often seems distant and abstract. People with high level of self-control have been shown to have a better ability to visualize future events, which makes self-control an interesting trait to look at in relation to pro-environmental behavior. The aim of this study was to examine how self-control correlates with environmental well-being and environmental behavior. An internet-based survey was sent to a representative Swedish sample (n = 602). The respondents were asked to fill out a newly developed scale measuring their anxiety and security regarding environmental matters (environmental wellbeing), as well as indicate how often they engage in six different pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., turning lights off when leaving the room). Additionally, data on the respondents' gender, age, political orientation, and self-control was collected. Our results suggest a positive correlation between self-control and environmental wellbeing and a weaker, but still positive, correlation between self-control and some pro-environmental behaviors. Additionally, respondents who identified themselves as politically left had lower environmental wellbeing, while men had higher environmental wellbeing, but behaved less environmentally friendly. Thus, our results suggest that political orientation was a better predictor of sound environmental behavior than subjective self-control was.

Structured reflection increases intentions to reduce other people's health risks during COVID-19

People believe they should consider how their behavior might negatively impact other people, Yet their behavior often increases others' health risks. This creates challenges for managing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined a procedure wherein people reflect on their personal criteria regarding how their behavior impacts others' health risks. We expected structured reflection to increase people's intentions and decisions to reduce others' health risks. Structured reflection increases attention to others' health risks and the correspondence between people's personal criteria and behavioral intentions. In four experiments during COVID-19, people (N  = 12,995) reported their personal criteria about how much specific attributes, including the impact on others' health risks, should influence their behavior. Compared with control conditions, people who engaged in structured reflection reported greater intentions to reduce business capacity (experiment 1) and avoid large social gatherings (experiments 2 and 3). They also donated more to provide vaccines to refugees (experiment 4). These effects emerged across seven countries that varied in collectivism and COVID-19 case rates (experiments 1 and 2). Structured reflection was distinct from instructions to carefully deliberate (experiment 3). Structured reflection increased the correlation between personal criteria and behavioral intentions (experiments 1 and 3). And structured reflection increased donations more among people who scored lower in cognitive reflection compared with those who scored higher in cognitive reflection (experiment 4). These findings suggest that structured reflection can effectively increase behaviors to reduce public health risks.

Moral spillover in carbon offset judgments

Moral spillover occurs when a morally loaded behavior becomes associated with another source. In the current paper, we addressed whether the moral motive behind causing CO₂ emissions spills over on to how much people think is needed to compensate for the emissions. Reforestation (planting trees) is a common carbon-offset technique. With this in mind, participants estimated the number of trees needed to compensate for the carbon emissions from vehicles that were traveling with various moral motives. Two experiments revealed that people think larger carbon offsets are needed to compensate for the emissions when the emissions are caused by traveling for immoral reasons, in comparison with when caused by traveling for moral reasons. Hence, moral motives influence people’s judgments of carbon-offset requirements even though these motives have no bearing on what is compensated for. Moreover, the effect was insensitive to individual differences in carbon literacy and gender and to the unit (kilograms or tons) in which the CO₂ emissions were expressed to the participants. The findings stress the role of emotion in how people perceive carbon offsetting.

Religious affiliation seldom seems to influence hiring or competence ratings of job applicants: studies conducted in Sweden and in the USA

BACKGROUND

Religion is an important ingroup characteristic for many people. For different reasons, people with different religious affiliations might prefer members of their religious outgroup. Previous studies have investigated perceptions of and behaviour toward religious ingroup and outgroup members in various contexts. The four studies presented here investigated whether competence and likeability ratings differ depending on the target's and participant's religious affiliations in a recruitment context. Two studies were conducted in Sweden, while the other two were conducted in the USA.

METHODS

Participants in 4 studies rated a Christian, Muslim or atheist job applicant and a control applicant on 4 competence and 3 likeability items on 7-point Likert scales. The difference in ratings between the target applicant and control applicant was used to measure perceived competence and likeability of the target applicant. In the two latter studies, one in Sweden and one in the USA, participants also chose to hire either the target or the control applicant.

