The relation between prosocial behaviour and demanding prosocial behaviour Martin Vaculík1, Jakub Procházka, Petr Květon2
Abstract The research is focused on prosocial behaviour. The authors are trying to answer this question: Will a prosocially acting person demand more prosocial behaviour than a person with smaller tendency to prosocial behaviour. The authors also concentrated on the relation between the upper stated tendencies and gender. The research group consisted of 340 respondents. Each of them completed a questionnaire identifying tendencies to act prosocially and to demand prosocial behaviour. According to the results there is a positive relation between the tendency to prosocial behaviour and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. Gender has no effect on the tendency to prosocial behaviour but influences the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour – women have stronger tendency to demand prosocial behaviour than men.
Key words: prosocial behaviour, norm of reciprocity, social exchange theory, gender
Introduction In various situations a person can act with the intention to increase other person’s profit. Such behaviour is called prosocial behaviour. E.g. Feldman (1985) uses the term prosocial behaviour as a synonym for „helping“ and states that both relate to behaviour, which brings profit to other people. We suppose that through their behaviour some people bring profit to the others more often than other people and that they are more apt to act prosocially. Prosocial behaviour is influenced by many factors, some of which are of a long-term character. One of these factors is previous experience, which mainly relates to upbringing and social standards in a society where a person grew up. Another variable may be a person’s need to come up to expectations of the others and his /or her/ own (Strenta, Dejong, 1981). The level of trust to other people can be a factor influencing prosocial behaviour. Simons et al. (Piliavin a Charng, 1990 according to Simons et al., 1977) investigated a group of kidney donors. In this group 74 % of respondents scored high on a five-point scale measuring trust in people. Only 43% of non-donors gained comparable results. Cunha (Piliavin, Charng, 1990 according to Cunha, 1985) found that people, who act competitively in a social dilemma situation, score very low at their level of trust in comparison to people with tendency 1
Correspondence to: Martin Vaculík, Jakub Procházka, Department of Psychology, Masaryk University, Joštova
10, Brno 641 00, Czech Republic. E-mail:
[email protected] 2
Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Veveří 97, Brno 602 00, Czech Republic
1
to cooperate. Trusting to other people also influences a person’s attachment style. Its impact on prosocial behaviour is approved by Mikulincer, Shaver, Gillath and Nitzberg (2005). They state that secure attachment style is related to a higher level of helping and volunteer behaviour. We can mention other long-term factors leading to prosocial behaviour, such as empathy (e.g. Eisenberg, Miller, 1987, Fultz, Batson, Fortenbach, McCarthy, Varney, 1986) or a level of moral development (Rushton, 1982). Identifying long-term factors influencing prosocial behaviour leads us to use the concept called „the tendency to prosocial behaviour“. A Person’s tendency to prosocial behaviour is a statement of probability that a person will more likely act prosocially than someone else in the same situation. Apart from the tendency to prosocial behaviour we also suppose the presence of the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. This tendency represents probability that a person in a given situation will wish (expect or demand) someone else would act prosocially towards him /her/ or towards another person. We suppose that the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour is influenced by long-term factors just like the tendency to prosocial behaviour. At the same time it is possible that one of the factors influencing the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour can be the tendency to act prosocially. This assumption is based on existence of the norm of reciprocity. It says that a person feels a stronger need to help people who helped him /her/ before. The norm of reciprocity applies vice versa too – a person expects that his /her/ good deed will be paid back by another good deed (e.g. Výrost and Slaměník, 1997, Feldman, 1985, Gouldner, 1960). Staub (Feldman, 1985 according to Staub, 1978) state that reciprocity is a common phenomenon and that people not only help those who helped them before, but also tend to be more helping if they were helped by someone else before. When they help to someone, they expect that once they will be in need, they will receive help from someone in return (e.g. Van der Heijden, Nelissen, Potters, Verbon, 1999). The norm of reciprocity finds its use in the social exchange theory. It sees social behaviour as a continuous sequence of exchanges where a person who gives more, also gets more. The one, who gives a lot, also expects to get a lot. The one, who gets a lot, is under pressure to give a lot in return. At any intended act, a person considers possible costs and benefits resulting from the act (e.g. Zafirovski, 2003). If a person acts prosocially, he /she/ can expect to be offered help when needed. Social approval can be another reward. The size of social approval is directly proportional to the size of gift or sacrifice brought by the person (van de Ven, 2001). If someone considers his or her prosocial behaviour to be right and expects social approval in return, he or she will find prosocial behaviour of someone else right as well. This person is then more likely to give the other person positive feedback about his /her/ prosocial act than a person who does not find that particular prosocial behaviour to be right. Positive feedback in case of prosocial behaviour as well
2
as negative feedback in case of its lack can be considered as a certain form of extortion of prosocial behaviour as that is exactly the effect of this kind of feedback (see Strenta, Dejong, 1981).
