Data_Sheet_1_Rare and Costly Prosocial Behaviors Are Perceived as Heroic.docx

Heroism has only recently become a topic of empirical investigation. Existing research suggests a connection between heroism and four well-documented dimensions of human social behavior: (1) the cost incurred by the actor; (2) the benefit provided to the recipient; (3) the perceived frequency (i.e., descriptive normativity); and (4) the perceived expectation to perform it (i.e., injunctive normativity). In a series of exploratory studies (total N = 408), we aim to shed light on how each of these constructs influence lay intuitions about the nature of heroism (i.e., what determines which acts people perceive to be heroic). In Study 1, subjects generated a list of acts they deemed to be heroic. In Study 2, subjects rated the heroicness of the acts from Study 1, revealing considerable variation in the level of heroism. Finally, subjects in Study 3 rated the cost to the actor, the benefit to the recipient(s), the descriptive normativity (i.e., frequency), and the injunctive normativity (i.e., obligatoriness) of ten acts, five of which received particularly high heroism scores in Study 2 (“exemplary” acts of heroism) and five of which received particularly low heroism scores in Study 2 (“ambiguous” acts of heroism). We find that more heroic acts are seen as rarer and more costly to actors—but, interestingly, not more beneficial to recipients or less obligatory. These findings help to illuminate what it means to be seen as a hero, and suggest clear future directions for both empirical and theoretical work.

英雄主义作为一项实证研究的课题，直至近期才逐渐受到关注。现有研究表明，英雄主义与人类社会行为四个被广泛记录的维度之间存在关联：(1) 行动者所承担的成本；(2) 对受助者提供的利益；(3) 被感知的频率（即描述性规范性）；以及(4) 被感知的执行期望（即命令性规范性）。在一系列探索性研究中（总计N = 408），我们旨在揭示这些结构如何影响人们对英雄主义本质的直观理解（即何种行为被人们视为英雄行为）。在研究一（Study 1）中，受试者列出他们认为属于英雄行为的行动清单。在研究二（Study 2）中，受试者对研究一中的行动进行了英雄主义程度的评级，显示出英雄主义程度存在显著差异。最后，在研究三中，受试者对十项行动的成本（对行动者的）、受助者的利益、描述性规范性（即频率）和命令性规范性（即义务性）进行了评级，其中五项在研究二中获得了特别高的英雄主义评分（“典范”英雄行为），而另外五项则获得了特别低的英雄主义评分（“模糊”英雄行为）。我们发现，更具有英雄主义的行为被视为更为罕见且对行动者来说成本更高——然而，有趣的是，它们并不一定对受助者更有益或义务性更低。这些发现有助于阐明被视为英雄的含义，并为实证和理论工作指明了明确的未来研究方向。