Presents a new definition of prosocial behavior (positive forms of social behavior) and offers
a complete review of theory and research on the acquisition of this behavior. Topics
addressed are the theoretical bases of altruistic behavior, altruistic behavior in emergency …

Research on the factors responsible for prosocial1 actions has a fairly long history in
personality and social psychology. Indeed, one of the earliest large-scale personality
research projects in the United States was Hartshorne and May's (1928) Studies in the …

Does religion promote prosocial behavior? A verdict is not clear. Methodological and
theoretical weaknesses in recent studies correlating religious orientation with social values
(eg, prejudice) led to the proposal of a new three dimensional model of religiosity. Religion …

Publisher Summary Prosocial motivation is egoistic when the ultimate goal is to increase
one's own welfare; it is altruistic when the ultimate goal is to increase another's welfare. The
view that all prosocial behavior, regardless how noble in appearance, is motivated by some …

In the 1960s, North American social psychologists began to study altruism quite intensively,
or, rather, they began to ask why people often are not altruistic and do not come to the aid of
victims of crime. This line of research was much influenced by an infamous case in which a …

Most people believe they should not harm others. However, beliefs about the extent to which
they should engage in actions that will benefit others, particularly if that action is costly to
themselves, are less certain. The ambiguity that surrounds helping others, then, is one …

In this book, prominent authors from disciplines as diverse as biology, philosophy, and the
social sciences have assembled to consider the nature of cooperation and prosocial
behavior at levels of social complexity ranging from the individual to the international …

Previous research has documented that playing violent video games has various negative
effects on social behavior in that it causes an increase in aggressive behavior and a
decrease in prosocial behavior. In contrast, there has been much less evidence on the …

What kinds of childrearing practices foster the development of helping, sharing, and other
prosocial behaviors? What roles do biology and culture play in the development of prosocial
behavior? This book reviews and summarizes scholarly research that has been devoted to …

Whereas human pro-social behavior is often driven by empathic concern for another, it is
unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience a similar motivational state. To test for
empathically motivated pro-social behavior in rodents, we placed a free rat in an arena with …