The present study The research is focused on prosocial behaviour. We suppose that there are factors influencing in the same way both the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. We will try to verify the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between those two tendencies. In other words, that prosocial behaviour will be more demanded by a person who acts prosocially than by a person with a smaller tendency to prosocial behaviour. We will also focus on the relationship between gender on one side and the tendency to act prosocially plus the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others on the other side. The basic research question is: Is there a relationship between the tendency to act prosocially and demanding prosocial behaviour from the others? Other research questions, which we were trying to answer were focused on gender and prosocial behaviour: Is gender a factor influencing the tendency to act prosocially? Is gender a factor influencing the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others?
Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: People with bigger tendency to prosocial behaviour will demand more prosocial behaviour from the others. Hypothesis 2: Gender does not influence the tendency to prosocial behaviour. Hypothesis 3: Gender does not influence the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others.
Method Participants At the selection of a research sample we considered variables, which could possibly influence results of this research. The tendency to act prosocially as well as the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour can be influenced by many factors. If we are trying to just compare both tendencies, the influence of factors is not evident. We don’t need the sample to be representative in its individual tendencies, because we do not measure the tendency to act prosocially in the population. We are only interested in a possible relationship between the two tendencies. Since we suppose that the biggest danger of low validity issues from the size of the sample, we focused on getting a large number of respondents. We have decided to use the electronic database of students of Masaryk’s university. When selecting respondents, we randomly selected twelve male and twelve female first names. On the Masaryk’s university web pages we made a list of all students with those first names. We addressed randomly 3
selected students from this group with an e-mail message asking them for help with this project and enclosing a link to our electronic questionnaire. Students who filled out the questionnaire represent our research sample. This way we obtained a sample of 340 respondents. Through the chosen method, (addressing through e-mail) we achieved good recoverability (55%). As for gender ratio, there is higher percentage of women (60,9 %) then men (39,1 %) in the sample. The average age of the respondents is 22,19 years (range = 18 - 46 years, SD = 9,64).
Measures We chose a questionnaire as a data-collection method3. Questionnaire and observation seemed to us as the most suitable methods for researching prosocial behaviour. We decided for a questionnaire as this was the way to collect data from a large number of respondents in a relatively short period of time. The data can be related to many situations where a person can act prosocially. Thanks to a pre-set system of coding answers, the results are easy to quantify. We decided for administration through the Internet. Filling out is more anonymous than in a situation of physical presence of the administrator. This way respondents do not have to worry that anyone can connect the results with them in the future which makes them feel free to answer according to their conviction, which means truly. Another advantage of Internet data collection is the chance to address a larger number of people than is possible through distributing the questionnaire in a paper form. We found the biggest disadvantage of the chosen method in possibly wrong (or individually different) understanding of questions, which can distort the results without any chance to check out repeated completion of the questionnaire by the same person. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The first measured the tendency to prosocial behaviour and the second part measured the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. Respondents expressed their agreement or disagreement with items on a four-point scale. At some of the questions, we limited the scale on dichotomic items.
The tendency to prosocial behaviour The first part of the questionnaire consists of items measuring the tendency to prosocial behaviour. We chose twenty particular examples of behaviour, which can be considered as prosocial in terms of the theory (e.g. Worchel, Wong, Scheltema, 1989). We strived to formulate the items so that they represented as much a s possible the whole field of prosocial behaviour – altruism, helping, cooperation, donation and solidarity. Since individual spheres of prosocial behaviour partially overlap, it was not possible to determine unambiguous representation of each component of prosocial 3
We do not state the full version of the questionnaire with regard to the extent of the enclosed study. You can
ask the authors for the final version of the questionnaire.
