Separating individual and group-level cooperation in the Public Goods Game.

Cooperation in the Public Goods Game (PGG) is determined by a mixture of individual differences (e.g. personality, social preferences) and group dynamics (e.g. reciprocation, social norms). However, to our knowledge, no thorough attempt has been made to separate individual and group levels of cooperation and to quantify the variance in cooperation that can be attributed to the group level. In an analysis of 10 open datasets (total N = 4,556, 1,003 groups, 7-50 rounds), we chart the trajectory of individual and group-level variance across rounds of repeated PGGs. We find that the portion of group-level variance increases initially and plateaus around the fifth round, typically at a level between 20 and 50%. In addition, we identify four factors that increase the portion of group-level variance: (i) punishment opportunities; (ii) detailed feedback including all group members' decisions; (iii) small groups (≤4 players); and (iv) groups with homogenous social preferences.

I like it because it hurts you: On the association of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming.

Past research on determinants of victim blaming mainly concentrated on individuals' just-world beliefs as motivational process underlying this harsh reaction to others' suffering. The present work provides novel insights regarding underlying affective processes by showing how individuals prone to derive pleasure from others' suffering-individuals high in everyday sadism-engage in victim blaming due to increased sadistic pleasure and reduced empathic concern they experience. Results of three cross-sectional studies and one ambulatory assessment study applying online experience sampling method (ESM; overall N = 2,653) document this association. Importantly, the relation emerged over and above the honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness personality model (Study 1a), and other so-called dark traits (Study 1b), across different cultural backgrounds (Study 1c), and also when sampling from a population of individuals frequently confronted with victim-perpetrator constellations: police officers (Study 1d). Studies 2 and 3 highlight a significant behavioral correlate of victim blaming. Everyday sadism is related to reduced willingness to engage in effortful cognitive activity as individuals high (vs. low) in everyday sadism recall less information regarding victim-perpetrator constellations of sexual assault. Results obtained in the ESM study (Study 4) indicate that the relation of everyday sadism, sadistic pleasure, and victim blaming holds in everyday life and is not significantly moderated by interpersonal closeness to the blamed victim or impactfulness of the incident. Overall, the present article extends our understanding of what determines innocent victims' derogation and highlights emotional mechanisms, societal relevance, and generalizability of the observed associations beyond the laboratory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

I enjoy hurting my classmates: On the relation of boredom and sadism in schools.

Schools can be a place of both love and of cruelty. We examined one type of cruelty that occurs in the school context: sadism, that is, harming others for pleasure. Primarily, we proposed and tested whether boredom plays a crucial role in the emergence of sadistic actions at school. In two well-powered studies (N = 1038; student age range = 10-18 years) using both self- and peer-reports of students' boredom levels and their sadistic tendencies, we first document that sadistic behavior occurs at school, although at a low level. We further show that those students who are more often bored at school are more likely to engage in sadistic actions (overall r = .36, 95% CI [0.24, 0.49]). In sum, the present work contributes to a better understanding of sadism in schools and points to boredom as one potential motivator. We discuss how reducing boredom might help to prevent sadistic tendencies at schools.

Prosocial behavior and altruism: A review of concepts and definitions.

The field of prosociality is flourishing, yet researchers disagree about how to define prosocial behavior and often neglect defining it altogether. In this review, we provide an overview about the breadth of definitions of prosocial behavior and the related concept of altruism. Common to almost all definitions is an emphasis on the promotion of welfare in agents other than the actor. However, definitions of the two concepts differ in terms of whether they emphasize intentions and motives, costs and benefits, and the societal context. In order to improve on the conceptual ambiguity surrounding the study of prosociality, we urge researchers to provide definitions, to use operationalizations that match their definitions, and to acknowledge the diversity of prosocial behavior.

Prosocial behavior toward machines.

Building on the computers are social actors framework, we provide an overview of research demonstrating that humans behave prosocially toward machines. In doing so, we outline that similar motivational and cognitive processes play a role when people act in prosocial ways toward humans and machines. These include perceiving the machine as somewhat human, applying social categories to the machine, being socially influenced by the machine, and experiencing social emotions toward the machine. We conclude that studying prosocial behavior toward machines is important to facilitate proper functioning of human-machine interactions. We further argue that machines provide an interesting yet underutilized resource in the study of prosocial behavior because they are both highly controllable and humanlike.