The altruistic personality: In what contexts is it apparent?

The influence of altruistic personality, interpersonal distance and social observation on prosocial behavior: An event-related potential (ERP) study

The psychological mechanisms that high and low altruists exhibit in different contexts remain unknown. This study examined the underlying mechanisms of the effect of altruistic personality, social observation, and interpersonal distance on prosocial behavior using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants with high and low altruism were asked to make prosocial or non-prosocial choices toward different interpersonal distances (friends, acquaintances, or strangers) under the (non)observer condition. The electrophysiological responses to the choice stimuli were simultaneously recorded. The behavioral results demonstrated that high altruists had more prosocial choices, and these choices were unaffected by interpersonal distance and social observation. However, low altruists made more prosocial choices toward friends and acquaintances under the observer than nonobserver conditions, whereas their prosocial choices toward strangers showed no difference. The ERP results demonstrated that low altruists showed more negative N2 when the choice stimuli were toward strangers and acquaintances or under the nonobserver condition. Furthermore, low altruists showed larger P3 under the observer than nonobserver conditions when the choice stimuli were toward friends and acquaintances, while this difference was absent when the choice stimuli were toward strangers. However, for high altruists, no effect of interpersonal distance and social observation was observed in N2 and P3. These results suggest that the prosocial behavior of low altruists is mainly driven by reputational incentives, whereas high altruists are primarily motivated by concern about the well-being of others. Our findings provide insights into the prosocial behavior of high and low altruists in different contexts and support the empathy-altruism hypothesis.

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.

Altruistic preferences of pre-service teachers: The mediating role of empathic concern and the moderating role of self-control

Empathy and altruistic behavior are more crucial abilities for pre-service teachers to possess when compared with other study fields. The relationship between empathy and altruistic behavior in Chinese pre-service teachers and their underlying mechanisms, however, has received relatively little attention in the literature. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to examine the links between study fields (i.e., pre-service teachers whose study field is pedagogy and non-pre-service teachers whose study field is non-pedagogy), self-control, emotional empathy (i.e., empathic concern), and altruistic preferences among undergraduates and graduates in five Chinese universities (the age range of participants is 18-20 years; 58.4% women) with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C Questionnaire, the Self-Control Scale, and the Chinese Self-Report Altruism Scale tests. The results showed a significant difference between pre-service and non-pre-service teachers in empathic concern and self-control. Furthermore, empathic concern and altruistic behavior tendency of pre-service teachers were significantly higher than those of non-pre-service teachers. Moreover, mediation analyses indicated that empathic concern partially mediated the relationship between study fields and altruistic tendency. Moderated mediation analysis further revealed that self-control buffered the relation between empathic concern and altruistic behavior tendency. These results demonstrate that altruistic tendency of pre-service teachers is influenced by empathic concern and self-control.

Combating Misinformation by Sharing the Truth: a Study on the Spread of Fact-Checks on Social Media

Misinformation on social media has become a horrendous problem in our society. Fact-checks on information often fall behind the diffusion of misinformation, which can lead to negative impacts on society. This research studies how different factors may affect the spread of fact-checks over the internet. We collected a dataset of fact-checks in a six-month period and analyzed how they spread on Twitter. The spread of fact-checks is measured by the total retweet count. The factors/variables include the truthfulness rating, topic of information, source credibility, etc. The research identifies truthfulness rating as a significant factor: conclusive fact-checks (either true or false) tend to be shared more than others. In addition, the source credibility, political leaning, and the sharing count also affect the spread of fact-checks. The findings of this research provide practical insights into accelerating the spread of the truth in the battle against misinformation online.

Volunteerism in the last year as a moderator between empathy and altruistic social value orientation: an exploratory study

BACKGROUND

Volunteerism is a sustained prosocial activity, and young adults are one of the most important targets for organizations recruiting volunteers. Empathy and altruistic social value orientation measured by a decomposed game are dispositional traits that might foster engagement in volunteerism.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

Using a self-report online-based questionnaire study on two groups of young adults (aged 18-35, N = 224 non-volunteers and N = 178 volunteers in the last year) the relationship between empathy and altruistic social value orientation in both of these groups was explored.

RESULTS

The results showed that volunteers scored significantly higher on empathy and altruistic social value orientation than non-volunteers. In non-volunteers, empathy is positively linked to altruistic social value orientation, whereas for volunteers the relationship is inversed.

