Climate change, pandemics, people searching for refuge from war and declining natural resources; the challenges within a globalized world cannot be solved without the cooperation between people from all over the world. This includes political cooperation, as well as grassroot movements working towards a sustainable and more equal society, and individuals changing the own consumer behavior or lifestyle. Unfortunately, both national and personal interests often conflict with behaviors and measures that would be necessary to mitigate crises. How to overcome those barriers to global responsible behavior? For almost seven decades, psychologists have shown that intergroup contact reduces prejudice against people from other groups. In the context of global environmental and social problems, we propose that contact has potential beyond that. We posit that international contact facilitates identification with the global ingroup of humanity and in turn induces globally responsible behavioral intentions and behaviors. In two manuscripts we present experimental as well as correlational evidence from nine studies (N=2147) supporting the “global contact” hypothesis. Both experimental induced contact (in six studies by the use of a simulated internet chat) and self-reported international contacts led to higher identification and solidarity with humanity compared to different control groups. Global identification and solidarity in turn, were related to higher global responsible attitudes and intentions. Those participants who had simulated contact with distant cultures reported a significantly higher level of identification with humanity compared to participants with close contacts. Climate change, people fleeing from war and poverty, pandemics – the challenges for the international community are enormous. However, the results of this dissertation suggest that this community also has the potential to face such crises. The promotion of positive contacts with people from other parts of the world can foster identities and engagement beyond national borders and interests. 'Know few, care for all.:Table of Contents 1 - Introduction 2 - Method Procedure The chat paradigm Contact condition Control conditions Imagined contact design Manipulations for additional research questions The questionnaire 3 - Get together, feel together, act together: International personal contact increases identification with humanity and global collective action Abstract Introduction International contact Processes underlying intergroup contact effects Contact and collective action The superordinate identity of humanity The model and preliminary results Study 1 Methods Results and discussion Study 2 Methods Results Discussion Empirical findings Study designs Advantages of contact interventions Superordinate categories Status groups Conclusion 4 – Know few, care for all. Does international contact increase global identification and responsible global action? Abstract Introduction Intergroup contact Contact and Pro-social action Generalization and recategorization Levels of identification The Present Research Overview of the Studies Method Procedure and measures Results Meta-Analysis Testing the salience of exclusive common ingroups and contact group similarity as moderators General Discussion The recategorization hypothesis Influence of lower level categories Conclusion 5 - Discussion Theoretical impulse Application in the field Conclusion and appeal Supplemental material Supplemental Material to Chapter 3 Supplemental Material to Chapter 4 References Appendix

Prosocial behavior typically emerges during an infant's second year. Because it is posited to be continuous from infancy to adulthood, and past research has identified numerous positive outcomes associated with prosocial behavior, it is important to understand the mechanisms involved in early prosocial behavior, such as prosocial media. Past research has examined the relation between prosocial media and prosocial behavior in preschool children, but no studies have explored this association with infants. The current study includes 60 infants and their primary caregivers. Data about media use, parent-infant media interactions, and infant prosocial helping was collected through survey and observational measures. Results showed that prosocial media exposure and parent joint media engagement were not associated with infant instrumental prosocial behavior. Additionally, parent joint media engagement did not act as a moderator between prosocial media exposure and infant instrumental prosocial behavior. Discussion focuses on the implications of infant age, infant attention level, and age appropriateness of media on infant instrumental prosocial behavior, as well as potential problems within the measurement and cross-sectional study design.

The presented systematic literature review seeks answers to the question "Does weeping in adults increase the probability of prosocial behavior among observers?". Our methodology follows the PRISMA Statement recommendations. On the basis of predefined key words 2278 records have been identified in the Scopus and PsycINFO databases. Overlapping records have been removed and abstracts and whole texts have been screened to evaluate the fulfilment of the eligibility criteria and the relevance for the predefined question and this resulted in the inclusion of 8 articles representing 10 experiments into the final analysis. This thesis brings an overview of these studies and their conclusions and methodologies. It discusses the strengths and weaknesess of the various approaches. It turned out that the fact, whether participants are presented with a decontextualized stimulus material or whether they are at least slightly acquainted with the context, plays an important role in the research. If the context is included, it appears that the influence of tears on the willingness to help is not as strong as in the case of its absence. Furthermore, many other factors have been found to be relevant that affect this relationship. We also discuss the adequacy of the the concept "prosocial behaviour" as hypotheses...

