The Effects of Positive and Negative Stimuli on Prosocial behavior: Once Prosocial, Always...

Once Prosocial, Always Prosocial 1

The Effects of Positive and Negative Stimuli on Prosocial

behavior:

Once Prosocial, Always Prosocial

Nikolaos Michalakis

Central Michigan University


Abstract

Research on how emotions can relate to prosocial behavior has

been extensively done; however there hasn’t been much research on

how a person can overcome negative affect through gratitude or

self-distancing in order to promote prosocial behavior. In my

research I tried to accomplish this and see if I could link all

three factors to one another. Unsuccessful survey design as well

as sample bias did not support my hypothesis that people who

cognitively disengage and distance themselves from negative

stimuli are more likely to show prosocial behavior than the ones

who don’t. What the end results showed though was that a person

with a strong prosocial attitude is highly unlikely to change

that attitude because of external conditions.


Introduction

The promotion of prosocial behavior in societies which become

increasingly individualistic is in my opinion of greatest

importance. Prosocial behavior can be expressed in many ways, but

the way I chose to interpret it was as offering help to someone

without being forced to and without expecting anything in return.

Prior research suggests that people are more likely to engage in

prosocial behavior once in a good mood. Good mood can be both

elicited as well as enhanced by various means, such as eating a

cookie for example (Isen &Levin, 1972) or sunny weather

(Cunningham, 1979). In my experiment good mood was increased by

having people watch a funny clip from Sesame Street and then

answer questions which would enhance this mood. On the other hand

bad mood or negative emotions were induced by having people watch

president Obama’s speech after the school shooting at Sandy Hook

Elementary School in Connecticut and answer questions which would

enhance that negative mood. I choose manipulating the mood by

having the participants watch videos, because media is so

important in people’s lives today and because we keep being


bombarded by stimuli through the media which in many cases is

negative. Exposure to negative stimuli has great effect on

people’s behaviors through all kinds of processes such as

cognitive, modeling, priming, desensitization etc. Since we’re

not able neither practically nor ethically to manipulate the

content of media coverage, it might be useful for us to be able

to undo the possible negative effects of it on people’s behavior.

At the same time there’s much evidence that being helpful is also

a personality trait and that the Self Report Altruism Scale

correlates with actual altruism facts and prosocial orientation

(Rushton, Chrisjohn, &Fekken, 1981). Gender too is one more

factor which affects both prosocial behavior in general but also

the type of prosocial behavior exhibited; women are more likely

to offer help to family members or people they have close

relationships with (Aries & Johnson, 1983). Given that, by

measuring the self-reported agreeableness in the second part of

the survey, I also investigate further whether the prosocial

behavior exhibited (or not exhibited) is due to the manipulation


through stimuli and therefore situational or rather due to

personal idiosyncrasies of the individual.

This research tries to answer all these questions and find

possible relationships between positive mood –the variable

manipulated by the Sesame Street clip in the experiment-,

negative mood –the variable manipulated by President Obama’s

speech-, negative mood followed by cognitive reappraisal –the

variable manipulated by President Obama’s speech and the three

questions regarding personal gratitude-, as well as personality

traits –the variable measured by the agreeableness questioner-

and prosocial behavior as described earlier. Gratitude has been

shown to elicit prosocial behavior (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2010)

and in theory teaching people to be appreciative and show

gratitude shouldn’t be that hard. There are some things which

happen to us or around us for which we have no control. It is

either very hard or even impossible to manipulate the quality

(positive or negative) as well as the quantity of the external

stimuli we encounter. If we could though through some cognitive

process overcome the influence of the outside world on our mood


in order to boost our prosocial behavior then this could have a

great impact on our lives as well as on society as a whole.

Exploring the extent of such a possibility is the main focus of

this research. And this is indeed my hypothesis, that people who

cognitively disengage and distance themselves from negative

stimuli are more likely to show prosocial behavior than the ones

who don’t.

Methods

The study was conducted via an online survey created on

esurv.org. The survey was then posted on the Facebook pages of

four individuals who cumulatively had around 8,000 friends in

their lists. 116 people (60 female, mean age= 34.6) clicked on

the link and were guided to the survey page. From these 63 did

not complete the survey and only provided demographic data about

themselves. The rest of the participants (N=53, 36 female, mean

age= 35.7) formed the survey’s sample and were divided into three

groups. The first and second groups, as defined later, served as


control groups, and the third one as experimental group. Each

participant was asked to choose between three fruits which were

every time set in a different order thus avoiding any serial

effect issues. The choice of a fruit would guide them to a

different page in the survey corresponding to a different group

and variant I wanted to study which also provided a random

assignment to a group. In the first group, the first of the two

control groups, I tried to elicit positive emotions to the

participant. This was accomplished by having the participant

watch a two minute clip with Kermit the frog And Cookie Monster.

