The present study aimed to explore underlying motivational factors of volunteerism at a special sporting event for persons with intellectual disabilities. The volunteer survey (n = 252) assessed sociodemographic characteristics, motives, satisfaction with life, psychological well-being, and affectivity of mainly intrinsically motivated volunteers versus traineeship attendees, doing a compulsory traineeship on occasion of the Innsbruck 2008 Winter Special Olympics. There was no significant variability in the motivation to volunteer scale (MVS) score between the groups. The inventory of approach and avoidance motivation (IAAM) data showed that primarily intrinsically motivated volunteers experienced higher self-gratification through their voluntary engagement. Regression analysis revealed that psychological well-being, satisfaction with life, and positive and negative affectivity was predicted by the IAAM and MVS. Individuals’ personal motives for volunteering appear to correlate with psychological well-being and affectivity and may influence prospective participation.

This paper presents an analysis of the relationships between intergenerational transmission of philanthropic values and prosocial behavior in three areas: monetary donation of money, volunteering, and civic engagement. Using a multivariable analysis for each area, while controlling for socio-demographic and social environment variables, this study found that the main intergenerational transmission variables are the family as the nuclear unit, the parents as role models, and discourse in the parents’ home. Together these create a family environment that supports philanthropic values of donating money and volunteering and at the same time engaging in civic activities. The relationships between the three areas reflecting prosocial behavior are complementary rather than substitutional. Explanations of these relationships are provided and discussed.

Numerous past studies explore factors that drive prosocial behaviors. Most studies focus on individual and organizational factors; there is less research exploring cross-national variations in prosocial behaviors. This study addresses this gap and analyzes cross-national variations in prosocial behaviors utilizing a 117-country dataset from the Charities Aid Foundation World Giving Index to estimate Tobit models explaining cross-national variations in donating money, volunteering time, and helping a stranger. We find evidence that economic, political, and to a lesser extent, cultural theories play a role in explaining cross-national variations in prosocial behaviors.

Previous studies have suggested that nature contact is a protective factor for problem behavior in children. However, there remains a significant gap in research exploring the reciprocal relationship between nature contact and children’s problem behavior, as well as the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship. This study employed a longitudinal three-wave design involving 516 children in China (268 girls, Mage = 10.88 ± 0.66 years old at Time 3). Cross-lagged analyses indicated that nature contact and problem behavior negatively predicted each other over time, and prosocial behavior bidirectionally mediated the relationship between nature contact and problem behavior. These results provided evidence for the relationships among nature interaction, social development, and behavioral development in children. These findings suggested that promoting prosocial behavior could reduce problem behavior and enhance nature engagement, potentially serving as a strategy to foster comprehensive development in children.

Prior research on status has focused primarily on the cognitive perspective, exploring the effects of status and offering a limited understanding of the impact of positive status change and its emotional mechanisms. This study draws upon the two-facet model of pride to examine how positive status change influences the behaviors of new status holders. Specifically, we propose that when status differentiation is low, positive status change enhances new status holders' prosocial behavior through their authentic pride, while in cases of high status differentiation, it increases their self-interested behavior through their hubristic pride. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a series of studies, including a laboratory experiment, a scenario experiment, and a time-lagged multilevel and multisource field study. Our multilevel analyses of the data provided strong support for our hypotheses. Our findings shed light on when and why positive status change triggers different behaviors among new status holders, offering important insights into the emotional mechanisms that underlie the effects of status change.

The term ‘moral wiggle room’ (MWR) is often used to describe features of social situations that reduce the transparency between behaviors and their consequences. Previous research found that MWR decreases the likelihood of prosocial behavior and inferred that prosocial behavior is driven not only by genuine prosocial preferences but also by the desire to appear prosocially. Unfortunately, this postulation has never been specified as a theory. Consequently, studies testing the MWR effect reveal substantial heterogeneity in the understanding of core concepts, their operationalizations, and boundary conditions. To advance the field of MWR research, we remove these ambiguities by providing a verbal proposition-based theory specification. We first outline the original formulation of the MWR effect and its mediating mechanism, and we identify its loopholes. On this basis, we propose, refine, and distinguish between core propositions and auxiliary assumptions as well as relevant concepts and their operationalizations. The result is a fully testable theory of MWR (MWR-T) that includes a sharpened concept of MWR, distinguishes between three underlying psychological mechanisms of the behavioral MWR effect (i.e., anticipated social image damage, perceived social norms, and anticipatory guilt), and takes into account the role of individual differences in susceptibility to MWR (i.e., the joint effect of dispositional other-regarding preferences and social image concerns). Lastly, we relate MWR-T to existing theories and draw a roadmap for future work. With our contribution, we hope to stimulate more rigorous research on MWR and provide an example of the utility of verbal proposition-based theory specification.

