Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one's location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries' better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits.

van Doesum, N., Murphy, R., Gallucci, M., Aharonov-Majar, E., Athenstaedt, U., Au, W., et al. (2021). Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 118(35) [10.1073/pnas.2023846118].

Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe

Gallucci M.;
2021

Abstract

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one's location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries' better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Cross-national differences; Low-cost cooperation; Social mindfulness;
English
2021
118
35
e2023846118
open
van Doesum, N., Murphy, R., Gallucci, M., Aharonov-Majar, E., Athenstaedt, U., Au, W., et al. (2021). Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 118(35) [10.1073/pnas.2023846118].
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
10281-352508_VoR.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia di allegato: Publisher’s Version (Version of Record, VoR)
Licenza: Creative Commons
Dimensione 663.86 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
663.86 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/352508
Citazioni
  • Scopus 28
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 25
Social impact