Biased Benevolence: The Perceived Morality of Effective Altruism Across Social Distance

"Support the strong" or "Help the weak?": The effects of social comparison and social distance on cooperative behavior in the dictator game

Within an object-interdependent context, we conducted three experiments to investigate the influence of social comparisons on cooperative behavior, as well as to assess the mediating and moderating effects of related variables. In Experiment 1 (n = 207), we examined whether social comparisons impact cooperative behavior toward a comparator in a dictator game task. Here, we specifically focused on the mediating effects of evaluation of others' competence, along with three other potential mediators: self-competence evaluation, positive emotions, and negative emotions. Following the insights gained from Experiment 1, we proceeded to Experiments 2 (n = 279) and 3 (n = 298) to further explore whether social distance moderates the mediating effect of evaluation of others' competence. The results of all three experiments consistently indicated that upward (vs. non-) comparison facilitated cooperative behavior, whereas downward (vs. non-) comparison hindered it. Furthermore, our findings revealed that evaluation of others' competence served as a mediator between social comparison and cooperative behavior when the comparator (i.e., the cooperative partner) was perceived as being at a far-distance, whereas the mediating effect of evaluation of others' competence disappeared when social distance was close. These results reveal the pivotal role of evaluating others' competence and social distance in social interactions from the perspective of social comparison, which provides insights into how to promote cooperative behavior.

Reducing Cultural Barriers: A Grounded Theory Approach to Nursing Student Attitudes After Multicultural Education

Purpose

This study uses grounded theory to explore the process and conceptual framework of how nursing students' attitudes toward others and different cultures change after receiving education on multicultural understanding.

Methods

This study used the Corbin and Strauss grounded theory throughout data collection and analysis. We used purposive sampling to select participants and then gathered data through in-depth interviews with 18 students who completed a multicultural understanding education course.

Results

Two researchers conducted a comparative semantic analysis of the transcribed data, applying open, axial, and selective coding techniques. With the collected data, the two researchers exchanged opinions to categorize and structure the data according to the research questions. Through the analysis, open coding yielded 11 categories and 26 subcategories from 135 concepts. In a model that recombined nine categories through axial coding, the central phenomenon was "distance", while the core category was "perceive people from different cultures as others/accept with reduced distance".

Conclusion

Since nursing students are more likely to care for patients from diverse cultural backgrounds in their future clinical practice, they must have specialized cultural knowledge.

Unveiling Unexpected Selfless Collectivism: Exploring Variances in Moral Beliefs Across Cultural Values

Purpose

The impact of moral beliefs on individuals' moral judgments, particularly within the framework of contrasting cultural values such as collectivism and individualism, continues to be a subject of interest. This research delves into whether individuals with distinct values display differences in moral beliefs, with a specific focus on selflessness.

Methods

Through experiment 1 and 2, we scrutinize the moral judgments of individuals with diverse values concerning pro-social behaviors driven by selflessness and in-group favoritism. Experiment 3 investigates the underlying mechanisms by examining reward expectations.

Results

The findings from experiments 1 and 2 indicate that collectivists exhibit significantly higher moral judgment levels for selfless pro-social behaviors compared to individualists, highlighting a disparity in moral beliefs between the two value systems. Experimental 2 also found that collectivists' moral judgments rose and fell as rescuers' selflessness increased or decreased. However, individualist moral judgment did not change significantly with behavioral selflessness. The results reveal that collectivists hold higher reward expectations for selfless behavior, which contributes to their heightened moral judgment of selfless behavior.

Conclusion

While it may be assumed that collectivists' moral beliefs would be dominated by in-group preferences, aligning with the conceptual in-group preference of collectivism, this study unexpectedly found evidence of collectivists' pursuit of selflessness in their moral beliefs. These findings offer initial evidence of distinct patterns of moral beliefs associated with collectivism and individualism, shedding light on potential reasons that lead collectivists to possess stronger moral beliefs about selflessness.

Social distance modulates the influence of social observation on pro-environmental behavior: An event-related potential (ERP) study

Pro-environmental behavior benefits the environment but is individually costly. Therefore, understanding the neural processes of pro-environmental behavior can advance our knowledge of its implicit cost-benefit calculations and mechanisms. Previous studies have focused separately on the effects of social distance and social observation on explicit pro-environmental behavior responses, yet the underlying neurophysiological mechanism remains unknown. Using the event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the neural responses to the effects of social distance and social observation on pro-environmental behavior. Participants were instructed to decide between self-interest and pro-environmental choices towards different social distance targets (family members, acquaintances, or strangers) under observable and non-observable conditions. The behavioral results demonstrated that the rate of pro-environmental choices towards acquaintances and strangers was higher under the observable condition than under the non-observable condition. Nonetheless, the rate of pro-environmental choices was higher-unaffected by social observation-towards family members than towards acquaintances and strangers. The ERP results showed that the P2 and P3 amplitudes were smaller under the observable than under the non-observable condition when the potential bearers of environmental decisions were acquaintances and strangers. However, this difference did not emerge when the potential bearers of environmental decisions were family members. The ERP findings of smaller P2 and P3 amplitudes suggest that social observation may reduce the deliberate calculation of personal costs, thereby promoting individuals' pro-environmental behaviors towards acquaintances and strangers.

