Uncertainty about the impact of social decisions increases prosocial behaviour
Uncertainty about the impact of social decisions increases prosocial behaviour
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DOI：
10.1038/s41562-018-0372-x
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发表时间：
2018-08-01
影响因子：
29.9
通讯作者：
Crockett, Molly J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kappes, Andreas;Nussberger, Anne-Marie;Crockett, Molly J.
我们的选择将如何影响他人的不确定性注入了社会生活。过去的研究表明，不确定性对亲社会行为有负面影响（1-12），使人们能够对自己的行为采取自我服务的叙述（1，13）。我们表明，不确定性并不总是促进自私。我们介绍了两种类型的不确定性，亲社会行为有相反的影响之间的区别。以前的工作集中在结果的不确定性（不确定性的决定是否会导致特定的结果）。然而，一旦人们的决定可能对他人产生负面影响，也存在影响不确定性（不确定他人的福祉将如何受到负面结果的影响）。与过去的研究（1-12）一致，我们发现在结果不确定性下亲社会行为减少。相比之下，在激励经济决策和关于传染病威胁的假设决策中，亲社会行为在影响不确定性下增加。对社会规范的感知影响行为效果。影响的不确定性对亲社会行为的影响并不依赖于他人的个性化或仅仅提到伤害，当影响的不确定性变得更加突出时，影响会更强。我们的研究结果为沟通不确定性提供了见解，特别是在亲社会行为至关重要的情况下，例如应对传染病威胁。
Uncertainty about how our choices will affect others infuses social life. Past research suggests uncertainty has a negative effect on prosocial behaviour(1-12) by enabling people to adopt self-serving narratives about their actions(1,13). We show that uncertainty does not always promote selfishness. We introduce a distinction between two types of uncertainty that have opposite effects on prosocial behaviour. Previous work focused on outcome uncertainty (uncertainty about whether or not a decision will lead to a particular outcome). However, as soon as people's decisions might have negative consequences for others, there is also impact uncertainty (uncertainty about how others' well-being will be impacted by the negative outcome). Consistent with past research(1-12), we found decreased prosocial behaviour under outcome uncertainty. In contrast, prosocial behaviour was increased under impact uncertainty in incentivized economic decisions and hypothetical decisions about infectious disease threats. Perceptions of social norms paralleled the behavioural effects. The effect of impact uncertainty on prosocial behaviour did not depend on the individuation of others or the mere mention of harm, and was stronger when impact uncertainty was made more salient. Our findings offer insights into communicating uncertainty, especially in contexts where prosocial behaviour is paramount, such as responding to infectious disease threats.