4
behaviour in the questionnaire. Thus we formulated individual items in a way so that each component of prosocial behaviour was undoubtedly represented by at least four questions. With the exception of one question, all the questions ask about a respondent’s previous behaviour. Thus we avoided considerable influence of the results by a respondent’s self-image.
The tendency to demand prosocial behaviour The second part of the questionnaire consists of the same components of prosocial behaviour like the first part. We based this part on the fact that if anyone demands prosocial behaviour from the other, he or she does it so as to gain some benefit for himself (herself) or some other person (or persons). Some items are formulated in a way to show a respondent’s tendency to demand prosocial behaviour towards himself /herself/ (e.g. When I lost something, the finder should try to return it to me.) Other items measure a general tendency to demand prosocial behaviour (e.g. If a man has some extra money he does not need for life, he should give it to the needy people.) We formulated these questions as general rules of human behaviour. The respondent can either agree or disagree with them.
Data processing For verification we applied correlation analysis (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) and analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA).
Results
The tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others
We applied correlation analysis (Pearson’s coefficient) for verification of the hypothesis about the relationship between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. The correlation coefficient’s value is r = 0,249, p ≤ 0,01. Which means that we identified a very small relationship between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. Hypothesis 1 thus stays valid at the level of statistical significance p ≤ 0,01. On the Figure 1 there is a graph showing the relationship. The X axe represents the tendency to act prosocially. The Y axe represents the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. Respondents with a high tendency to demand prosocial behaviour are represented by points at the upper part of the graph. The regression line going through the graph is a marker of the trend between the researched variables. Low closeness of the relationship is caused by respondents who show: a) high tendency to prosocial behaviour and low tendency to demand prosocial behaviour (points on the lower right part of the figure) 5
b) high tendency to demand prosocial behaviour and low tendency to prosocial behaviour (points on the upper left part of the figure)
Figure 1. Regression line showing the relationship between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour.
Gender and the tendency to prosocial behaviour and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour
We applied analysis of variance for verification of hypotheses about the influence of gender on both tendencies. Results of the analysis of variance between men and women in the tendency to prosocial behaviour are figured in Table 1. In the sample we identified small difference between men and women in this tendency (F = 1,598, p = 0,207). In terms of the results we can say that gender has no influence on the tendency to prosocial behaviour.
Table 1. ANOVA results for the tendency to prosocial behaviour in relation to gender
Tendency to prosocial behaviour
N
Mean
Std. deviation
Min
Max
F
Sig.
WOMEN
207
2,58
0,325
1,41
3,44
1,598
0,207
MEN
133
2.53
0,350
1,56
3,41
6
The results of analysis of variance between men and women in the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour are figured in Table 2. In the sample we identified a difference between men and women in this tendency (F = 4,094, p = 0,044). In terms of the results we can say that gender influences the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. In the sample women show a slightly higher tendency to demand prosocial behaviour than men.
Table 2. ANOVA results for the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour in relation to gender
Tendency to demand prosocial behaviour
N
Mean
Std. deviation
Min
Max
F
Sig.
