The Role of Construal Level in Prosocial Behavior

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Throughout history, human civilization has long recognized the value and necessity of engaging in prosocial behavior both within and across groups. Indeed, encouraging people to donate their time and resources to help others is a wise practice, as engaging in such prosocial behavior can have economic, social, and even mental health benefits for the receiver, giver, and society at large. When people engage in such prosocial behavior, it is mostly as a result of appeals. Thus, understanding fundamental processes that underlie people's responsiveness to appeals is crucial. The investigator proposes to examine how people's basic mental processes affect their responsiveness to different kinds of appeals. One thing that makes humans special relative to other species (and even sophisticated machines) is our ability to think or construe the world at varying levels of abstractness. This ability to adopt higher levels of thinking allows humans to grasp concepts that transcend beyond one specific situation, including concepts such as love and justice. Previous research indicates that it matters whether people construe their own behavior abstractly, that is, in ways that are schematic and capture the essence of what the behavior is about, or in terms of its concrete observable details such as how and in what circumstance they carry out the behavior. No research, however, has examined how people's construal level affects their responsiveness to different kinds of appeals or influence tactics in the prosocial domain. In addition, most previous research in the prosocial domain has focused exclusively on intentions rather than people's actual prosocial behavior. This proposal explores how people's ability to think or construe the world in more concrete versus more abstract terms affects the way people respond to solicitations for donations and volunteerism. The proposed research involves a series of six studies that employ a combination of laboratory and field designs (i.e., collaborations with real charities and nonprofits). The proposed research will systematically test key predictions about behavior by examining the impact of situational factors that are known to shift individuals' thinking to a lower (more concrete) or higher (more abstract) level, used in conjunction with different persuasive appeals. The investigator will identify the circumstances that maximize how much time and money people give to help others by examining the manner of making contributions (distributed vs. all-at-once; unrestricted vs. to targeted needs) as well as the temporal sequencing of the appeal, such as whether it is preceded by a smaller or much larger request. This research will provide much needed clarity and insights in the domains of judgment and decision-making, social influence, prosocial behavior, and social-cognitive processing. In addition, the findings have the potential to transform how charities and nonprofits target and persuade potential donors and volunteers.