CONCLUSIONS

The results provide evidence that volunteers, when high on empathy, might not necessarily be ready to share financial resources with others, as operationalized by a decomposed game.

Latent profiles of multidimensional prosocial behaviors: An examination of prosocial personality groups

The current study sought to determine how prosocial behaviors reflecting various motivations (altruistic and public prosocial behaviors) and situations (i.e., anonymous, compliant, dire, and emotional prosocial behaviors) jointly inform subtypes of prosocial personality groups. Undergraduates (N = 324, M age = 19.47 years, 80% female) completed a measure of these six prosocial behaviors (Prosocial Tendencies Measure-Revised). Latent profile analysis results supported a three-group solution: altruistic helpers (AH), public helpers (PH), and altruistic idealists (AI). The AH and AI profiles were defined by elevated altruistic prosocial behaviors, but the AH profile was higher on situational helping and socioemotive and sociocognitive correlates. The PH profile was characterized by elevated public prosocial behaviors and moderate levels of situational helping. These identified profiles support multiple competing ideas of the true nature of prosocial personality, but also introduce the possibility that some individuals idealize motives but fail to engage in behavior.

Altruistic personality in the context of the empathy–altruism hypothesis

In this study the influence of the altruistic personality in general and social responsibility in particular on prosocial behaviour were investigated in the context of the empathy–altruism hypothesis. In an experiment 56 female participants had an opportunity to help a person in distress. In this setting, ease of escape without helping was manipulated. In addition, on the basis of their self‐reports of situation‐specific emotions, participants were divided into an empathic‐concern and a personal‐distress group. The results of the 2 (ease of escape) × 2 (predominant emotional response) design were in agreement with the empathy–altruism hypothesis. Further results indicated that in the easy‐escape condition an altruistic motivation prevailed, whereas in the difficult‐escape condition an egoistic motivation was more dominant. Besides the full scale, two subscales of social responsibility were formed: Moral Fulfilment of the Justified Expectations of Others and Adherence to Social Prescriptions. The full social responsibility scale was significantly related to helpfulness only in the difficult‐escape condition. Further analyses including the subscales showed that the component Moral Fulfilment of the Justified Expectations of Others correlated positively with helping in the easy‐escape condition. Results were interpreted as showing that specific profiles of personality variables are associated with helpfulness in the easy‐escape and difficult‐escape conditions. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

When the killing has been done: Exploring associations of personality with third-party judgment and punishment of homicides in moral dilemma scenarios

Killing people is universally considered reprehensible and evokes in observers a need to punish perpetrators. Here, we explored how observers' personality is associated with their cognitive, emotional, and punishing reactions towards perpetrators using data from 1,004 participants who responded to a set of fifteen third-party perspective moral dilemmas. Among those, four scenarios (architect, life boat, footbridge, smother for dollars) describing deliberate killings were compared to investigate the role of the content features "motive for killing" (selfish vs. utilitarian) and "evitability of victims' death". Participants' moral appropriateness ratings, emotions towards perpetrators, and assigned punishments revealed complex scenario-personality interactions. Trait psychopathy was associated with harsher punishments in all scenarios but also with less concern about killing in general, an increased moral appreciation of utilitarian motives for killing, and a reduced concern about the killing of avoidable victims. Need for cognition was associated with considering a utilitarian motive for killing as a mitigating factor, while intuitive/authority-obedient thinking was linked to a strong focus on avoidability of harm as an aggravating factor when assigning punishments. Other-oriented empathy, trait anxiety, and justice sensitivity did not account for differences in third-party punishments. Our explorative findings highlight the importance of inter-individual differences for moral decision making and sense of justice.

The relation between bystanders' behavioral reactivity to distress and later helping behavior during a violent conflict in virtual reality

The occurrence of helping behavior is thought to be automatically triggered by reflexive reactions and promoted by intuitive decisions. Here, we studied whether reflexive reactions to an emergency situation are associated with later helping behavior in a different situation, a violent conflict. First, 29 male supporters of F.C. Barcelona performed a cued-reaction time task with a low and high cognitive load manipulation, to tap into reflexive and reflective processes respectively, during the observation of an emergency. Next, participants entered a bar in Virtual Reality and had a conversation with a virtual fellow supporter. During this conversation, a virtual Real Madrid supporter entered and started an aggressive argument with the fellow supporter that escalated into a physical fight. Verbal and physical interventions of the participant served as measures of helping behavior. Results showed that faster responses to an emergency situation during low, but not during high cognitive load, were associated with more interventions during the violent conflict. However, a tendency to describe the decision to act during the violent conflict as intuitive and reflex-like was related to more interventions. Further analyses revealed that a disposition to experience sympathy, other-oriented feelings during distressful situations, was related to self-reported intuitive decision-making, a reduced distance to the perpetrator, and higher in the intervening participants. Taken together, these results shed new light on helping behavior and are consistent with the notion of a motivational system in which the act of helping is dependent on a complex interplay between intuitive, reflexive and deliberate, reflective processes.

