The promotional effect of prosocial motivation on time-based prospective memory

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is the ability to remember to do a planned task at the right time. In social interactions, people are often motivated to do things for others, which reflects an important factor that influences prospective memory, namely prosocial motivation. According to the motivational cognitive model, prosocial motivation promotes TBPM by paying more attention or adopting more effective strategies. This study explored the effect of prosocial motivation on TBPM under different time-monitoring conditions within the motivational cognitive model framework. One hundred and thirty-one university students participated in this experiment that adopted a 2 (groups: control, prosocial motivation) × 2 (viewing time conditions: limited, unlimited) between-subjects design. The results revealed that the prosocial motivation group had better TBPM performance than the control group under both limited and unlimited viewing time conditions. At the same time, compared with the control group, the prosocial motivation group consumed more internal attention and utilized more strategies under both viewing time conditions, and their external attention was more effective. In addition, the external attention of the prosocial motivation group was higher only when time-monitoring was unlimited. The results of this study further extend knowledge of the motivational cognitive model and expand its scope of application, which has theoretical significance.