Data from: The influence of social preferences and reputational concerns on intergroup prosocial behavior in gains and losses contexts

To what extent do people help ingroup members based on a social preference to improve ingroup members’ outcomes, versus strategic concerns about preserving their reputation within their group? And do these motives manifest differently when a prosocial behavior occurs in the context of helping another gain a positive outcome (Study 1), versus helping another to avoid losing a positive outcome (Study 2)? In both contexts, we find that participants are more prosocial towards ingroup (vs. outgroup members) and more prosocial when decisions are public (vs. private) but find no interaction between group membership and either anonymity of the decision or expected economic value of helping. Therefore, consistent with a preference-based account of ingroup favoritism, people appear to prefer to help ingroup members more than outgroup members, regardless of whether helping can improve their reputation within their group. Moreover, this preference to help ingroup members appears to take the form of an intuitive social heuristic to help ingroup members, regardless of the economic incentives or possibility of reputation management. Theoretical and practical implications for the study of intergroup prosocial behavior are discussed.

人们在帮助群体内成员时，在多大程度上基于提升群体内成员收益的社会偏好，而非维护自身在群体内声誉的策略性考量？而当亲社会行为发生在帮助他人获取正向收益（研究1）与帮助他人避免丧失正向收益（研究2）这两种情境中时，这些动机的表现形式是否存在差异？在两种实验情境中，我们均发现被试对群体内成员（相较于群体外成员）展现出更强的亲社会性，且当决策为公开进行（相较于私密进行）时亲社会行为水平更高；但未发现群体归属与决策匿名性、或帮助行为的预期经济价值之间存在交互效应。因此，契合群体偏袒的偏好驱动解释框架，人们似乎更倾向于帮助群体内成员而非群体外成员，无论帮助行为是否能够提升自身在群体内的声誉。此外，这种帮助群体内成员的偏好，似乎以帮助群体内成员的直觉性社会启发式策略形式呈现，不受经济激励或声誉管理可能性的影响。本文最后探讨了本研究对群体间亲社会行为研究的理论与实践启示。