Measuring Prosocial Tendencies in Germany: Sources of Validity and Reliablity of the Revised Prosocial Tendency Measure

The prosocial tendencies measure (PTM; Carlo and Randall, 2002) is a widely used measurement for prosocial tendencies in English speaking participants. This instrument distinguishes between six different types of prosocial tendencies that partly share some common basis, but also can be opposed to each other. To examine these constructs in Germany, a study with 1067 participants was conducted. The study investigated the structure of this German version of the PTM-R via exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations with similar constructs in subsamples as well as via measurement invariance test concerning the original English version. The German translation showed a similar factor structure to the English version in exploratory factor analysis and in confirmatory factor analysis. Measurement invariance was found between the English and German language versions of the PTM and support for the proposed six-factor structure (altruistic, anonymous, compliant, dire, emotional and public prosocial behavior) was also found in confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, the expected interrelations of these factors of prosocial behavior tendencies were obtained. Finally, correlations of the prosocial behavior tendencies with validating constructs and behaviors were found. Thus, the findings stress the importance of seeing prosocial behavior not as a single dimension construct, but as a factored construct which now can also be assessed in German speaking participants.

The Relationship between Personality and Discretionary Helping Behaviors

The relationship between personality and helping behaviors in three different contexts was examined in a field study. In a sample of 178 employees from three professional organizations, measures of the Big Five Personality factors were found to be related to discretionary helping behaviors performed in the context of one's home, workplace and the larger society. Collectively, the five personality factors accounted for 7% of the variance in Household Activities and Chores, 26% of the variance in Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and 10% of the variance in Volun-teerism. Implications of these relations are discussed.

Personal distress and the influence of bystanders on responding to an emergency

Spontaneous helping behavior during an emergency is influenced by the personality of the onlooker and by social situational factors such as the presence of bystanders. Here, we sought to determine the influences of sympathy, an other-oriented response, and personal distress, a self-oriented response, on the effect of bystanders during an emergency. In four experiments, we investigated whether trait levels of sympathy and personal distress predicted responses to an emergency in the presence of bystanders by using behavioral measures and single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation. Sympathy and personal distress were expected to be associated with faster responses to an emergency without bystanders present, but only personal distress would predict slower responses to an emergency with bystanders present. The results of a cued reaction time task showed that people who reported higher levels of personal distress and sympathy responded faster to an emergency without bystanders (Exp. 1). In contrast to our predictions, perspective taking but not personal distress was associated with slower reaction times as the number of bystanders increased during an emergency (Exp. 2). However, the decrease in motor corticospinal excitability, a direct physiological measure of action preparation, with the increase in the number of bystanders was solely predicted by personal distress (Exp. 3). Incorporating cognitive load manipulations during the observation of an emergency suggested that personal distress is linked to an effect of bystanders on reflexive responding to an emergency (Exp. 4). Taken together, these results indicate that the presence of bystanders during an emergency reduces action preparation in people with a disposition to experience personal distress.

Helping Individuals or Group Members? The Role of Individual and Collective Identification in AIDS Volunteerism

This article presents a group-level perspective on helping that was tested in the context of AIDS volunteerism. It was predicted and found that homosexuals were more willing to volunteer when collective identification in terms of sexual orientation was high. The opposite trend was found for heterosexuals. Also as predicted, homosexuals were less willing to volunteer when identification as a unique individual was high, whereas the opposite was again true for heterosexuals. Thus, AIDS volunteerism emerged as a form of intragroup helping for homosexuals and as a form of interindividual helping for heterosexuals. In addition, identification with the AIDS volunteer service organization proved to be a positive predictor of AIDS volunteerism regardless of sexual orientation. Finally, two individual motivations emerged as positive predictors, namely, gaining knowledge and understanding emerged for homosexuals and expressing humanitarian values emerged for heterosexuals. The results are summarized in a dual-pathway model of volunteerism.

