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Title: The Emergency of Prosociality: a developmental perspective on altruism and human prosocial behavior in the face of disaster
Short title: The Emergency of Prosociality
Lucie Rose*a a Université de Paris, INCC UMR 8002, CNRS, Paris, France [email protected]
Guillaume Dezecacheb b Université Clermont Auvergne, LAPSCO CNRS, Clermont-Ferrand, France [email protected]
Tara Powellc c University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA [email protected]
Sylvie Chokrona,d a Université de Paris, INCC UMR 8002, CNRS, Paris, France d Institut de Neuropsychologie, Neurovision et Neurocognition, Hôpital Fondation Rothschild, Paris, France [email protected]
Klara Kovarskia,d a Université de Paris, INCC UMR 8002, CNRS, Paris, France d Institut de Neuropsychologie, Neurovision et Neurocognition, Hôpital Fondation Rothschild, Paris, France [email protected]
*Corresponding author information: Lucie Rose, Université de Paris, INCC UMR 8002, CNRS, F-75006 Paris, France (e-mail: [email protected]).
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Abstract: No two emergency situations are the same. A combination of human and contextual factors makes each emergency and disaster event unique in its timeline, its aftermath, and especially its impact on affected populations. Common to these situations, however, is a demonstration of prosocial behavior intended to benefit other victims. Can shared features of emergencies, viewed through the lens of evolutionary, cognitive, developmental and social psychology shed light on these prosocial and altruistic actions? In this narrative review, we survey the onset of prosociality and altruistic behavior in typical human development, and we focus on how it is expressed in emergency situations. We consider how prosociality shifts and adapts in the specific context of a pandemic. Finally, we suggest that a multidisciplinary research approach may help overcome methodological limitations and achieve more comprehensive understanding of prosociality’s underlying mechanisms in emergency contexts.
Keywords: prosocial behavior; altruism; development; COVID-19; emergency; disaster.
Data Availability: Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.
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1. Introduction
Within an evolutionary framework, cognitive and social psychology both have an interest in how individuals act in response to harmful situations. Researchers in social cognition, for example, frequently motivate their research by explaining how fast individuals process information in a hostile environment (see for review Crick & Dodge, 1994; Frankenhuis & de Weerth, 2013;
LoBue, 2009). However, this remains a shortcut of sorts to relate laboratory investigation to evolutionary mechanisms as well as actual events that have complex behavioral, psychological, and social consequences from childhood and beyond. Observing human behavior in emergency settings, including prosociality and altruism, requires stepping out of controlled environments and into real life situations to gain additional and enriched insight. In the present narrative review, we first discuss how emergencies can be defined and classified. Then, we provide an overview on the developmental aspects of prosocial and altruistic behavior in controlled research contexts by describing crucial milestones. Prosocial behaviors in response to emergency situations are described both in children and in adults. To conclude, considerations on the COVID-19 pandemic, and on the challenges of conducting research in these conditions will also be discussed.
2. Classifying emergencies to understand their consequences
Emergency situations are usually referred to using many different terms including emergency, disaster, catastrophe, adversity, accident, extra/non-ordinary event, major incident or crisis. Each has subtle or larger differences compared to neighboring terms leading to frequent misuse.
Classifying such events, however, has not traditionally been in the scope of psychology research, but it has been extensively put forth by management specialists, governments or international aid agencies (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2006). For the sake
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of simplicity, this article will preferentially employ the terms ‘emergency’ and ‘disaster’ to refer
to these situations. The first definitions to introduce disasters through a sociological lens date back
to the post-World War II era. On disasters, Perry (2018) highlights a shift from definitions
underlining uncontrollable aspects of an event towards a more anthropocentric view. Sjoberg
(1962, p. 357) built upon this notion to define a disaster as a “severe, relatively sudden, frequently
unexpected disruption” of the social context (see also Fritz, 1961). The event itself may occur
suddenly, and the magnitude, scope, and effects are often unpredictable. Such is the case with
earthquakes or hurricanes, where a natural hazard can lead to a disaster situation with or without a
secondary, subsequent natural hazard (Gill & Malamud, 2017).
Various factors participating in defining emergency events have been classified in the past
(Cocking & Drury, 2008; Mladjan & Cvetković, 2013; Münch, 2011; Shaluf, 2007). In order to
better understand the varied nature of emergency situations, and in an attempt to shed light on
shared mechanisms and consequences between contexts that appear quite different from an
external point of view, factors characterizing emergency events are listed in Table 1.
