Collaborative Research: Signaling Prosociality: Harnessing Impure Motives to Help Others

合作研究：发出亲社会信号：利用不纯粹的动机帮助他人

• 批准号: 1817482
• 负责人: Gretchen Chapman
• 金额: $ 7.24万
• 依托单位: Carnegie-Mellon University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2019-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1817482&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Signaling; Prosociality; Harnessing

The question of how to facilitate pro-social behavior is one of the most pressing challenges facing behavioral scientists because answers to this question have far-reaching implications for a myriad causes of unhappiness. In many domains, such as vaccination, resource conservation, or blood donation, the outcome that is optimal for the group cannot be achieved unless individuals act beyond their narrow self-interest. The current research harnesses the principle of signaling to develop and test interventions that may inspire pro-social behavior by appealing to agents' desire to appear prosocial. Whereas some people may be motivated to contribute to the public good simply by altruistic concerns for others, even absent those purely altruistic motives, nearly everyone likes to be viewed by others as a prosocial person or to think of themselves as prosocial. In economic terms, this idea is captured by the concept of signaling -- engaging in a behavior that signals the type of person one is. Thus, a self-interested reason to engage in pro-social behavior is to signal (to oneself or to others) that one is a good person. Five sets of experiments in the current project test the idea that prosocial behavior can be increased if people are given the opportunity to use that behavior to signal their prosocial nature. In the proposed research the investigators test the effects of interventions designed based on signaling theory for their influence on prosocial behavior in a series of field and lab experiments. First, a field study in the context of a blood drive tests whether monetary incentives motivate blood donation more effectively when framed in a way that signals the pro-social motives of the decision maker to perform the behavior. Second, a study on framing messages to emphasize the signal value of vaccination examines whether parents of young children are more likely to receive an influenza vaccination for themselves after viewing a message presenting vaccination as a signal that one puts their children first than after seeing a message presenting vaccination as a signal that one puts self-care first, or after seeing either of two control messages. Third, in a study on peer recommendation, researchers will test whether a message advocating blood donation is more effective if it emphasizes the signal value of this behavior, and whether this signaling effect is more pronounced when the message comes in the form of a personalized recommendation from a co-worker as compared to a standard message from a blood drive. Fourth, three studies on social comparison will investigate whether feedback comparing one's performance to that of others promotes performance improvement in a pro-social task because the social comparison feedback serves as a signal, indicating what the performance says about the agent. Fifth, in a series of studies using a common pool resource game, researchers will explore the effect of a partitioning manipulation that signals the equitable amount for each agent to consume into order to achieve the group optimal outcome, and they will test whether the partition serves as a coordination signal. This research extends previous work in economics, social psychology, and decision research, and it applies signaling theory to the design of interventions to facilitate pro-social behavior. The body of research combines powerful field experiments with tightly controlled laboratory experimental designs to test the efficacy of signaling interventions by assessing actual behavior and examining the decision processes underlying these effects. The findings will simultaneously shed light on the nature of both pro-social behavior and signaling mechanisms.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

如何促进亲社会行为的问题是行为科学家面临的最紧迫的挑战之一，因为这个问题的答案对无数不快乐的原因有着深远的影响。在许多领域，如疫苗接种、资源保护或献血，除非个人超越狭隘的自我利益，否则无法实现对群体最佳的结果。 目前的研究利用信号的原则来开发和测试干预措施，通过吸引代理人的愿望来激发亲社会行为。 尽管有些人可能仅仅是出于对他人的利他主义关注而为公共利益做出贡献，即使没有这些纯粹的利他主义动机，但几乎每个人都喜欢被他人视为亲社会的人，或者认为自己是亲社会的。 从经济学的角度来看，这个想法被信号的概念所捕获-参与一种行为，表明一个人是什么样的人。因此，从事亲社会行为的一个自利理由是（向自己或他人）发出一个好人的信号。 在目前的项目中，有五组实验验证了这样一种观点：如果人们有机会使用这种行为来表明他们的亲社会本性，那么亲社会行为就会增加。 在拟议的研究中，研究人员测试了基于信号理论设计的干预措施的效果，这些干预措施在一系列现场和实验室实验中对亲社会行为的影响。首先，在献血运动的背景下进行的实地研究测试了当以一种信号方式表明决策者执行行为的亲社会动机时，货币激励是否能更有效地激励献血。第二，一项关于框架信息以强调疫苗接种的信号价值的研究考察了幼儿的父母在看到将疫苗接种作为一个把孩子放在第一位的信号的信息后，是否更有可能为自己接种流感疫苗，而不是在看到将疫苗接种作为一个把自我照顾放在第一位的信号后，或者在看到两个控制信息中的任何一个后。第三，在一项关于同伴推荐的研究中，研究人员将测试一条倡导献血的信息是否更有效，如果它强调这种行为的信号价值，以及当信息以同事的个性化推荐的形式出现时，这种信号效应是否比献血的标准信息更明显。第四，三项关于社会比较的研究将调查是否反馈比较一个人的表现，以其他人的促进性能的改进，在亲社会的任务，因为社会比较反馈作为一个信号，表明什么性能说代理。第五，在一系列使用公共池资源游戏的研究中，研究人员将探索分区操作的效果，该操作指示每个代理人消费的公平数量，以实现组的最佳结果，他们将测试分区是否作为协调信号。这项研究扩展了以前在经济学，社会心理学和决策研究方面的工作，并将信号理论应用于干预措施的设计，以促进亲社会行为。研究主体将强大的现场实验与严格控制的实验室实验设计相结合，通过评估实际行为和检查这些影响背后的决策过程来测试信号干预的有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。