Distinguishing Interpersonal and Ideological Prosociality: Introducing the Construct of Ideological Prosociality
Prosociality refers to dispositions and behaviors intended to benefit others, and the present study assumed that these dispositions reflect people’s values. Much of the research on prosociality has examined prosociality in what can be called the interpersonal domain, e.g., helping others. I propose that prosociality also exists in the ideological domain. People hold prosocial values that concern collectives, not specific individuals. Multilevel analyses of data collected in Wave 8 of the European Social Survey (44,000 respondents in 23 countries) found significant positive relationships between ideological prosocial values and attitudes toward immigrants and refugees, attitudes about the environment and climate change, gays and lesbians, social benefits, and income equality. Moreover, these relationships remained after controlling participants’ sex, income, happiness, and political orientation. In contrast, with the exception of attitudes about the environment, relationships between these attitudes and interpersonal prosocial values were either negative or not significant.