The field of developmental psychopathology tends to focus on the negative aspects of functioning. However, prosocial behavior and empathy-related responding – positive aspects of functioning– might relate to some aspects of psychopathology in meaningful ways. In this article, we review research on the relations of three types of developmental psychopathology– externalizing problems (EPs), internalizing problems (IPs), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – to empathy-related responding (e.g., affective and cognitive empathy, sympathy, personal distress) and prosocial behavior. Empathy-related responding and prosocial behavior generally have been inversely related to EPs, although findings are sometimes reversed for young children and, for empathy, weak for reactive aggression. Some research indicates that children’s empathy (often measured as emotional contagion) and personal distress are positively related to IPs, suggesting that strong sensitivity to others’ emotions is harmful to some children. In contrast, prosocial behaviors are more consistently negatively related to IPs, although findings likely vary depending on the motivation for prosocial behavior and the recipient. Children with ASD are capable of prosocially and empathy-related responding, although parents report somewhat lower levels of these characteristics for ASD children compared to neurotypical peers. Issues in regard to measurement, motivation for prosociality, causal relations, and moderating and mediating factors are discussed.

Facing increasing nonrenewable and environmental concerns with fossil power generation, renewable energy is being supported by government mechanisms. With the power generation cost of renewables generally higher than fossil fuels, determining the optimal level of these mechanisms requires an understanding of households’ prosocial behavior toward renewables. The issue is determining the magnitude households are willing to pay (WTP) for alternative renewables. Our hypothesis is this behavior varies by the type of renewable energy. As a test of this hypothesis, we apply a discrete choice experiment to measure households’ WTP. Results support our hypothesis with a positive WTP for solar energy, leading to a 62% reduction in solar subsidy, and a negative WTP for biomass and wind sources.

Relatively little is known regarding factors that may mitigate the strength of the associations between forms of aggressive behavior and peer victimization. The goal of the current study was to investigate prosocial behavior as a moderator of these links over a 2-year period during middle childhood. Participants included 410 third-grade students (53% boys) and their homeroom teachers. Results indicated that prosocial behavior was associated with lower initial levels of victimization, whereas relational aggression was associated with higher initial levels of victimization. Physical aggression predicted more stable patterns of victimization over time, and prosocial behavior moderated the prospective link from relational aggression to peer victimization; specifically, relational aggression predicted decreases in victimization at higher levels of prosocial behavior and more stable patterns over time when levels of prosocial behavior were low. Further, gender differences were observed in the moderating effect of prosocial behavior on the prospective link from physical aggression to peer victimization, such that it served as a risk factor for boys and a protective factor for girls.

Although a growing body of literature on star employees has focused on top performers, the influence of moral stars has been neglected, an unfortunate situation given that employees’ moral behavior has prolonged impacts on organizations and society as a whole. In this case, we propose the concept of the moral star, defined as the employee (not the team leader) who exhibits disproportionately high and prolonged morality relative to others and has a reputation of being moral on his or her team. We further draw upon self-categorization theory and investigate the double-edged sword effect of the presence of a moral star on the prosocial behavior of other team members. Specifically, we propose that for nonstar employees who have high levels of moral identity, the presence of a moral star is positively related to their felt moral responsibility and prosocial behavior. In contrast, for nonstar employees with low levels of moral identity, the presence of a moral star is negatively related to their felt moral responsibility and prosocial behavior. We found support for our hypotheses across an experiment and a multi-wave and multi-source field study. Taken together, our findings call for closer attention to the recognition of moral stars, as well as their potential unintended negative impact on teams and organizations.