Children’s intergroup prosocial behavior: The role of group stereotypes

Children are prosocial from a young age onward but their prosocial actions are not necessarily egalitarian – especially with regard to others’ group membership. From around four years of age children tend to help and share more with in-group members compared to out-group members. However, a growing body of findings also suggest that sometimes children act more prosocially toward out-group members. How can we reconcile such seemingly contradicting behaviors? In this chapter, I describe how the salience of group stereotypes might shed light on these inconsistent findings. Specifically, different helping contexts can activate different group stereotypes. These different stereotypes could lead children to sometimes act more prosocially toward in-group peers, but sometimes show out-group bias in their helping or sharing behavior. For example, contexts that involve reciprocity could increase salience of a stereotype that out-groups are less trustworthy and thus children might be less inclined to share their resources with the out-group (i.e., in-group bias). Whereas an academic helping context might make a stereotype salient that entails out-groups are less competent and thus needing more help (i.e., out-group bias). Taking into account group stereotypes in children’s prosocial behavior will provide us with a deeper understanding of the underlying motivations that lead to selective prosociality in children. In the long run, such insights can contribute to combating discrimination and prejudice early in life.

Less identifiable but no less helpful: Face masks do not go along with selfish behavior

Covering the face with masks in public settings has been recommended since the start of the pandemic. Because faces provide information about identity, and that face masks hide a portion of the face, it is plausible to expect individuals who wear a mask to consider themselves less identifiable. Prior research suggests that perceived identifiability is positively related to prosocial behavior, and with two pre-registered field studies (total N = 5706) we provide a currently relevant and practical test of this relation. Our findings indicate that mask wearers and non-wearers display equivalent levels of helping behavior (Studies 1 and 2), although mask wearers have a lower level of perceived identifiability than those without a mask (Study 2). Overall, our findings suggest that claims that face masks are related to selfish behavior are not warranted, and that there is no practical link between perceived identifiability and prosocial behavior.

The Underlying Process of Prosocial Behavior Among Soldiers: A Terror Management Theory Perspective

The mortality salience (MS) hypothesis postulates that anxiety elicited by mortality awareness leads people to develop negative emotions toward those who hold values inconsistent with their worldview faith. We explored this hypothesis in a sample of 76 Israeli combat soldiers, who were asked to reflect on either their mortality or dental pain. Subsequently, participants reported their motivation to help a father in need who was either an Arab (outgroup) or a Jewish Israeli (ingroup), as well as their perceptions of threat by Arab Israelis. Regression analysis indicated that mortality reminders intensified soldiers’ perception of threat by the outgroup, leading to an increased desire to assist a Jewish-Israeli father, and a decreased motivation to help an Arab-Israeli one. The findings demonstrate the pronounced effects of MS on soldiers involved in frequent combat actions in terms of evoking negative emotions leading to reluctance to help unarmed civilian outgroup members. Recommendations for soldiers’ pre-deployment psychoeducation sessions are provided.

The Process of Prosocial Behavior Between Players/Characters in Digital Games

To understand the influence of video games on the player, several important questions must be answered. First, what accounts for the higher level of engagement in digital games relative to other entertainment media? Furthermore, what kind of experience does the player have during gameplay? Specifically, what does the player think when he or she interacts with other characters in the game? This study examines digital games with a focus on the interaction between the game itself and the person playing it. Among the various social behaviors elicited by digital games, much attention has been given to players' prosocial behavior within the context of a game's virtual world. A multidimensional view of behavior is used to analyze the game's situational contexts and players' interpretation of behavior.