WOMEN
207
0,70
0,515
-0,75
2,00
4,094
0,044
MEN
133
0,58
0,510
-0,75
1,64
Discussion We focused our research on the relationship between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. Everyone is sometimes helpful towards someone else. Yet can we suppose that the one who is more helpful, will expect or demand more help from us (will demand more prosocial behaviour)? We were also interested in the influence of gender on the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. Traditionally men and women are associated with different qualities. However, does gender influence a person’s tendency to help us? Or that he or she will expect help from us? In terms of our results we can say that there is a positive relation between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. People who show a higher tendency to act prosocially are also more likely to demand prosocial behaviour from other people. Closeness of the relationship is, however, low. This begs the question: What causes the relationship and why it is not stronger? We suppose that the norm of reciprocity and the principles of the social exchange theory are important determinants of the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. They speak about a person’s expectation of recoverability of his /her/ investment in others and that his /her/ good deeds will be repaid by someone else’s good deeds (e.g. Feldman, 1985 according to Wilke, Lanzett, 1970, Zafirovski, 2003). The one who acts prosocially, also expects that the others will act the same way. Our results support these theoretical concepts. It is possible that some people with an increased tendency to prosocial behaviour can tend to have low demands on the others. These low demands can be represented by not-demanding prosocial behaviour from the others. In this case, that would be altruistic behaviour – a person demonstrates his /her/ helpfulness and does not ask anything in return. Behaviour motivated by altruism increases the
7
tendency to act prosocially and decreased the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour from the others. Cases of that kind of prosocial behaviour could decrease closeness of the measured relation. The relation between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour can only be influenced by variables affecting the tendency to prosocial behaviour. The chance to gain appreciation can be one of these variables. A person with increased need for appreciation is motivated to act prosocially (Výrost, Slaměník, 1997 according to Satow, 1975). This person, however, is probably not motivated to demand prosocial behaviour from other people. His /her/ prosocial act then becomes more apparent and he /she/ gets more appreciation if his /her/ behaviour is in contrast with behaviour of other people. We suppose that the number of bystanders can influence the tendency to prosocial behaviour but has no influence on the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. A person will more likely act prosocially if he /she/ is the only one who can do the given prosocial act (e.g. Latané, Darley, 1970). In the questionnaire situations, our respondents could act prosocially just because there was nobody else to share the responsibility from not doing the prosocial act. This fact could influence the measured tendency to prosocial behaviour but had probably no effect on the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. Feedback from the others can be another variable influencing the tendency to prosocial behaviour. If a person receives assurance that he /she/ is a kind and considerate person, he /she/ will tend to come up to this affirmation and will act kindly and considerately (e.g. Strenta a Dejong, 1981). It is possible that this person perceives similar stimuli from the others as something which refers just to his /her/ person, not for instance the social norms. Feedback from other people, which influenced the tendency to prosocial behaviour, will probably not affect the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour because it does not include information that a person should demand prosocial behaviour from the others. The tendency to demand prosocial behaviour can be influenced by factors, which do not relate to the tendency to act prosocially. That can be the cause of a low relation between both of the tendencies. That leaves room for other researches, which could show on basis of what a man demands help from the others. What leads a person to have higher demands on the others than someone else? Our research offers one of possible answers to this question. Gender could be a factor influencing the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. Analysis of the influence of gender on the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour showed a small but statistically significant difference between men and women. In terms of the results we rejected the hypothesis saying that gender has no influence on the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. In our research sample women demand prosocial behaviour strongly than men. Although the difference between men and women is small, it can have a significant impact on common life. The research did not prove any influence of gender upon the tendency to prosocial behaviour, but we identified a relationship between the tendency to prosocial behaviour and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. If there is a man and a woman with the same tendency to 8
prosocial behaviour, it is more probable (according to the results) that the woman will demand more prosocial behaviour from the man than he will demand from her. In terms of the social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, this can cause a state of disharmony. The man could feel unsatisfied in the relationship, as he would invest more than he himself needs to get, or he would not be able to satisfy the woman’s expectations. As we said before, the research did not prove the influence of gender on the tendency to prosocial behaviour. Thus we could stop considering gender as a factor influencing the tendency to prosocial behaviour. Piliavin and Unger (1985) say that in serious situations men are just as helping as women, while in less serious situations women help more often (Piliavin a Unger, 1985 in Piliavin, Charng, 1990). In our research, we did not occupy ourselves with this tendency. Should the results of our research have some value, it is necessary to consider what exactly the result show and what is their predicative value. The relation between the tendency to act prosocially and the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour does not prove the mutual dependency of the tendencies. Thus it is wrong to think that if a person started to demand more prosocial behaviour from the others, he /she/ would then have higher tendency to act prosocially. Weak relationship between both of the tendencies means that there is a number of people with a relatively strong tendency to prosocial behaviour but a small tendency to demand prosocial behaviour. As well as that there are people who demand prosocial behaviour without being prosocial themselves.
