Moral psychology from the lab to the wild: Relief registries as a paradigm for studying real-world altruism

Experimental psychology’s recent shift toward low-effort, high-volume methods (e.g.,self-reports, online studies) and away from the more effortful study of naturalistic behavior raises concerns about the ecological validity of findings from these fields, concerns that have become particularly apparent in the field of moral psychology. To help address these concerns, we introduce a paradigm allowing researchers to investigate an important, widespread form of altruistic behavior – charitable donations – in a manner balancing competing concerns about internal validity, ecological validity, and ease of implementation: relief registries, which leverage existing online gift registry platforms to allow research subjects to choose among highly neededdonation items to ship directly to charitable organizations. Here, we demonstrate the use of relief registries in two experiments exploring the ecological validity of the finding from our own research that people are more willing to help others after having imagined themselves doing so. In this way, we sought to provide a blueprint for researchers seeking to enhance the ecological validity of their own research in a narrow sense (i.e., by using the relief registry paradigm we introduce) and in broader terms by adapting paradigms that take advantage of modern technology to directly impact others’ lives outside the lab.

Impression Management and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour of Hotels in Rivers State, Nigeria

This work examined the nexus amongst impression management (IM) and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) of hotels in Rivers state, Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, covering a population of 341 workers (341) from twenty hotels. The study drew a sample size of 181 workers. The study employed a basic random sampling method. Copies of the questionnaire were distributed for data collection. The spearman rank order correlation coefficient was used to analyze the hypotheses. According to the studies, self-promotion and exemplification have a strong correlation with indicators of corporate citizenship behavior. Thus, the study concluded that a well-executed impression management approach in the form of self-promotion and exemplification in hotels would aid in the enhancement of an employee’s altruistic and attentive conduct. The study suggested, among other, that hotel workers employ a diplomatic self-promotion technique of impression management in order to increase the organization’s altruistic behavior.

Applying Grounded Theory to Understand Asian Women’s Motivations to Donate Healthy Breast Tissue

Background: The Komen Tissue Bank (KTB) is a clinical trial and the only global biorepository that collects and stores healthy breast tissue to be used as controls in breast cancer (BC) research. Due to a variety of barriers, there is a lack of participation by racial and ethnic minority women in tissue donation. In order to increase this participation, it is necessary to understand why or why not these populations choose to participate in clinical trials such as the KTB. This study used grounded theory methodology to explore the motivations behind Asian women’s decisions to donate their breast tissue. Methods: Guided by grounded theory, we conducted interviews with previous breast tissue donors who self-identified as Asian (n=20). We then transcribed and coded the interviews to discover common attitudes and motivations for participating in breast tissue donation. Findings: Preliminary findings were obtained from 11 interviews. We identified three common themes that influenced these women’s donations: altruistic behavior, comfort with science, and Asian identity. Identified sub-themes include factors such as personal ties to BC and background in research and clinical trials. It is of note that over half of the women expressed Asian identity and comfort with science as important factors, and all mentioned altruistic tendencies, either towards family or towards research and others. Conclusion and Future Work: We identified common factors for donating healthy breast tissue from using grounded theory to interview previous donors of Asian descent. We will transcribe and code 9 more interviews, as well as use those interviews to confirm theoretical saturation. The findings from this study will be used in the future to inform a framework for developing recruitment strategies to increase overall participation of historically excluded individuals in the KTB. Future work will include exploring the motivations of Latinas regarding donating their healthy breast tissue.

Risking Lives to Save Others During COVID-19: A Focus on Public Health Care Workers in Bangladesh and Egypt

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been spreading around the world, causing a major public health crisis that has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Street-level bureaucrats­—health workers, teachers, street cleaners, police officers­, and so forth—are at the forefront in fighting against the pandemic. Of these, public health care workers, due to the nature of their involvement, should know and understand why they are risking their lives to save others during this pandemic. Based on the preliminary data gleaned from interviews with public health care workers in Bangladesh and Egypt, this ongoing research suggests they are risking their lives for reasons such as altruistic behavior, service to profession, adherence to bureaucratic accountability, and a desire to help mankind. The findings contribute to the existing literature about street-level bureaucratic behavior in atypical times such as these of the pandemic. This study is unique in that it comprehends that public health care workers of two culturally and geographically distinct countries are risking their lives for the same public-spirited cause.