Traditional and Health-Related Philanthropy: The Role of Resources and Personality

I study the relationships of resources and personality characteristics to charitable giving, postmortem organ donation, and blood donation in a nationwide sample of persons in households in the Netherlands. I find that specific personality characteristics are related to specific types of giving: agreeableness to blood donation, empathic concern to charitable giving, and prosocial value orientation to postmortem organ donation. I find that giving has a consistently stronger relation to human and social capital than to personality. Human capital increases giving; social capital increases giving only when it is approved by others. Effects of prosocial personality characteristics decline at higher levels of these characteristics. Effects of empathic concern, helpfulness, and social value orientations on generosity are mediated by verbal proficiency and church attendance.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Personal distress, but not sympathy, predicts the negative influence of bystanders on responding to an emergency

At the request of the authors this article has been retracted. During the preparation of a follow-up study, a mistake was found in the experimental script of the cued reaction time task of experiment 2. Four out of six conditions were mislabeled. Consequently, the reported findings and their interpretation and discussion are incorrect. Careful reexamination and reanalyzing of the data using the correct labels revealed a pattern of results that is not entirely compatible with several of the main claims of the article. Importantly, the corrected results show that reaction times do not increase with more bystanders present at an emergency.Moreover, not only personal distress but also perspective taking predicts the negative influence of bystanders on reaction times.We believe that these new findings undermine our central claim of decreased action preparation as a function of bystanders present at an emergency and the enhancement of this effect in people with higher levels of trait personal distress. While the results and discussion of experiment 1 and 3 remain correct, the new results of experiment 2 influence the article to such an extent that we currently see no other option than to retract the article from publication. We will continue to work on this topic and hope to publish the new results in due time. We deeply regret the publication of invalid results.We sincerely apologize to the Editor and reviewers of the manuscript, and the readers of Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.

Differential reward learning for self and others predicts self-reported altruism

In social environments, decisions not only determine rewards for oneself but also for others. However, individual differences in pro-social behaviors have been typically studied through self-report. We developed a decision-making paradigm in which participants chose from card decks with differing rewards for themselves and charity; some decks gave similar rewards to both, while others gave higher rewards for one or the other. We used a reinforcement-learning model that estimated each participant's relative weighting of self versus charity reward. As shown both in choices and model parameters, individuals who showed relatively better learning of rewards for charity – compared to themselves – were more likely to engage in pro-social behavior outside of a laboratory setting indicated by self-report. Overall rates of reward learning, however, did not predict individual differences in pro-social tendencies. These results support the idea that biases toward learning about social rewards are associated with one's altruistic tendencies.

To share or not to share

Sharing is an important indicator of internalised prosocial values. We examined predictors of sharing of 302 preschoolers with their younger siblings in a one-year longitudinal study. Sharing was observed during different home visits, once with father and once with mother. We examined the following predictors: both children’s externalising behaviour, observed parental sensitivity, and situational factors. Preschoolers’ sharing was stable and increased with age. Preschoolers shared more when sharing was preceded by a structured interaction with a parent compared to free play with an unfamiliar adult. At age 4 they shared more in fathers’ presence than in mothers’ presence. Neither parental sensitivity nor child behaviour were related to sharing. These findings demonstrate stability and the importance of situational factors in the development of prosocial behaviour.

Social relationship and health among students with low social desirability

INTRODUCTION

This survey aimed to probe the associations between altruism, social support and subjective health among incoming students with low level of social desirability.

METHODS

Totally, 5,634 incoming university students were assessed and 2,472 students with a low tendency toward social desirability were recruited for analysis.

RESULTS

The results indicated that altruism and perceived social support were correlated and both could predict subjective health simultaneously. Path analysis indicated that altruism may promote health directly and indirectly by social support.

DISCUSSION

Developing curriculums to enhance altruism and social support could be an important issue for university students.

Economic Games

The psychometric properties of behaviors in economic games as indicators of stable latent dispositions of altruism and fairness were tested in two studies. Using latent state-trait analyses, we explored the factor structure of offers in the dictator game, rejection decisions in the ultimatum game, and altruistic punishment and altruistic compensation in a three-person game. Results showed that four distinct but intercorrelated latent dispositions best described the interindividual differences in these behaviors. The reliabilities and stabilities of these behaviors across 6 weeks were generally moderate to high. Correlations with self-report measures of personality suggested that offers in the dictator game and altruistic compensation reflect a concern for fairness coupled with a reluctance to harm others. Rejection decisions in the ultimatum game were correlated with competitiveness and the need for power. In sum, our results suggest that economic games have good psychometric qualities as instruments that can be used to assess stable latent dispositions and can be employed as objective personality tests sensu Cattell to gain a more complete picture of personality beyond self-reports.

