Definition
Prosocial behaviorcovers a broad range of actions intended to benefit others. This includes, but is not limited to, cooperation, sharing, helping, charitable giving, and volunteering. As such, prosocial behavior usually entails some (small or even large) cost for the actor, such as spending resources, time, and effort or sometimes even incurring physical harm. For example, acts of kindness or charity (e.g., offering your seat in the bus or giving few coins to a beggar) but also self-sacrifice or heroism (e.g., donating a kidney to save others’ lives or intervening to help strangers in emergencies) are all prosocial behaviors. The question is why people do such nice things for others? Many explanations have been provided at many levels; in the present entry, we focus on the fundamental role of certain personality traits and incentives in promoting prosocial behavior. We look at who is more likely...
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Manesi, Z., Van Doesum, N.J., Van Lange, P.A.M. (2017). Prosocial Behavior. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1894-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1894-1
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