RESULTS

Overall, participants in three studies rated control applicants as more likeable than target applicants. In the two US studies, targets were also rated as less competent than control applicants. Christian participants in the two US studies rated the Christian applicant as more likeable than both other targets. In the second US study, atheist participants rated Christians as less likeable than both other targets. In one of the Swedish studies, atheist participants rated the atheist applicant as more likeable than both other targets. The only significant difference in competence ratings between targets was made by Christian Swedes, who rated Muslim applicants as less competent than Christian applicants. The only significant difference in hiring decisions was that Swedish atheist participants hired Christians less often than they hired control applicants.

CONCLUSION

Together, the results suggest that job applicants are sometimes viewed as more likeable if they belong to a religious ingroup rather than a religious outgroup, but that this only rarely translate to significant differences in competence ratings or hiring decisions.

COVID-19 and Politically Motivated Reasoning

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world witnessed a partisan segregation of beliefs toward the global health crisis and its management. Politically motivated reasoning, the tendency to interpret information in accordance with individual motives to protect valued beliefs rather than objectively considering the facts, could represent a key process involved in the polarization of attitudes. The objective of this study was to explore politically motivated reasoning when participants assess information regarding COVID-19.

Design

We carried out a preregistered online experiment using a diverse sample (N = 1,500) from the United States. Both Republicans and Democrats assessed the same COVID-19–related information about the health effects of lockdowns, social distancing, vaccination, hydroxychloroquine, and wearing face masks.

Results

At odds with our prestated hypothesis, we found no evidence in line with politically motivated reasoning when interpreting numerical information about COVID-19. Moreover, we found no evidence supporting the idea that numeric ability or cognitive sophistication bolster politically motivated reasoning in the case of COVID-19. Instead, our findings suggest that participants base their assessment on prior beliefs of the matter.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that politically polarized attitudes toward COVID-19 are more likely to be driven by lack of reasoning than politically motivated reasoning—a finding that opens potential avenues for combating political polarization about important health care topics.

Highlights

The effect of herd immunity thresholds on willingness to vaccinate

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, media and policymakers openly speculated about the number of immune citizens needed to reach a herd immunity threshold. What are the effects of such numerical goals on the willingness to vaccinate? In a large representative sample (N = 1540) of unvaccinated Swedish citizens, we find that giving a low (60%) compared to a high (90%) threshold has direct effects on beliefs about reaching herd immunity and beliefs about how many others that will get vaccinated. Presenting the high threshold makes people believe that herd immunity is harder to reach (on average about half a step on a seven-point scale), compared to the low threshold. Yet at the same time, people also believe that a higher number of the population will get vaccinated (on average about 3.3% more of the population). Since these beliefs affect willingness to vaccinate in opposite directions, some individuals are encouraged and others discouraged depending on the threshold presented. Specifically, in mediation analysis, the high threshold indirectly increases vaccination willingness through the belief that many others will get vaccinated (B = 0.027, p = 0.003). At the same time, the high threshold also decreases vaccination willingness through the belief that the threshold goal is less attainable (B = -0.053, p < 0.001) compared to the low threshold condition. This has consequences for ongoing COVID-19 vaccination and future vaccination campaigns. One message may not fit all, as different groups can be encouraged or discouraged from vaccination.

Motivated Down-Regulation of Emotion and Compassion Collapse Revisited

Compassion collapse is a phenomenon where feelings and helping behavior decrease as the number of needy increases. But what are the underlying mechanisms for compassion collapse? Previous research has attempted to pit two explanations: Limitations of the feeling system vs. motivated down-regulation of emotion, against each other. In this article, we critically reexamine a previous study comparing these two accounts published in 2011 and present new data that contest motivated down-regulation of emotion as the primary explanation for compassion collapse.

Predicting attitudinal and behavioral responses to COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multinational data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution-individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar results were found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, and collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-neglible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic.

The continuous and changing impact of affect on risky decision-making

Affective experience has an important role in decision-making with recent theories suggesting a modulatory role of affect in ongoing subjective value computations. However, it is unclear how varying expectations and uncertainty dynamically influence affective experience and how dynamic representation of affect modulates risky choices. Using hierarchical Bayesian modeling on data from a risky choice task (N = 101), we find that the temporal integration of recently encountered choice parameters (expected value, uncertainty, and prediction errors) shapes affective experience and impacts subsequent choice behavior. Specifically, self-reported arousal prior to choice was associated with increased loss aversion, risk aversion, and choice consistency. Taken together, these findings provide clear behavioral evidence for continuous affective modulation of subjective value computations during risky decision-making.

National identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic

Changing collective behaviour and supporting non-pharmaceutical interventions is an important component in mitigating virus transmission during a pandemic. In a large international collaboration (Study 1, N = 49,968 across 67 countries), we investigated self-reported factors associated with public health behaviours (e.g., spatial distancing and stricter hygiene) and endorsed public policy interventions (e.g., closing bars and restaurants) during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic (April-May 2020). Respondents who reported identifying more strongly with their nation consistently reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies. Results were similar for representative and non-representative national samples. Study 2 (N = 42 countries) conceptually replicated the central finding using aggregate indices of national identity (obtained using the World Values Survey) and a measure of actual behaviour change during the pandemic (obtained from Google mobility reports). Higher levels of national identification prior to the pandemic predicted lower mobility during the early stage of the pandemic (r = -0.40). We discuss the potential implications of links between national identity, leadership, and public health for managing COVID-19 and future pandemics.

The goal-relevance of affective stimuli is dynamically represented in affective experience

Affect is a continuous and temporally dependent process that represents an individual's ongoing relationship with its environment. However, there is a lack of evidence on how factors defining the dynamic sensory environment modulate changes in momentary affective experience. Here, we show that goal-dependent relevance of stimuli is a key factor shaping momentary affect in a dynamic context. Participants (N = 83) viewed sequentially presented images and reported their momentary affective experience after every fourth stimulus. Relevance was manipulated through an attentional task that rendered each image either task-relevant or task-irrelevant. Computational models were fitted to trial-by-trial affective responses to capture the key dynamic parameters explaining momentary affective experience. The findings from statistical analyses and computational models showed that momentary affective experience was shaped by the temporal integration of the affective impact of recently encountered stimuli, and that task-relevant stimuli, independent of stimulus affect, prompted larger changes in experienced pleasantness compared with task-irrelevant stimuli. These findings clearly show that dynamics of affective experience reflect goal-relevance of stimuli in our surroundings.

Trust in the government increases financial well-being and general well-being during COVID-19

We investigate the antecedents of subjective financial well-being and general well-being during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In an online survey conducted in the midst of COVID-19 pandemic with over 1000 Swedish participants we found that distrust in the government to cope with financial (but not healthcare) challenges of the pandemic was negatively related to the feeling of financial security. In a structural equation model, we also show that trust in government to deal with financial challenges of COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on general well-being through the mediating channel of financial well-being. In addition, trust in government to deal with healthcare challenges of COVID-19 pandemic has a significant direct impact on individuals' general well-being. Our findings have important implications for public policy as they highlight the importance of citizens' trust in well-functioning governmental institutions to help cope with not only healthcare, but also financial challenges of an ongoing pandemic.

Investigating the Neural Correlates of the Affect Heuristic Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

This study investigated the neural correlates of the so-called "affect heuristic," which refers to the phenomenon whereby individuals tend to rely on affective states rather than rational deliberation of utility and probabilities during judgments of risk and utility of a given event or scenario. The study sought to explore whether there are shared regional activations during both judgments of relative risk and relative benefit of various scenarios, thus being a potential candidate of the affect heuristic. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we developed a novel risk perception task, based on a preexisting behavioral task assessing the affect heuristic. A whole-brain voxel-wise analysis of a sample of participants (n = 42) during the risk and benefit conditions revealed overlapping clusters in the left insula, left inferior frontal gyrus, and left medial frontal gyrus across conditions. Extraction of parameter estimates of these clusters revealed that activity of these regions during both tasks was inversely correlated with a behavioral measure assessing the inclination to use the affect heuristic. More activity in these areas during risk judgments reflect individuals' ability to disregard momentary affective impulses. The insula may be involved in integrating viscero-somatosensory information and forming a representation of the current emotional state of the body, whereas activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and medial frontal gyrus indicates that executive processes may be involved in inhibiting the impulse of making judgments in favor of deliberate risk evaluations.