Adaptação e evidências de validade da Bateria de Personalidade Prosocial no Brasil

O interesse da psicologia social e da personalidade pela disposição duradoura a agir prosocialmente resultou no desenvolvimento de instrumentos capazes de medir tal "bondade." O objetivo do presente estudo foi traduzir para o português, adaptar e avaliar as propriedades psicométricas da Bateria de Personalidade Prosocial (Prosocial Personality Battery), um instrumento desenvolvido para medir diferenças individuais na disposição de agir prosocialmente. Dois estudos foram conduzidos para testar a estrutura teórica do instrumento e produzir evidências de validade. No Estudo 1, o instrumento original foi traduzido usando o método tradução-retradução. A estrutura original foi replicada e os indicadores psicométricos observados foram próximos dos relatados originalmente. No Estudo 2, a estrutura foi novamente replicada e a análise fatorial confirmatória demonstrou que, embora ainda possam haver aprimoramentos futuros, ele replica a estrutura original e pode ser usado no Brasil para estudar o comportamento prosocial.

Analysis of Dimensions of Prosocial Behavior in an Argentinean Sample of Children

This study assessed how many motivational factors were required to explain scores for prosocial behavior, as measured by the Spanish version of the Prosocial Tendencies Measure. A sample of 472 middle class children and adolescents, both sexes, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, completed the Prosocial Tendencies Measure. This instrument presents prosocial behavior in six types: altruistic, compliant, emotional, public, anonymous, and dire. However, there is evidence that there should be a valid four-factor solution. To verify which factor structure better fit the empirical data obtained, two confirmatory analyses were performed. The results suggest that a four-factor structure (altruistic, public, anonymous, and responsive) is a more parsimonious explanation of the prosocial responses, compared to a six-factor solution. Finally the correlations between the four dimensions reinforced the hypothesis that altruism is the only prosocial behaviour that is selflessly motivated.

Volunteerism and Mortality among the Community-dwelling Elderly

Older residents (N 5 1972) in California were investigated prospectively for association of volunteering service to others and all-cause mortality. Potential confounding factors were studied: demographics, health status, physical functioning, health habits, social support, religious involvement, and emotional states. Possible interaction effects of volunteering with religious involvement and social support were also explored. Results showed that 31 percent (n 5 630) of respondents volunteered, about half (n5289) for more than one organization. High volunteers ([.greaterequal]2 organizations) had 63 percent lower mortality than nonvolunteers (age and sex-adjusted) with relative hazard (RH) 5 0.37, confidence interval (CI) 5 0.24, 0.58. Multivariate adjustment moderately reduced difference to 44 percent (RH 5 0.56, CI 5 0.35, 0.89), mostly due to physical functioning, health habits, and social support. Unexpectedly, volunteering was slightly more protective for those with high religious involvement and perceived social support. After multivariate adjustment, any level of volunteering reduced mortality by 60 percent among weekly attenders at religious services (RH 5 0.40; CI 5 0.21,0.74). Lower mortality rates for community service volunteers were only partly explained by health habits, physical functioning, religious attendance, and social support.

The role of other orientation in team selection and anticipated performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the individual difference of other orientation affects the rational calculation between team input and anticipated performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 222 junior and senior level undergraduate business students. Of those students, 176 chose to take a scheduled exam as a team endeavour. Individuals were the unit of analysis in order to determine the individuals' motivation for working in teams. Other orientation was measured using the Comparative Emphasis Scale (CES). Students were asked to report their anticipated exam grade and anticipated total team hours studied. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to determine the main effects and moderation.

Findings

Other orientation moderated the relationship between the decision to take an exam with a teammate and anticipated performance. Other orientation also moderated the relationship between the anticipated amount of effort studying and anticipated performance. In both situations, business students with higher levels of other orientation calculated the rational cost‐benefit relationship less than business students with lower levels of other orientation.

Practical implications

The findings will help educators and managers understand the process by which individuals prefer to work in teams and the perceptions of increased performance when working in a team.

