Heroic Helping: The Effects of Priming Superhero Images on Prosociality

Superhero media, aggression, and prosocialness: Relations in adults and gender's moderating role

The present study aimed to observe the relationships between superhero media exposure, aggression, and prosocialness in adults. We also investigated gender's moderating role. A total of 700 Brazilians participated in the study (age mean =  25.77, SD = 8.63, SE = 0.32, 57% men). Results showed a positive relation between superhero media exposure, prosocialness (r = .18), and all aggression factors (physical: r = .13; verbal: r = .08; aggressive emotions: r = .16). Aggressive emotions mediated indirect effects of exposure (physical aggression: λ = 0.12, p < .01, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.05-0.21; verbal aggression: λ = 0.10, p < .01, 95% CI = 0.05-0.18). Finally, gender moderated the relationship between exposure and prosocialness (b = 0.13, t = 2.07, p = .03).

Leadership and risk: a review of the literature

Purpose

Even though every decision a leader makes carries an element of risk, no review on the topic of leadership and risk has appeared in highly-ranked management journals in the past 20 years. This is in contrast to the discipline of psychology in which leadership and risk receives considerable attention, particularly in the field of heroism studies. In the context of the established body of research on the topic of leadership and risk in the discipline of psychology, this review therefore explores the research on leadership and risk in highly-ranked management studies’ journals.

Design/methodology/approach

The review was conducted in five stages. During phase 1, journal rankings were used as basis to determine which highly-ranked journals to include in the review. Phase 2 focused on identifying all relevant articles in the journals included in our review. We searched for articles published from 2000 to 2021 with the words “risk” or “danger” and “leader” or “leadership” in their abstracts. In phase 3, the author analysed the abstracts of the articles in depth to determine whether the keywords were included on the basis of an explicit scholarly reflection or research on leadership and risk. Phase 4 focused on analysing articles' treatment of leadership and risk, and assigning key words and key phrases. Finally, during phase 5 key words and key phrases were clustered together thematically.

Findings

This study analysis yielded six thematic clusters. The first two clusters – on risk appetite of followers and leaders – are closely related. In total, 12 journal articles explored these themes. The remaining thematic clusters contain four and seven articles each. These clusters are risk, creativity and innovation; risk and failure; risk in dangerous contexts; and risk and gender. Nine of the selected articles did not fit in any of the thematic clusters.

Originality/value

The review reveals a significant lack of research on leadership and risk in highly-ranked management studies’ journals. The author found that the topic of leadership and risk is approached in a binary fashion: successful leaders are viewed as using risk to drive innovation and unsuccessful leaders fail because of risk. The author argues that the heroic bias in leadership research could be partly blamed for this binarism. In practical terms, the author highlights that the growing importance of chief risk officers – leaders appointed to deal with company risk – indicates a clear need for research on leadership and risk in general management studies’ journals.

The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values

Organizations often put children front and center in campaigns to elicit interest and support for prosocial causes. Such initiatives raise a key theoretical and applied question that has yet to be addressed directly: Does the salience of children increase prosocial motivation and behavior in adults? We present findings aggregated across eight experiments involving 2,054 adult participants: Prosocial values became more important after completing tasks that made children salient compared to tasks that made adults (or a mundane event) salient or compared to a no-task baseline. An additional field study showed that adults were more likely to donate money to a child-unrelated cause when children were more salient on a shopping street. The findings suggest broad, reliable interconnections between human mental representations of children and prosocial motives, as the child salience effect was not moderated by participants’ gender, age, attitudes, or contact with children.