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Abstract

Prosocial behavior – from offering seats to the elderly to taking in refugees - is a form of social interaction that is crucial for functioning societies. The present studies aimed at investigating i) the structure and ii) the plasticity of different facets of prosocial behavior. In order address the first goal, fourteen measurements of prosocial behavior from different research traditions were integrated, ranging from self-reports to game theoretical paradigms. Using factor analyses in two independent samples, we identified and confirmed four meaningful and reliable sub-components of prosociality: altruistically motivated-, norm motivated-, strategically motivated-, and self-reported prosocial behavior. Subsequently, we investigated how the identified sub-components changed as a function of three specific, twelve-week mental training techniques, focusing either on attention and awareness (Presence), loving kindness and caring motivation (Affect), or metacognitive and perspective taking (Perspective). Results revealed that truly altruistic behavior was most efficiently enhanced by the affect-based training, while norm-driven behavior was reduced particularly by the perspective taking training. Interestingly, (changes in) self-reported and behavior-based prosociality were not correlated, suggesting that people who consider themselves (increasingly) altruistic don’t necessarily behave in that manner. Taken together, our results suggest that different facets of prosocial preferences can be identified and differentially altered by specific mental trainings.