Originality/value

The study extends the theoretical application of other orientation into the team performance context. The moderating effect of other orientation on the relationship between team input and performance has been studied for the first time and is documented in this paper.

The many faces of empathy and their relation to prosocial action and aggression inhibition

This article discusses the emotional reactions most commonly associated with empathy and their relation to prosocial or altruistic action, aggression inhibition, and understanding others. In What is Empathy?, I characterize the distinct emotional reactions most commonly associated with empathy: empathy, sympathy, personal distress, and emotional contagion. In Measures of Empathy, I discuss the most common measures of dispositional and situational empathy. In Empathy, Prosocial Action, and Altruism, I consider the evidence that empathy, sympathy, and personal distress induce prosocial motivation. I conclude that sympathy is most strongly associated with prosocial, even altruistic, motivation. In Empathy and Aggression Inhibition, I examine the evidence that empathy inhibits aggression. The evidence is inconclusive. In Empathy and Mindreading, I briefly discuss empathy and mindreading, with an eye toward recent evidence concerning mirror neurons. I conclude by linking our current understanding of empathy to the philosophical tradition, and by offering some speculative remarks. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:253-263. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1165 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Short-term compassion training increases prosocial behavior in a newly developed prosocial game

Compassion has been suggested to be a strong motivator for prosocial behavior. While research has demonstrated that compassion training has positive effects on mood and health, we do not know whether it also leads to increases in prosocial behavior. We addressed this question in two experiments. In Experiment 1, we introduce a new prosocial game, the Zurich Prosocial Game (ZPG), which allows for repeated, ecologically valid assessment of prosocial behavior and is sensitive to the influence of reciprocity, helping cost, and distress cues on helping behavior. Experiment 2 shows that helping behavior in the ZPG increased in participants who had received short-term compassion training, but not in participants who had received short-term memory training. Interindividual differences in practice duration were specifically related to changes in the amount of helping under no-reciprocity conditions. Our results provide first evidence for the positive impact of short-term compassion training on prosocial behavior towards strangers in a training-unrelated task.

Personality and cognitive-style profile of antisocial and prosocial adolescents: a brief report

In this brief report, antisocial and prosocial adolescents are contrasted in terms of impulsivity and venturesomeness, and the cognitive style of field dependence- independence are assessed using the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT). The data have been collected from a total of 366 youths, ranging in age between 12 and 18 years. Antisocials are found to score below average, whereas the prosocials score above average on the GEFT.

Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time: a meta-analysis

The current study examines changes over time in a commonly used measure of dispositional empathy. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted on 72 samples of American college students who completed at least one of the four subscales (Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, Fantasy, and Personal Distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) between 1979 and 2009 (total N = 13,737). Overall, the authors found changes in the most prototypically empathic subscales of the IRI: Empathic Concern was most sharply dropping, followed by Perspective Taking. The IRI Fantasy and Personal Distress subscales exhibited no changes over time. Additional analyses found that the declines in Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern are relatively recent phenomena and are most pronounced in samples from after 2000.

Motivational Processes Underlying Both Prejudice and Helping

Examined at the behavioral level, prejudice and helping appear as qualitatively different and perhaps mutually incompatible social behaviors. As a result, the literatures on prejudice and helping evolved largely independent of each other. When they are examined at the process level, however, underlying similarities appear. Furthermore, when anomalies are examined within each of these two separate literatures, similarities become more apparent. Finally, the personality dimension of agreeableness is systematically related to both prejudice and helping. The authors propose that many forms of prejudice and helping are expressions of underlying processes of self-regulation and social accommodation. After discussing several other social-cognitive approaches to self-correction, the authors offer a novel opponent process model of motivation that integrates the apparently exclusive processes of prejudice and helping into a single system.

Empathy and child neglect: a theoretical model

OBJECTIVE

To present an explanatory theory-based model of child neglect. This model does not address neglectful behaviors of parents with mental retardation, alcohol or drug abuse, or severe mental health problems. In this model parental behavior aimed to satisfy a child's need is considered a helping behavior and, as a consequence, child neglect is considered as a specific type of non-helping behavior.

HYPOTHESIS

The central hypothesis of the theoretical model presented here suggests that neglectful parents cannot develop the helping response set to care for their children because the observation of a child's signal of need does not lead to the experience of emotions that motivate helping or because the parents experience these emotions, but specific cognitions modify the motivation to help.

