Prosocial decisions in naturalistic helping scenarios are predicted by cost-benefit tradeoffs and individual disposition.

ABSTRACT: The origins of human prosociality, in particular between strangers, are multifaceted. While laboratory studies support a cost-benefit account of helping, real-life scenarios involve additional socio-emotional motives grounded in subjective intuitions. How the cost-benefit model generalizes to everyday helping behavior remains unclear. In this study, we comprehensively assessed how motivations jointly shape helping across 100 naturalistic helping scenarios: an online sample (N₁ = 215) rated willingness to help after reading brief vignettes, and a subset (N₂ = 140) rated the strengths of candidate motivations elicited by each scenario. Two key factors-benefit to both helper and helpee, and cost to the helper-were identified through a factor analysis of the motivation ra

SUBMITTER: Wu Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12770495 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature