Scaling of Prosocial Behavior in Cities

Area of Science:

• Urban studies
• Sociology
• Behavioral economics

Background:

• Previous research indicates that behaviors like innovation, productivity, and crime exhibit superlinear scaling with city population.
• Superlinear scaling means these behaviors increase per capita as city size grows.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the scaling patterns of various prosocial behaviors (e.g., voting, organ donation) in relation to city population size.
• To determine if prosocial behaviors, like other behaviors, follow a unified scaling pattern.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of diverse prosocial behaviors across different city populations.
• Comparison of observed scaling patterns against established models of urban scaling.

Main Results:

• Prosocial behaviors do not exhibit a unified scaling pattern with city population.
• Unlike innovation and criminal behavior, prosocial behaviors show varied scaling, indicating heterogeneity.

Conclusions:

• The scaling of prosocial behaviors is not uniform and differs from productivity and crime.
• Distinct interaction dynamics underlying different prosocial behaviors likely explain their varied scaling in urban settings.