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

如何促进亲社会行为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导致不快乐的各种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，除非个人采取超越狭隘自身利益的行动，否则无法实现对群体最有利的结果。目前的研究利用信号传递的原理来开发和测试干预措施，这些干预措施可能会通过吸引代理人表现出亲社会的愿望来激发亲社会行为。虽然有些人可能仅仅出于对他人的利他主义考虑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认为自己是亲社会的人。在经济学术语中，这一概念被信号的概念所捕捉--参与一种行为，表明一个人是哪种类型的人。因此，从事亲社会行为的一个自利理由是(向自己或向他人)发出信号，表明自己是一个好人。当前项目中的五组实验测试了亲社会行为可以增加的想法，如果人们有机会使用这种行为来表明他们的亲社会性质。在这项拟议的研究中，研究人员在一系列现场和实验室实验中测试了基于信号理论设计的干预措施对亲社会行为的影响。首先，一项以献血为背景的实地研究测试了货币激励是否能更有效地激励献血，如果这种激励以一种表明决策者实施这种行为的亲社会动机的方式来表达。其次，一项关于构建信息以强调接种疫苗的信号价值的研究，考察了幼儿的父母是否更有可能在将接种疫苗视为优先的信号后为自己接种流感疫苗，而不是将接种疫苗的信息视为将自我保健放在首位的信号，或者在看到两个控制消息中的任何一个之后。第三，在一项关于同伴推荐的研究中，研究人员将测试，如果一条倡导献血的信息强调这种行为的信号价值，它是否会更有效，以及当信息以同事个性化推荐的形式出现时，这种信号效应是否比来自献血活动的标准信息更明显。第四，三项关于社会比较的研究将考察在亲社会任务中，将自己的表现与他人的表现进行比较的反馈是否会促进绩效的提高，因为社会比较反馈起到了信号的作用，表明了绩效对代理人的影响。第五，在使用公共池资源博弈的一系列研究中，研究人员将探索划分操纵的效果，该划分操纵发出信号，指示每个代理为了实现群体最优结果而消耗的公平量，他们将测试该划分是否作为协调信号。这项研究扩展了经济学、社会心理学和决策研究的前人工作，并将信号传递理论应用于促进亲社会行为的干预设计。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潜在的决策过程来测试信号干预的有效性。这些发现将同时揭示亲社会行为和信号机制的性质。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.