Predicting, Prosocial Commitment in Different Social Contexts

Research on altruism is concerned with highly different predica-ments and, consequently, with very different activities. Prosocial behavior may involve readiness to give away a small coin, donating bone marrow, helping a car driver with a flat tire, consoling people in pain and sorrow, or rescuing the politically persecuted. Schnei-der (1988) lists forty-four different actions used in empirical re-search on helping that are quite different with regard to costs incurred as well as riskiness. unknown unknown