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Catherine Molho1,2,3, Ivan Soraperra4,5, Jonathan F Schulz6

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Providing information about decision consequences boosts prosocial behavior, driven by guilt, not shame. This guilt-driven prosociality and wilful ignorance are evident across diverse cultures.

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Area of Science:

  • Social Psychology
  • Cross-Cultural Psychology
  • Behavioral Economics

Background:

  • Impersonal prosociality is vital for societal functioning.
  • Cross-societal prosociality varies, potentially due to differing reliance on guilt versus shame.
  • Monetary allocation tasks like dictator games are used to study prosociality.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether guilt (internalized norms) or shame (external reputation) mechanisms drive prosociality across diverse cultures.
  • To examine the impact of information (guilt manipulation) and observability (shame manipulation) on prosocial behavior.
  • To assess individual and country-level differences in the guilt-shame balance.

Main Methods:

  • A preregistered experiment involving 7,978 participants across 20 countries.
  • Utilized dictator games with manipulated information (guilt) and observability (shame).
  • Measured individual and country-level preferences for guilt over shame.

Main Results:

  • Found robust evidence for guilt-driven prosociality and wilful ignorance across cultures.
  • Prosociality increased significantly when participants received information about consequences compared to when they could avoid it.
  • Individual guilt-proneness correlated with information responsiveness, while observability had minimal impact.

Conclusions:

  • Guilt, driven by information about consequences, is a significant driver of prosocial behavior globally.
  • Wilful ignorance plays a role, suggesting individuals may avoid information to maintain prosociality.
  • Providing information is a key strategy to foster prosociality across diverse cultural contexts.