IMPLICATIONS

The present theoretical model suggests that different typologies of neglectful parents could be developed based on different reasons that parents might not to experience emotions that motivate helping behaviors. The model can be helpful to promote new empirical studies about the etiology of different groups of neglectful families.

Definition of compassion-evoking images in a Mexican sample

To assemble a calibrated set of compassion-eliciting visual stimuli, 60 clinically healthy Mexican volunteers (36 women, 24 men; M age = 27.5 yr., SD = 2.4) assessed 84 pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System catalogue using the dimensions of Valence, Arousal, and Dominance included in the Self-assessment Manikin scale and an additional dimension of Compassion. Pictures showing suffering in social contexts and expressions of sadness elicited similar responses of compassion. The highest compassion response was reported for pictures showing illness and pain. Men and women differed in the intensity but not the quality of the compassionate responses. Compassion included attributes of negative emotions such as displeasure. The quality of the emotional response was not different from that previously reported for samples in the U.S.A., Spain, and Brazil. A set of 28 pictures was selected as high-compassion-evoking images and 28 as null-compassion controls suitable for studies designed to ascertain the neural substrates of this moral emotion.

Nursing Motives for Helping Scale (N-MHS): reliability and validity

This paper presents the Nursing Motives for Helping Scale (N-MHS), an instrument designed for the evaluation of three of the four motives for helping derived from Batson's helping pathway theory. Dimensionality was analyzed by means of principal component analysis (n = 113), followed by confirmatory factor analysis. A 3-factor structure (corresponding to Batson's differentiation among altruistic motivation, reward-seeking motivation, and punishment-avoidance motivation, respectively), with 9 items distributed in three latent variables, revealed an acceptable fit to the data. Alpha values (.60 - .74) showed that internal consistency was acceptable for a newly developed subscale with a small number of items. Convergence validity was evaluated with correlations between N-MHS subscales scores and scores on the Professional Expectations Scale (Garrosa, Moreno-Jiménez, Rodríguez-Carvajal, and Morante, 2005). The three resulting subscales are a promising instrument for the evaluation of three nursing motives for helping that can contribute to reduce the potential risks and to improve the potential benefits both for the nurse and the patient.

Does compassion mediate the intrinsic religion-health relationship?

BACKGROUND

Religiosity has been related to positive health outcomes. Although this relationship is primarily based on studies of church attendance and health, more recent work has focused on the potential mechanisms that may mediate the religion-health findings. One principle that is taught by all of the world's major religions is compassion.

PURPOSE

It was hypothesized that one pathway through which religiosity may exert its positive influence on health is through encouraging compassionate attitudes and behaviors toward others.

METHODS

Two separate studies were conducted examining the relationships among intrinsic religiosity (IR), compassionate attitudes and behaviors, and measures of psychosocial health. Measures of psychosocial health included depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and social support.

RESULTS

IR was related to positive psychosocial outcomes in both studies, and compassionate attitudes and behaviors mediated these relationships. Compassionate attitudes showed significant relationships with psychosocial outcome measures (depressive symptoms, r = -.46, p < .0001; perceived stress, r = -.45, p < .0001; satisfaction with social support, r = .54, p < .0001; marital adjustment, r = .44) and accounted for most of the mediating effect. Although social support was also related to the variables of interest, its effect was smaller than that of compassionate attitude, and controlling for social support did not significantly add to the mediating effect of compassionate attitude.

CONCLUSIONS

This study found compassionate attitude to be an important factor in the religion-health relationship and related to positive psychosocial outcomes, including reduced depressive symptoms and reduced perceived stress. Future research on religiosity and health may benefit from exploring the concept of a "compassionate personality" (i.e., a way of being in the world where others are treated with love and respect).

Prosocial emotions and helping: the moderating role of group membership

In this article, the authors introduce and test a group-level perspective on the role of empathy and interpersonal attraction in helping. In line with our predictions, Study 1, a longitudinal field study of 166 AIDS volunteers, confirmed that empathy was a stronger predictor of helping when the recipient of assistance was an in-group member than when that person was an out-group member. Also as hypothesized, attraction was a stronger predictor of helping when the recipient was an out-group member than when that person was an in-group member. Study 2 replicated and further extended these results in a laboratory experiment on spontaneous helping of a person with hepatitis. Strengthening the validity of the findings, in both studies the effects of empathy and attraction held up even when the authors statistically controlled for potential alternative predictors of helping. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for helping in intergroup contexts are discussed.