Table 1
Selective list of shared factors in emergency events affecting humans, considered in this review as
non-binary and lying on a spectrum. Sub-types, details as well as examples are provided for each
factor
Factor Sub-Types Details Examples
Naturally occurring (geophysical, Geophysical-Earthquake
Natural hazards hydrological, climatological, biological) Hydrological-Floods Causes Climatological-Hurricane
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Biological-Pandemic
Man-made Caused by Humans (Conflict, industrial Conflict-War
/technological accidents) Industrial-Nuclear
Man-made and Natural- exacerbated Hurricane Katrina-caused by a
Hybrid through human response or vice versa hurricane, exacerbated through
insufficient flood defenses
Initiated with the intention to harm other Mass terrorist attacks Voluntary humans Intent No intent of causing harm or destruction Involuntary setting of fires due to Involuntary electrical maintenance
Discrete Specific and identifiable moment in time Momentary touchdown of a tornado
Detrimental consequences build up, Repeated aftershocks following an Timeframe Continuous creating emergency situation, as an event earthquake; Long-term spread of an
unfolds on the longer term epidemic/pandemic
Geographically Neighborhoods and towns School shooting
isolated
Location Geographic regions (e.g. Middle East, Droughts, tsunamis Regional Europe, Africa)
Global Across multiple continents Pandemics
Directly impact from experiencing the Witnessing serious injury or death Direct (Primary) Impact on emergency humans Secondary loss and stressors after an Loss of jobs, disruption in schools, lack of Indirect (Secondary) emergency financial assistance or infrastructure
Results from directly being exposed or Injuries, deaths, malnutrition,
Outcomes Physical Health from environmental factors after an communicable diseases
emergency
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Results from stress due to loss, Depression, post-traumatic stress
Mental Health experiencing threat or compromised disorder, anxiety
safety
Economic hardship Loss of homes, jobs, livelihoods Housing instability, food insecurity
All types of individuals directly or Physical injuries or post-traumatic stress General population indirectly affected by emergency situation disorder following a terror attack,
Children (dependent on caregivers for Loss of family members, disruption from
access to basic needs, fewer coping schools; homelessness due to destruction
Victims resources), socio-economically insecure of housing or furlough following business Vulnerable individuals (increased vulnerability to closures; food insecurity after closure of populations loss of secure housing or employment), neighborhood stores, lack of access to
older adults (chronic health conditions, medicines or adequate healthcare
impaired physical ability)
Immediate, often coinciding with Providing essential services, providing Short-term response food and shelter Recovery Begins weeks after a disaster and can last Redevelopment and restoration of social timeline Long-term years depending on severity of a disaster and economic infrastructure of
communities
Altogether, emergency situations do indeed share some features including unexpectedness and
uncertain severity of possible outcomes for victims, yet they also present crucial differences
highlighting strong heterogeneity due to the wide spectrum of circumstances and the lens under
which they are considered. Accordingly, by considering behavioral aspects, pandemics such as the
one caused by SARS-CoV-2 may belong to a hybrid category: rather than being considered a
natural disaster, their cause is biological, but their propagation partly depends on human behavior,
and consequences are undeniably social. This is also the case when considering devastating
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 7 pathogens that emerge in monocultures with severe consequences on employment and population nutrition, as with the Irish Potato Famine (McDonald & Stukenbrock, 2016). Although existing classifications rarely consider the individual behavioral and psycho-emotional mechanisms rolled out during and after these contexts, a growing body of research has started to focus on these consequences including psychological, health, social or educational distress (see for example
Goldmann & Galea, 2014; Leytham & Powell, 2012; Nguyen & Pham, 2018), as well as on cooperation, prosociality and altruism (Kaniasty & Norris, 2004). These concepts and their definition outside of emergency situations have been at the core of a vast body of literature from an evolutionary perspective in human adults (Preston & de Waal, 2002; West et al., 2007).
The emergence of prosocial behavior and altruism and their milestones in children and into adulthood have also been studied in controlled experiments using a developmental framework
(Batson et al., 1991; Eisenberg et al., 2006; Preston & de Waal, 2002). It is an essential stopover to subsequently decode these more complex situations and is presented in the following section.