Interpersonal relationships modulate subjective ratings and electrophysiological responses of moral evaluations

This study explored how interpersonal relationships modulate moral evaluations in moral dilemmas. Participants rated moral acceptability in response to altruistic (prescriptive) and selfish (proscriptive) behavior conducted by allocators (i.e., a friend or stranger), toward the participants themselves or another stranger in a modified Dictator Game (Experiments 1 and 2). Event-related potential (ERP) data were recorded as participants observed the allocators' behavior (Experiment 2). Moral acceptability ratings showed that when the allocator was a friend, participants evaluated the friend's altruistic and selfish behavior toward another stranger as being less morally acceptable than when their friend showed the respective behavior toward the participants themselves. The ERP results showed that participants exhibited more negative medial frontal negativity (MFN) amplitude whether observing a friend's altruistic or selfish behavior toward a stranger (vs. participant oneself), indicating that friends' altruistic and selfish behaviors toward strangers (vs. participants) were processed as being less acceptable at the earlier and semi-automatic processing stage in brains. However, this effect did not emerge when the allocator was a stranger in subjective ratings and MFN results. In the later-occurring P3 component, no interpersonal relationship modulation occurred in moral evaluations. These findings suggest that interpersonal relationships affect moral evaluations from the second-party perspective.

The Identification With All Humanity (IWAH) scale: its psychometric properties and associations with help-seeking during COVID-19

The Identification With All Humanity (IWAH) scale was designed to measure the extent to which an individual identifies oneself with all human beings. The current research aimed to conduct the validation of IWAH in a Chinese population and its convergent validity, as well as test the implications of IWAH in associations with help-seeking behaviour during COVID-19. A serial of three studies was conducted from September 1st 2020 to the end of October 2020. The series of studies included Study 1- Exploring the dimensions of the IWAH scale with a sample of 2,881 participants, Study 2- Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the Chinese IWAH dimensions with a separate sample of 6,667 participants, and Study 3- Role of the IWAH in the COVID-19 pandemic with a sample of 9,046 participants. Study 1 found the Chinese version of the IWAH scale to be a two-dimensional construct, with factor 1 - Bond with Humanity and factor 2 - Human Kinship. Study 2 confirmed the two-factor construct as found in Study 1. It also showed positive relations between IWAH and moral judgement, collectivism, nature connectedness, and negative relations with callousness, and having anxiety and depressive symptoms. Study 3 found that IWAH was negatively related to fear of COVID-19 and positively related to the likeliness of help-seeking. This is the first research to test the factorial structure of the IWAH scale in a Chinese population, with the adaptation showing good psychometric properties. The implication of IWAH on fear of COVID-19 and help-seeking provided further understanding of the possible practical value of IWAH during times of global stressful life events. Furthermore, study 3 is the first to explore how IWAH relates to anxiety, depression, and callousness.

Psychological barriers to effective altruism: An evolutionary perspective

People usually engage in (or at least profess to engage in) altruistic acts to benefit others. Yet, they routinely fail to maximize how much good is achieved with their donated money and time. An accumulating body of research has uncovered various psychological factors that can explain why people's altruism tends to be ineffective. These prior studies have mostly focused on proximate explanations (e.g. emotions, preferences, lay beliefs). Here, we adopt an evolutionary perspective and highlight how three fundamental motives - parochialism, status, and conformity - can explain many seemingly disparate failures to do good effectively. Our approach outlines ultimate explanations for ineffective altruism, and we illustrate how fundamental motives can be leveraged to promote more effective giving.

Prosocial behavior and reputation: When does doing good lead to looking good?

One reason people engage in prosocial behavior is to reap the reputational benefits associated with being seen as generous. Yet, there isn't a direct connection between doing good deeds and being seen as a good person. Prosocial actors are often met with suspicion and sometimes castigated as disingenuous braggarts, empty virtue-signalers, or holier-than-thou hypocrites. In this article, we review recent research on how people evaluate those who engage in prosocial behavior and identify key factors that influence whether observers will praise or denigrate a prosocial actor for doing a good deed.

Cognition in moral space: A minimal model

We describe moral cognition as a process occurring in a distinctive cognitive space, wherein moral relationships are defined along several morally relevant dimensions. After identifying candidate dimensions, we show how moral judgments can emerge in this space directly from object perception, without any appeal to moral rules or abstract values. Our reductive "minimal model" (Batterman & Rice, 2014) elaborates Beal's (2020) claim that moral cognition is determined, at the most basic level, by "ontological frames" defining subjects, objects, and the proper relation between them. We expand this claim into a set of formal hypotheses that predict moral judgments based on how objects are "framed" in the relevant dimensions of "moral space."