Two Key Studies of Culture & Prosocial Behaviour (DP IB Psychology)

Key study one: Levine et al. (2001)

Aim: To investigate prosocial behaviour using the cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism

Procedure:

• 23 large major cities across the world were selected in which to carry out this large-scale field experiment

• The cities chosen were classified as coming from either individualistic e.g. USA or collectivist cultures e.g. Malaysia

• The researchers used psychologists and students from all over the world to help them collect the data

• The sample consisted of people who were there at the time the behaviour was sampled from the 23 countries selected

• Thus, the researchers used opportunity sampling

• The researchers (all male) set up three different scenarios in a variety of outdoor settings involving the following action:

  • A pedestrian drops a pen in the street without noticing

  • A pedestrian wearing a leg brace drops some magazines

  • A blind pedestrian with a cane waits at a traffic light for assistance crossing the street

• The researchers then observed the rate and degree of help given in each of the above scenarios

Results:

• Collectivist cultures yielded higher scores for helping behaviour

  • Rio de Janeiro scored the highest at 93% overall followed by San Jose in Costa Rica, Lilongwe in Mali, Calcutta in India

• Rates and degree of helping tended to be high in countries with low economic productivity

• One surprising finding was that Vienna ranked fifth as the most helpful city (an individualistic culture and a wealthy city)

• Another unexpected result was that Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia, a collectivist culture) ranked lowest out of all the 23 countries in terms of prosocial behaviour (40%)

• One of the related findings was that there was a positive correlation between slow pace of life (measured by walking speed) and pro-social behaviour 

Conclusion:

• Cross-cultural differences are apparent in prosocial behaviour

• Cross-cultural differences in prosocial behaviour are not definitive and may not be the product of culture alone

Evaluation of Levine et al. (2001)

Strengths

• The huge scale of the research involving 23 countries and hundreds of participants means that the results are generalisable across a range of cultures

  • Generalisability is based on how representative the sample and the measured behaviour is

  • External validity (which encompasses generalisability and ecological validity) is therefore high in this study (

• The large data set of quantitative findings means that the results are robust

  • quantitative data in large numbers can withstand statistical analysis

  • Statistical analysis is important because it can determine whether a specific variable has an effect on behaviour (e.g. the effect of culture on prosocial behaviour)

 Limitations

• Replicating this study would be extremely difficult

  • Any replication would necessarily involve a different set of participants

  • Replicating behavioural variables (e.g. dropping newspapers) cannot be replicated exactly and would likely show inconsistency across time

  • This was an ambitious, expensive study which also makes it difficult to replicate

  • Not being able to replicate the study means that its reliability cannot be tested

• Individual differences may have confounded the results, for example:

  • some people are naturally more helpful than others, regardless of culture

  • external factors such as the weather and time of day may have affected the rate and degree of helping

  • some participants may have been aware that they were being observed and so may have helped more/less than they usually would (the observer effect)

Key study two: Aknin et al. (2013)

Aim: To investigate the idea that human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from donating to charity (prosocial spending)

Participants:

• 234,917 participants from 136 countries (1,321 per country)

• The sample was drawn from a representative range of cities, towns and rural areas i.e. both individualistic and collectivist cultures

• The sample represented 95% of the adult population of the whole world at the time of the study’s publication

• 51% of the participants were female; 49% were male, with a total mean age of 38 years

Procedure:

• A correlational analysis of data was conducted based on interviews conducted with each participant

• A 30-minute phone interview was conducted with participants from more affluent countries

• A one-hour face-to-face interview was conducted with participants from less affluent poorer countries

• Participants were asked to give a yes/no response as to whether they had donated money to a charity in the past month

  • The yes/no response was followed up with a question pertaining to their subjective well-being, for example: 

    • rate how satisfied you are with your life as a whole on a 10-point scale (0, dissatisfied, to 10, satisfied). 

Results:

• Prosocial spending was positively correlated with higher reported feelings of subjective well-being around the world

• The above finding held true whether the country was individualistic or collectivist, rich or poor

Conclusion: Spending money on prosocial causes may be linked to feelings of well-being which may be universal across cultures

Evaluation of Aknin et al. (2013)

Strengths

• The sample obtained for this study is almost unique in psychological research in terms of its representative nature: 

  • it can be generalised to almost any adult from anywhere in the world

• The findings have good application, for example:

  • charities can use the idea that donating gives people a ‘buzz’ i.e. donating for selfish reasons (which, nonetheless, benefit the charity)

  • on a smaller scale, schools and other institutions such as hospitals and prisons could use the findings to promote helpfulness as part of their well-being and mental health strategies

 Limitations

• Donating money to charity is held in high regard in all societies so it is possible that some participants may have exaggerated their prosocial spending

  • The above observation means that social desirability bias may have influenced the participants’ responses

  • Social desirability bias lowers the validity of a study’s findings

• Although the link between prosocial spending and subjective well-being was strong, there was still variability between countries

Variability in results means that the researchers were not able to state definitively that prosocial spending is a universal behaviour