Beyond controlled settings, however, real-life dangerous situations present a unique terrain to study prosocial behavior and altruism in children as well as adults in a natural context. Children are often considered as somewhat helpless and relying on adult assistance in this type of situation
(for an evolutionary perspective see Zeveloff & Boyce, 1982), yet studies show that similarly to adults, children and adolescents involved in a disaster develop both an orientation towards helping
(Vezzali et al., 2016) and prosocial behavior within the community (Bokszczanin, 2012).
3. Dynamics of prosocial behavior development
Prosocial behavior is defined as behavior stemming from the intention to benefit another
(Eisenberg, 1986) and has been found to develop beginning in early childhood. Altruistic behavior,
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 8 motivated by the goal to help another yet without any material profit for oneself (Filkowski et al.,
2016), also emerges in the first decade of life. Prosocial and altruistic behaviors, with a primary motive to benefit another individual, can be considered distinct from behaviors intrinsically associated with a certain level of reciprocity such as collaboration. Research has investigated the relationship between empathy and helping behavior, offering clues to understand the early development of prosocial behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987). From the earliest weeks of life, babies have the ability to empathize and identify with others (Repacholi &
Gopnik, 1997), through perception and imitation of facial and emotional expressions (Field et al.,
1982; Meltzoff & Moore, 1983). Infants prefer to watch and touch puppets that help rather than hinder each other (Hamlin et al., 2008, 2010; Hamlin & Wynn, 2011). In a similar way, toddlers display spontaneous helping behavior from the age of 18 months and pick up objects for an adult
(Over & Carpenter, 2009; Warneken & Tomasello, 2007). Children also exhibit comforting behaviors towards peers in distress with attempts to reach for and touch a crying baby from 8 months of age and both physical and verbal comforting observed from age 2 onwards (Dunfield &
Kuhlmeier, 2013; Hoffman, 2000; Liddle et al., 2015; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992).
Perspective-taking, the ability to take into account points of view of others on a cognitive and later on an affective level (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2009), becomes increasingly robust from age 3 and beyond, and proves especially crucial when considering complex situations where moral decision- making involves high needs of some individuals and high costs to those who help (Sierksma et al.,
2014). The development of such complex skills impacts not only empathy processes, but also comes into play in social responsibility (see for review Imuta et al., 2016). This is considered as a value orientation founded on concern for others and on the development of notions of fairness and justice (Wray‐Lake & Syvertsen, 2011), the latter usually observed as early as age 3 (Vaish et al.,
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2010). Enacting prosocial behavior goes beyond experiencing a sense of empathy and social responsibility. These notions also rely on emotional regulation in order to express the correct amount and timing of emotion and distress, influenced by executive functioning including inhibition, working memory and cognitive flexibility (Astuto & Ruck, 2010; Eisenberg, 2000; Rice et al., 2007).
Around age 6, with school as a key environment, children begin to understand not only the nature of other children’s emotions and reactions, but also what could help them in a specific situation
(Litvack-Miller et al., 1997). At this point, prosocial behavior evolves from a mostly dyadic to a group context (Hepach & Warneken, 2018), and in-group preference when undertaking an altruistic action such as attributing a monetary sum in an experimental donation game is found to increase throughout childhood as social groups become more salient and children’s classification skills improve (Bigler & Liben, 2016; Gummerum et al., 2009).
In early adolescence, prosocial behavior tends to decrease until age 13 before increasing again, influenced and modulated by emotional regulation, empathic concern and perspective-taking
(Carlo et al., 2010, 2015; Davis & Franzoi, 1991; Luengo Kanacri et al., 2013; Padilla‐Walker &
Christensen, 2011; Van der Graaff et al., 2018). The development of prosocial behavior in adolescence in relationship to the community as a whole has also been studied and underlines the role of self-efficacy within the family, a marker of autonomy, as a predictor of future civic involvement (Kanacri et al., 2014). Taken together, research on childhood and adolescent prosocial behavior sheds light on its singular complexity, with the involvement of emotional and cognitive skills as well as the surrounding environment and a rich social web of interactions that follow individuals into adulthood.
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In adulthood, most individuals display altruism aimed at maximizing resource utility in a laboratory setting (Andreoni & Miller, 2002). Levels of displayed prosocial behavior evolve, with an increase in empathic concern and problem-solving skills with age (Sze et al., 2012).
There has been much debate regarding whether altruism or prosocial behaviors are generally stable processes in time in adults, manifesting as an altruistic or a prosocial personality that displays empathic concern for others with subsequent helpful actions (Gergen et al., 1972; Penner &
Finkelstein, 1998). Eisenberg et al. (2002) found in a longitudinal research on individuals ages 4 to 26 that self-reported prosocial dispositions in early adulthood were related to self-reports of empathy, sympathy and helping behavior during childhood.