It is sometimes said that money speaks louder than words, and in a world where financial decisions are a major driving force, it is interesting to explore how monetary incentives influence our decision making. Some argue that intrinsic motivation is sufficient to be able to measure prosocial decision-making, but what happens when we add monetary incentives to experiments that might otherwise be conducted with hypothetical scenarios? In this study, we conduct an online experiment with 1002 participants to explore if decision making changes when monetary incentives are introduced. The experiment includes five different social dilemmas involving distributions of money between participants. There are two conditions where one group makes hypothetical decisions and the other group receives money based on their decisions (i.e., is incentivized). Furthermore, we investigate if income, age and gender affect prosocial behavior. Our results suggest that both conditions show similar effects on prosocial behavior which implies that usage of either one of the two conditions will generate an equivalent outcome. The effects from household income, age and gender were significant in some social dilemmas, but the effect was not practically relevant for this study. We believe our results may be useful to include in the discussion of whether or not monetary incentives and hypothetical decisions generate similar results when studying prosocial behavior in decision making in experiments.

This study examines the influence of emotion understanding, language, and working memory on reticence and prosocial behavior in children with language impairment (LI). The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL; Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999) and The Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT; Bracken & McCallum, 2003) were administered to 39 children with LI and 39 typical age-matched peers. A nonword repetition task and two tasks measuring emotion understanding were also administered. Each of the participant's classroom teachers completed The Teacher Behavioral Rating Scale (TBRS; Hart & Robinson, 1996). Structural equation modeling was used to estimate models of the data using a maximum likelihood procedure for each of the groups. Results showed that for children with typical language skills, both dissemblance and language were negatively linked to reticence. For the children with LI, there was a positive relationship between dissemblance and prosocial behavior and a significant negative relationship between standard language score and prosocial behavior. When the four individual paths were tested one at a time, by constraining the estimates of each of the paths to be equal across groups, only the effect of language on prosocial behavior was significantly different between groups.

Although prosocial behavior has been moving in directions that highlight complexity over the past few years, little research has assessed the cost of this behavior. This study created a scale assessing the tendency to perceive costs of prosocial behavior. This was validated via focus groups, content and discriminant validity. In six focus groups, 29 13- to 25-year olds described specific prosocial acts and the costs that they experienced from the act. A questionnaire was then given to 391 emerging adults. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Results suggest a four-factor solution with adequate model fit, suggesting cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and social costs. Convergent and discriminant validity add support to the scale. Discussion focuses on the implications of this measure for the prosocial behavior literature and important future directions.

The psychological inquiry into the effects of videogames and the internet on behavior is still a relatively new field. The question of whether playing violent videogames directly contribute to violent behavior, particularly in reference to its influence in mass shootings, is an important one that needs answers. A plethora of research purportedly shows the negative effects of (violent) videogames, but research showing positive effects, particularly on prosocial behaviors within the virtual world and reality, are less common. If specific videogame preferences are associated with altruistic behaviors, such a finding could elucidate how videogames might contribute to prosocial behavior. In this study, I examined if variables related to playing videogames are associated with altruism. Specifically, study variables were: (1) type of videogame played by participants (violent vs. non-violent); (2) the role players assume when playing (hero vs. villain); and (3) typical playing status (in teams vs. alone). Undergraduate students (n = 173; 120 females, 49 males, 4 “other”) completed a set of questionnaires assessing the following: their videogaming preferences and behaviors, altruism, pleasure at viewing violent media, antisocial behaviors, and aggressiveness. I had hypothesized that game players preferring to play violent games, on average, would obtain lower scores on altruism than players preferring to play non-violent games. The data did not support that hypothesis. I also hypothesized that game players who preferred playing heroes in games (instead of villains) and who preferred playing in teams (instead of playing alone) would obtain higher scores in altruism. Contrary to predictions, the data did not support those hypotheses. I also conducted exploratory analyses to determine if gaming preferences (e.g., violent or non-violent games, playing the role of heroes or villains, and playing in teams or alone) would be associated with extra-study variables (pleasure at viewing violent media, antisocial behaviors, and aggressiveness). None of the gaming preferences were associated significantly with any of the extra-study variables. All considered, these findings suggest that there is no disconcerting behavioral profile of video-gamers who enjoy playing violent video games, assuming any specific type of role, or playing in teams or alone. Additional implications of these findings are discussed.

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