External validity and generability of the results Now we would like to briefly focus on external validity of our research, which speaks about the generalization potential of the results over the population apart from the research sample. There is several variables which could influence generability of the results. We consider the act of completion and sending the questionnaire as important. This act can be termed prosocial. According to Rushton (1982), prosocial behaviour cannot be assessed just by one particular act. Still, every prosocial act speaks about higher probability of an increased tendency to prosocial behaviour. Thus it is possible that the questionnaire was completed mainly by people with an increased tendency to prosocial behaviour. 55% of sent questionnaires returned completed. It means that almost a half of addressed people did not complete the questionnaire. We processed data from slightly more than a half of people who acted prosocially in their free anonymous choice. The questionnaire was completed by people with a higher tendency to prosocial behaviour (in population). Thus it is possible that we cannot determine the relation between the tendency to act prosocially and demanding prosocial behaviour in a population with a smaller tendency to prosocial behaviour. It would be contributive to realize a research focusing on the tendency to demand prosocial behaviour by people with a small tendency to prosocial behaviour. Other variables important for external validity of the research are the age of respondents and their intelligence or education. Our research sample was created only by university students, whose age is 9
lower than the average age of the population. At the same time we can consider the respondents’ intelligence higher than the rest of the population. We suppose that generability of correlation analysis results cannot be influenced by the fact that the research sample did not represent the population as for the age and intelligence. We did not try to describe any pattern in the population, we just searched for relationship between two variables.
References EISENBERG, N. & MILLER, P. A., 1987, The Relation of Empathy to Prosocial and Related Behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 91-119. FELDMAN, R. S., 1985, Social psychology. New York, McGraw-Hill. FULTZ, J., BATSON, C. D., FORTENBACH, V. A., MCCARTHY, P.M. & VARNEY, L. L., 1986, Social Evaluation and the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 50, 761-769. GOULDNER, A. W., 1960, The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review 25(2), 161-178. LATANÉ, B., DARLEY, J. M., 1970, The unresponsive bystander: Why doesn’t he help? Engelwoods Cliffts, New York, Prentice Hall. MIKULCINER, M., SHAVER, P., GILLATH, O., & NITZBERG, R. A., 2005, Attachment, caregiving, and altruism: Boosting attachment security increases compassion and helping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 817-839. PILIAVIN, J. A., CHARNG, H., 1990, Altruism: A Rewiev of Recent Theory and Research. Annual Rewiev of Sociology, 16, 27-65. RUSHTON, J.P., 1982, Altruism and Society: A Social Learning Perspective. Ethics, 92, 425-446. STRENTA, A., DEJONG, W., 1981, The Effect of Prosocial Label on Helping Behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 142-147. VAN DE VEN, J., 2001, Social Approval as a Motivation to Give: (On-line) See at http://www.appropriate-economics.org/. VAN DER HEIJDEN, E.C.M., NELISSEN, J.H.M., POTTERS, J.J.M. & VERBON, H.A.A., 1999, Simple and Complex Gift Exchange in the Laboratory: (On-line) See at http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/. VÝROST, J., SLAMĚNÍK, I., 1997, Sociální psychologie. Praha, ISV. WORCHEL, W.S., WONG, F.Y., SCHELTEMA, K.E., 1989, Improving Intergroup Relations: Comparative Effects of Anticipated Cooperation and Helping on Attraction for an Aid-Giver. Social Psychology Quarterly, 52, 213-219. ZAFIROVSKI, M., 2003, Some Amendments to Social Exchange Theory: A Sociological Perspective. Theory & Science, 4.
10
Souvislost mezi prosociálním chováním a vyžadováním prosociálního chování
Martin Vaculík, Jakub Procházka, Petr Květon
Souhrn Výzkumný projekt je zaměřený na oblast prosociálního chování. Autoři se snaží odpovědět na otázku, zda prosociální chování bude více vyžadovat člověk, který se sám chová více prosociálně než člověk, který má k prosociálnímu chování menší tendenci. Autoři se také zaměřili na vztah mezi zmíněnými tendencemi a rodovou příslušností. Výzkumný soubor tvořilo 340 respondentů, kteří vyplnili dotazník identifikující tendence k prosociálnímu chování a k vyžadování prosociálního chování. Podle získaných výsledků existuje pozitivní vazba mezi tendencí chovat se prosociálně a tendencí vyžadovat prosociální chování. Rodová příslušnost nemá vliv na tendenci k prosociálnímu chování, ale má vliv na tendenci vyžadovat prosociální chování - ženy mají silnější tendenci vyžadovat prosociální chování než muži.
11