Reference values regarding measure of Basic Empathy Scale in forensic adolescents

Empathy has revealed a fundamental role in fostering prosocial and altruistic behavior. Conversely, empathic dysfunction has been associated with antisocial behavior (ASB). The Basic Empathy Scale (BES) has been the most used instrument to measure empathy in studies with children and adolescents in forensic settings. Thus, we conducted a systematic review in order to establish reference values for BES in children and adolescents with conduct disorder/antisocial behavior (CD/ASB) and typical controls. Studies related to the topic were obtained from multiple databases (e.g., EBSCO, PubMed, Web of Science), through rigorous exclusion and inclusion criteria. Only papers with empirical and quantitative methodologies from scientific and academic publications were included. A total of 311 studies were identified through database searches and 15 articles were retained for this review. The findings reveal lower empathy scores in children and adolescents with CD/AB (pooled mean for the total scale = 52.32; mean for cognitive empathy = 30.86; pooled mean for affective empathy = 28.83) than controls (pooled mean for the total scale = 67.20; pooled mean for cognitive empathy = 34.04; pooled mean for affective empathy = 32.30). This review provides reference values that can be useful for the application of the BES and the interpretation of its results, both in clinical practice and in future research with children and adolescents.

Social Status Differences in Altruism, Fairness and Retaliatory Defection in an Unequal Country

Previous research has claimed that higher-status individuals tend to be less prosocial than lower-status individuals, especially under conditions of inequality. It is also argued that lower-status individuals have more hostile reactions and more retaliatory defection to non-cooperators. Thus, low-status individuals are expected to be both prosocial and antisocial. Using simple behavioral games, we study the relationship of the objective and subjective socioeconomic status of individuals with altruism, fairness, and retaliatory defection in Chile, a country characterized by deeply entrenched socioeconomic inequality and segregation. Study 1 shows that under manipulated economic inequality conditions, higher objective status participants are more altruistic when enjoying a slight financial advantage. In contrast, lower objective status participants did not condition their altruistic behavior to their relative economic rank. Study 2 shows that manipulated economic inequality did not moderate the relationship between social status (either objective or subjective) and fairness. Finally, Study 3 indicates that participants of lower subjective status retaliated more strongly against non-cooperative peers. These results qualify the allegedly negative effect of social status on prosocial and antisocial behavior under conditions of socioeconomic inequality.

Emergent multilevel selection in a simple spatial model of the evolution of altruism

Theories on the evolutionary origins of altruistic behavior have a long history and have become a canonical part of the theory of evolution. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that allow altruism to appear and persist are still incompletely understood. The spatial structure of populations is known to be an important determinant. In both theoretical and experimental studies, much attention has been devoted to populations that are subdivided into discrete groups. Such studies typically imposed the structure and dynamics of the groups by hand. Here, we instead present a simple individual-based model in which organisms spontaneously self-organize into spatially separated colonies that themselves reproduce by binary fission and hence behave as Darwinian entities in their own right. Using software to automatically track the rise and fall of colonies, we are able to apply formal theory on multilevel selection and thus quantify the within- and among-group dynamics. This reveals that individual colonies inevitably succumb to defectors, resulting in within-colony "tragedies of the commons". Even so, altruism persists in the population because more altruistic colonies reproduce more frequently. The emergence of the colonies themselves depends crucially on the length scales of motility, altruism, and competition. This reconfirms the general relevance of these scales for social evolution, but also stresses that their impact can only be understood fully in the light of the emergent eco-evolutionary spatial patterns. The results also demonstrate that emergent spatial population patterns can function as a starting point for transitions of individuality.

Perception of the Controllability Principle and its Consequences for Budgetary Control

In this study, we empirically examined the following three relationships through quantitative analysis of web-based survey data collected from managers of Japanese firms. First, we examined the relationship between managers’ perceptions of controllability and budget use. Second, we examined the relationship between budget use and altruistic behavior. Third, based on managers’ perceptions of controllability, we examined the relationship between altruistic behavior and managerial performance. Structural equation modeling revealed that not only did perception of low controllability by managers promoted the use of budgeting, it also promoted organizational citizenship behavior through increased trust in superiors, which subsequently enhanced managerial performance. Keywords: managerial perception, controllability principle, altruistic behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, trust, managerial performance