This was followed by five statements which the participant had to

evaluate on a five (5) grade scale (Strongly agree-Strongly

disagree) each trying to make the participant think more “happy

thoughts” and thus promoting an even happier mood. The statements

were 1) The clip was funny, 2) I sympathize more with Kermit

rather than with Cookie Monster, 3) Watching the clip made me

want to eat cookies and not oranges, 4) When I feel happy I too

turn into a cookie monster, and 5) I have at least one friend who


reminds me of Kermit and another who reminds me of Cookie

Monster.

In the second group, the second of the two control groups, I

tried to elicit negative emotions to the participant. This was

accomplished by having the participant watch a four minute clip

of President Obama giving a speech in response to the Sandy Hook

Elementary School shootings. Then the participants had to rate

five statements related to the incident on a five (5) grade scale

(Strongly agree-Strongly disagree) to further induce their

negative emotional state. The statements were 1) I found the clip

very sad, 2) I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the

news of the shooting, 3) I would consider school shootings as one

of the saddest chapters of American society, 4) I can completely

sympathize with the parents of the children who got shot, and 5)

I have thought of how I would react in a similar situation many

times.

The third group served as the experimental group. In this group

the participants were guided into a page identical to the one of


the second group in order to promote negative emotions to them.

At the end of the page though there was an additional question

aimed to elicit feelings of gratitude to them. The question was,

“Please, write three things in your life for which you feel

grateful.”

After the participants of all three groups finished with their

second page they proceeded into a third page which was meant to

measure their degree of agreeableness based on self-report. This

was accomplished by asking the participants to rate on a five (5)

rate scale (Strongly agree-Strongly disagree) four statements.

Two of the statements were of positive nature: 1) Do you have a

good word for everyone, and 2) Do you trust what people say; and

two of them were of negative nature: 1) Do you suspect hidden

motives in others, and 2) Do you get back at others.

Finally the participants were asked one final question which was

meant to measure their actual prosocial behavior and their

willingness to help by answering “YES” or “NO” to the following:

“Thank you for participating in our study. Although you have


successfully completed the survey we want to ask of you whether

you'd like to answer a few more questions which might be helpful

to us for future surveys. Keep in mind that you're by no means

required to do so, but your answers would be highly appreciated.

Would you like to proceed?” If the participant answered “NO” he

or she was guided to the end of the survey page. If they chose

“YES” they were guided to another page which had four additional

random questions with no significance to the survey at this

point: 1) Do you still believe that choosing “Apples” was the

right choice? 2) Would you be interested in knowing the results

of the survey? 3) Would you consider taking another similar

survey in the future? 4) Did you find the survey interesting? The

questions although random in nature could potentially offer some

evidence of cognitive dissonance as well as effort justification

(Aronson & Mills, 1959).

Results

The original number of participants was 116 (N=116, 60 female,

mean age= 34.6). From these 63 did not complete the survey and


only provided demographic data about themselves. The rest of the

participants (N=53, 36 female, mean age= 35.7) were the ones who

completed the survey and they serve as the sample. Table 1 shows

the correlations between the variables. Of all the variables

there appears to be significant correlation only between age and

agreeableness (r= .018, p< .05), and sex and participation

(r= .297, p< .01). For the rest of the variables there appears to

be no significant correlation thus rejecting my hypothesis, that

negative emotions and gratitude could affect prosocial behavior,

as well as the notion, that agreeableness could predict prosocial

behavior. A Chi-Square test verified that there’s no relationship

between emotional state and prosocial behavior (r= .836, p> .05).

The rest of the variables, namely sex (r= .70, p> .05) and age

(r= .10, p> .05), were also not predictive of prosocial behavior.

Table 2 and Graph 1 show the crosstabulation of prosocial

behavior in relation to each of the three groups. There we can

see that although statistically we cannot infer a difference in

prosocial behavior between the groups, there is however a

difference exhibited between the positive emotions group and the


two negative emotions groups (27.3% “No” to prosocial act versus

36.4%) which could partially support my hypothesis. What is more

important though is the total rates of prosocial behavior

exhibited by all participants (79.2%) which are depicted in Graph

2. They show an overall high prosocial behavior regardless of

external manipulation (positive/negative stimuli) or

agreeableness (Mean agreeableness = 12.7 on a scale of 20).


Table 1Correlations among variables

1 2 3 4 51. Prosocial

Behavior.207 - .10 .70

2. Agreeableness .207 - .341* .1583. Participation - - - .865 .001*

*4. Age .10 .341* .865 - -5. Sex .70 .158 .001** - -

Notes. N = 116, *p < .05, **p < .01; Participation is whether a person continued beyond entering sex and age data on the survey. Manipulation group refers to each of the three groups the participants were divided in.

Table 2

Prosocial behavior Crosstabulation by group

Group Prosocial Behavior

Yes No Yes withinProsocialBehavior

No withinProsocialBehavior

Positive Emotion

15 (83.3%) 3 (16.7%) 35.7% 27.3%

Negative Emotion

15 (78.9%) 4 (21. 1%) 35.7% 36.4%

Gratitude 12 (75%) 4 (25%) 28.6% 36.4%

Total 42 (79.2%) 11 (20.8%)


Graph 1


Graph 2

79.20%

20.80%

Prosocial Behavior

Yes No


Discussion

When I started thinking about this paper I had two main

concerns: the first one was how to design each of the three

conditions so I could evoke the emotional responses I expected

from my participants, and second how to obtain my sample.

