Global challenges such as climate change or the refugee crises emphasize the necessity of altruism and cooperation. In a large-scale 9-month intervention study, we investigated the malleability of ...prosociality by three distinct mental trainings cultivating attention, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive skills. We assessed numerous established measures of prosociality that capture three core facets: Altruistically motivated behaviours, norm motivated behaviours, and self-reported prosociality. Results of multiple time point confirmatory factor analyses support the validity and temporal stability of this model. Furthermore, linear mixed effects models reveal differential effects of mental trainings on the subcomponents of prosociality: Only training care and compassion effectively boosted altruistically motivated behaviour. No effects were revealed for norm-based behaviour. Self-reported prosociality increased with all training modules; this increase was, however, unrelated to changes in task-based measures of altruistic behaviour. These findings corroborate our motivation-based framework of prosociality, challenge economic views of fixed preferences by showing that socio-affective training boosts altruism, and inform policy makers and society about how to increase global cooperation.
Since the early 2000s transnational surrogacy has emerged as a new capitalist frontier founded on the intensification of the commodification of women's reproductive labours, bodies and biologies. ...This has resulted in academic and policy debates on whether to outlaw surrogacy altogether or to ban commercial surrogacy in favour of altruistic forms of surrogacy. Rather than tackling surrogacy in moralising terms of 'altruistic' gift-giving versus 'greedy' money-making, in this article we draw on feminist political economy literature on social reproduction to propose an integrative reproductive labour perspective that looks at the dialectics of waged and unwaged work involved in the process of (re)producing people. Drawing on empirical research data on commercial surrogacy in Georgia, we analyse how this dialectical relation between exploitation of waged work (surrogate) and appropriation of unwaged work (mother) operates on the workfloor. We explore Maria Mies' concept of 'housewifization' to argue that processes of exploitation are deepened in the Georgian surrogacy industry, partially because surrogates refrain/are refrained from identifying as workers and as such are not afforded labour rights nor considered to produce value.
Although the effect of government transparency on trust is heavily debated, our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relationship is still limited. The basic assumption tested in this ...article is whether transparency leads to higher levels of perceived trustworthiness. This article uses theories from social psychology to advance our understanding of the effects and mechanism of the relationship between transparency and the perceived trustworthiness of a government organization. Based on these theories, we propose two alternative hypotheses: (1) the general predisposition to trust government, and (2) prior knowledge about the specific issue moderates the relationship between transparency and trust. These assumptions are tested by online experimental research, which demonstrates that these factors indeed affect the relationship between transparency and perceived trustworthiness: changes in perceived competence occur mainly in the group of citizens with high trust and little knowledge, whereas changes in perceived benevolence occur predominantly in the group of citizens with low knowledge and low trust. These findings highlight that prior knowledge and general predisposition to trust should be incorporated in our theoretical models of the relationship between transparency and perceived trustworthiness.
The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis investigating the consistency and strength of relations between prosocial behavior, externalizing behaviors, and internalizing symptoms from ...preadolescence (i.e., 1–9 years) to late adolescence (i.e., 19–25 years). This study directly addresses inconsistencies and gaps in the available literature by providing the field with a detailed, synthesized description of these associations.
Fifty-five studies met the inclusion criteria, containing 742 independent correlational effect sizes. Statistical information and other study information was coded and entered into Comprehensive Meta-analysis III software, which was used to analyze results.
Results showed that higher levels of prosocial behavior were significantly associated with lower levels of externalizing behaviors, as expected. Additionally, more reported prosocial behavior was related to less reported internalizing symptoms. Follow-up analyses revealed specific relationships between prosocial behavior and aggression, deviant peer association, risky sexual behavior, substance use, delinquency/general externalizing behavior, depression, and general internalizing behaviors (i.e., emotional problems, negative emotionality). A variety of moderators of these associations were considered, including age and sex.
Findings are discussed in the context of the broader research literature, weaknesses in the field are noted, and numerous meaningful directions for future research are presented.
...the region as a whole is facing a humanitarian crisis borne out of political instability, corruption, social unrest, fragile health systems, and perhaps most importantly, longstanding and ...pervasive inequality—in income, health care, and education—which has been woven into the social and economic fabric of the region. The overall population health status in Latin America and the Caribbean has improved, as measured by life expectancy, under-5 mortality, and maternal mortality, but progress remains unequal across and within countries. The syndemic nature of the pandemic—a combination of viral infection and non-communicable diseases embedded in social inequities—is acute in the region.
The authors argue that a new six-dimensional framework for personality structure—the HEXACO model— constitutes a viable alternative to the well-known Big Five or five-factor model. The new model is ...consistent with the cross-culturally replicated finding of a common six-dimensional structure containing the factors Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), eExtraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness to Experience (O). Also, the HEXACO model predicts several personality phenomena that are not explained within the B5/FFM, including the relations of personality factors with theoretical biologists' constructs of reciprocal and kin altruism and the patterns of sex differences in personality traits. In addition, the HEXACO model accommodates several personality variables that are poorly assimilated within the B5/FFM.
Whether competition among large groups played an important role in human social evolution is dependent on how variation, whether cultural or genetic, is maintained between groups. Comparisons between ...genetic and cultural differentiation between neighboring groups show how natural selection on large groups is more plausible on cultural rather than genetic variation.
Research efforts evaluating the role of altruistic motivations behind health policy support are usually based on direct preference elicitation procedures, which may be biased. We propose an indirect ...measurement approach to approximate self-protection–related and altruistic motivations underlying preferences for public health policies.
Our new approach relies on associations between on the one hand decision makers’ perceived health risk for themselves and for close relatives and on the other hand their observed preferences for health policies that reduce such risks. The approach allows to make a rough distinction between health-related self-protection and local altruistic motives behind preferences for health policies. We illustrate our approach using data obtained from a discrete choice experiment in the context of policies to relax coronavirus-related lockdown measures in The Netherlands.
Our results show that the approach is able to uncover that (1) people who think they have a high chance of experiencing health risks from a COVID-19 infection are more willing to accept a societal or personal sacrifice, (2) people with a higher health risk perception for their relatives have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than people with a higher health risk perception for themselves, and (3) people who perceive that they have a high risk of dying of COVID-19 have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than those anticipating less severe consequences of COVID-19.
Our method offers a useful proxy metric to distinguish health-related self-protection and local altruism as drivers of citizens’ responses to healthcare policies.
•Directly asking about selfish or altruistic motivations behind support for healthcare policies is known to generate unreliable results.•We propose a metric that may serve as an indirect proxy measurement, by associating risk perceptions with policy support.•The method is tested and illustrated in the context of COVID-19 policies.•We find that both self-protection and local altruism play a role in driving acceptance of COVID-19 policies.
In view of the public consultation recently launched by the World Health Organization on Regulatory Convergence of Cell and Gene Therapy Products and the Proposal for a Regulation on substances of ...human origin (SoHO) repealing the European Union Directives on Blood and on Tissues and Cells, an opportunity arises to define an ethical and transparent framework of collaboration between industry and authorities responsible for SoHO-derived products, comprising medicines, medical devices, transfusion, and transplantation. The commodification of SoHO-derived medicinal products and medical devices entails important risks to the sustainability of healthcare systems and threatens the equitable access of patients to innovative therapies. It may also jeopardize the principle of altruistic donation of SoHO that is required for the treatment and survival of thousands of patients every year. This article puts forward several proposals aimed at reconciling the ethical principles of voluntary and unpaid SoHO donation and the noncommercialization of the human body with obtaining a profit that allows business activities, while ensuring high quality, safety, and efficacy standards of tissues and cells for clinical use.
In this study, we investigated the effect of cross‐level factors, including team members’ altruistic personalities, the quality of team member exchange (TMX), interdependence of team structure, as ...well as interactions between these variables, on team members’ organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Using the military teams in Taiwan as samples, we collected empirical data of 90 teams, each with three team members and one team leader. Results of hierarchical linear modelling analysis showed that (a) a team member’s altruistic personality has no significant relationship with OCB, (b) both TMX and team interdependence have positive relationships with OCB, and (c) team interdependence has a cross‐level moderating effect on the relationship between TMX and OCB. For team management, establishing high TMX and interdependent working styles can promote OCB among team members. The results of this study add to knowledge on team members’ display of OCB from a holistic perspective. Findings of this study also support the important influence of TMX and team interdependence, especial for team management, strengthening the cross‐level theory in the study of OCB.
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