Prosocial behaviour and theory of mind across lifespans and global socioeconomic situations

亲社会行为——帮助他人的行为——有能力改善甚至挽救他人的生命。这些行为对于健康的社会互动至关重要，对生活满意度、身心健康和经济成功都有既定的影响（Hui, Ng, Berzaghi, Cunningham-Amos, & Kogan, 2020）。然而，参与亲社会行为的意愿在整个生命周期和不同的经济环境中会发生深刻的变化。最近的证据表明，在慈善捐赠（Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011）和努力行动（Lockwood et al., 2020）等方面，老年人可能比年轻人更亲社会。与此同时，有证据表明，经济财富较高的国家的人们可能会向慈善机构捐赠更多（Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011），这是一种常见的亲社会指数，但其他研究表明，事实上，较贫穷的人更亲社会（Piff, Kraus, Côté， Cheng, & Keltner, 2010）。然而，这些研究的参与者大多来自西方，受过教育，工业化，富裕和民主的人群（Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010）。因此，这些模式可能无法反映全球老龄化或收入的影响。其他随年龄变化的社会认知能力也可以解释亲社会行为的变化。研究表明，“心智理论”（ToM）——理解他人的想法和感受可能与自己的不同（Apperly, 2012）——可能会随着年龄的增长而下降（Henry et al. 2013）。然而，人们对ToM能力与亲社会行为之间的关系仍然知之甚少。数据科学和心理学的最新进展使得行为测量、决策计算模型和自我报告测量相结合成为可能，这可以让我们更接近于理解人们为什么以及如何表现出亲社会行为并参与ToM （Lockwood & Klein-Flugge, 2020; Ruff & Fehr, 2014）。这个项目将是第一个利用这些新进展，并将它们与我之前在慈善部门（乐施会）的行业经验以及我在心理学硕士学位和认知神经科学硕士学位的广泛数据分析经验相结合的项目，以研究亲社会行为和汤姆之间的联系，跨越整个生命周期，跨越世界各地不同的社会经济条件。该项目的研究结果将对整个生命周期的健康发展产生重要影响，并为提高亲社会行为和支撑ToM能力的策略奠定基础。

Prosocial behaviours - actions that help others - have the power to improve and even save the lives of others. Such behaviours are essential for healthy social interactions, with established impacts on life satisfaction, mental and physical health, and economic success (Hui, Ng, Berzaghi, Cunningham-Amos, & Kogan, 2020). However, the willingness to engage in prosocial behaviours profoundly changes across the lifespan and in different economic environments. Recent evidence suggests older adults might be more prosocial than younger adults on measures including charitable giving (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011) and effortful actions (Lockwood et al., 2020). In parallel, there is evidence that people in countries with higher economic wealth might donate more to charities (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011), a common index of prosociality, but other studies suggest that in fact poorer people are more prosocial (Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010). However, participants in these studies are mostly from western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic populations (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). Therefore, these patterns may not reflect the effects of ageing or income across the world. Other social-cognitive abilities that change with age may also explain changes in prosocial behaviour. Studies have suggested that 'theory of mind' (ToM) - understanding another person's thoughts and feelings could be different from one's own (Apperly, 2012) - could decline with age (Henry et al. 2013). However, how ToM ability relates to prosocial behaviour remains poorly understood. Recent advances in data science and psychology have allowed the combination of measures of behaviour, computational models of decision-making and measures of self-report, which can get us closer to understanding why and how people behave prosocially and engage in ToM (Lockwood & Klein-Flugge, 2020; Ruff & Fehr, 2014). This project will be the first to draw upon these new advances and combine them with my previous industry experience in the charity sector (Oxfam) and extensive data analyses experience from my MSc in Psychology and MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience to examine the links between prosocial behaviour and ToM across the lifespan and across varying socio-economic conditions around the world. The findings of this project will have important implications for healthy development across the lifespan and lay the groundwork for strategies to increase prosocial behaviour and scaffold ToM abilities.