Unfortunately the results show that the survey design failed to

effectively deal with either of the two main issues. The first

control group of the survey –the positive emotions group-

exhibited only slightly more prosocial behavior compared with the

second control group –the negative emotions group- and the

experimental group. Also the experimental group exhibited less

prosocial behavior than the second control group which completely

contradicted my hypothesis, that evoking feelings of gratitude

could balance out a negative stimuli.

Another problem with the survey design was the way the

sample was selected. This was my second concern and as it turned

out it became a major confound in the whole research. I decided

to measure prosocial behavior by counting how many of the


participants would agree to answer a set of extra questions after

they had been informed that their part on the survey was already

completed. I didn’t take in account however that the sample I

selected was absolutely biased towards prosocial behavior. The

reason for that was the way they were selected. Given that the

survey was posted on the “Facebook Walls” of four different

people who cumulatively had over 8.000 friends in their lists and

only 116 of all them decided to participate and “help” with the

survey, that on its own is a prosocial act on their part. Then

given the fact that from these 116 participants who completed the

first part of the survey by answering the demographic questions

as well as the question about their preferred fruit in order to

be assigned to one of the three groups, only 53 went ahead to

finish the survey, the later -the final sample of the survey-

exhibited the most prosocial behavior overall. Therefore the

sample of the research was bound to be prosocial and this was

verified by their responses; the prosocial behavior persisted

regardless of positive or negative stimuli as well as overall

agreeableness.


The other problem of the research was the way I tried to

elicit positive or negative mood to the participants. The choice

of the two videos used in the survey was unfortunate and

ultimately they failed to evoke the desired emotions to them. One

of the main reasons why they failed was because I didn’t take in

account that the main pool of participants taking the survey

would be not American, but Turkish, since the majority of the

people in the friend’s lists of the four people who posted the

survey on their walls was Turkish. It is very possible that many

of them -also because of their overall older age (Mean 35.7) -

were not affected by the Cookie Monster video. Even more so,

Turkish people traditionally are less than friendly towards

America and American policies; therefore it’s very probable that

the video of President Obama talking about the school shootings

not only didn’t affect them negatively, but might have also

evoked feelings of “spite” to them (they got what they deserved!)

That’s why this is definitely another confound in the overall

results and it could explain the minimal differences in prosocial

behavior shown between the groups.


Although the present research then didn’t manage to verify

my hypothesis, I do believe that it gave some clues as to how

future research on the subject and in survey in particular should

be conducted. For starters it shouldn’t be over Facebook or maybe

even online, because although it’s very convenient, the research

would rely by definition on the prosocial behavior of the

participants and that would be a confound factor. It would be

best if the participants were compensated for their time and

effort and they were aware of the compensation prior to accepting

to participate to the research. It might be even more effective

if they were required to participate in the survey (psychology

majors.) Also, it would be instrumental to the research that the

ways the various emotional responses were triggered to the

participants –may be through videos or other methods- were

specific to the age as well as the cultural background of them;

this would maximize the effects of the manipulation and the

researcher would be more confident that the participants

completed the survey under the emotional state she or he wanted

them to be.


All in all though the research did manage to prove one point

even if the original hypothesis was disproved, and that is that

prosocial behavior is indeed very resilient, persistent and long

lasting. Based on that we could focus more on creating the

conditions for people to learn to be more prosocial. If we manage

to do that, teach people the importance of prosocial behavior and

guide them in becoming such individuals, then we could almost

certainly expect our whole society to be more prosocial and act

in a less individualistic manner despite the personal negative

affects and difficult situations the people might endure. So

essentially we could create a better world just by “creating”

more helpful people!


References

Aries, E. J., & Johnson, F. L. (1983). Close friendship in

adulthood: Conversational content between same-sex friends. Sex

Roles, 9(12), 1183-1196.

Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of

initiation on liking for a group. The Journal of Abnormal and Social

Psychology, 59(2), 177.

Cunningham, M. R. (1979). Weather, mood, and helping behavior:

Quasi experiments with the sunshine samaritan. Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 37(11), 1947.

Isen, A. M., & Levin, P. F. (1972). Effect of feeling good on

helping: Cookies and kindness. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 21(3), 384-388. doi:http://0-

dx.doi.org.catalog.lib.cmich.edu/10.1037/h0032317

Mikulincer, M. E., & Shaver, P. R. (2010). Prosocial motives, emotions,

and behavior: The better angels of our nature. American Psychological

Association.


Philippe Rushton, J., Chrisjohn, R. D., & Cynthia Fekken, G.

(1981). The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism

scale. Personality and individual differences, 2(4), 293-302.

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