Behavior intended to benefit others is observed throughout the lifespan, yet it can differ in various conditions. For example, being observed by others influences prosocial actions (Cañigueral &
Hamilton, 2019), as does involvement in an emergency situation with immediate displays of shared solidarity and sense of community (Páez et al., 2007). Considering prosocial behavior in emergency situations also requires examining the wider psychological effects of these contexts and their relationship with the initiation of helping behavior. Children are highly vulnerable to physical and psychological consequences during and after emergencies because of their reliance on caregivers who may be overwhelmed or underprepared during the event, and owing to fewer resources to cope with what they experienced (Goldmann & Galea, 2014; Kousky, 2016).
Understanding the factors that play a part in these consequences, yet that may also give rise to helping behavior, provides important insight on the far-reaching effects of emergencies on behavior.
3.1 Method
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For this review, a classification of the various types of disasters and emergency situations was formulated based on prior disaster classifications and consensus among authors of this article. This classification was then used as a basis for database searches to ensure that all major types of disasters and emergency situations previously discussed were included. Disaster-related searches of English-language publications were conducted between July 2020 and January 2021 in PubMed,
PsycINFO and Google Scholar. A focus was placed on research published in the last decade, as well as findings related to specific and older emergency events and published in the aftermath of these events. Major conceptual findings from earlier years were also included when they helped frame the review. All authors participated in study review and comparison in order to provide a current and updated overview on behavior and consequences of emergency situations.
4. Emergency situations and their impact on children, from psychological consequences
to prosocial behavior
A significant amount of research has examined adverse psychological outcomes among children in emergency contexts. Psychological symptoms associated with disaster exposure include internalizing symptoms such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, or generalized anxiety; and externalizing symptoms such as aggression, conduct problems, and behavior problems (Adams et al., 2014; Pfefferbaum et al., 2014; Rubens et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2013).
A host of secondary stressors increase a child’s risk for experiencing psychological distress, including displacement from home and school, loss or damage to their homes, breakdowns in supportive networks, increased risk of abuse and neglect, poverty, and pre-existing mental health symptoms (Adams et al., 2014; Becker-Blease et al., 2010; Kousky, 2016; Lock et al., 2012;
Pfefferbaum et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2013). While many young people will experience
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 12 psychological distress after an emergency, most will adapt to their environment with only a subset experiencing sustained psychopathology.
Protective factors can buffer the psychological impact of exposure to emergencies and related secondary adversities (Fegert et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020; Masten & Narayan, 2012; Pfefferbaum et al., 2015). Individual-level as well as collective-level factors interact to promote resilience following a disasters (Cadamuro et al., 2021). Peer and caregiver support, adaptive coping, emotion regulation, perceived sense of control, self-esteem, and prosocial behaviors have all been associated with lower psychopathology after an emergency (Fegert et al., 2020; Lengua et al.,
2005; Lewis et al., 2015; Liu et al., 2020; Masten & Narayan, 2012; Pfefferbaum et al., 2015). For example, La Greca et al. (2013) found that hurricane-affected youth who reported higher social support experienced fewer PTSD symptoms than those with low levels of support.
Some of these factors may increase prosocial behaviors in addition to reducing adverse outcomes in disaster-affected children (Drury & Williams, 2012; Hobfoll et al., 2007; Masten & Narayan,
2012; Pynoos et al., 2007). Higher socio-economic status and greater community acceptance, for example, were found to be predictors of prosocial attitudes among children affected by war
(Betancourt et al., 2013). Interventions designed to help children within emergency contexts gain perceived sense of control, emotion regulation, problem solving, and community resilience by targeting individual (e.g., self-regulation, coping ability) and interpersonal (e.g., trust in peer and caregiver relationships) factors may be effective in increasing prosocial behavior (Jordans et al.,
2010; Sanderson et al., 2016; Tol et al., 2013). In the aftermath of a tornado, Powell and Thompson
(2016) also found that a psychoeducation and solution-focused program delivered to small groups of children led to greater improvements in prosocial behaviors compared to a waitlist control group.
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Although research tends to focus on the short- and long-term consequences of emergencies and disasters on children (Wolmer et al., 2017), their behavior in the midst of such an event and its direct aftermath is equally interesting and important. It appears that youth and adolescents tend to engage in prosocial and helping behavior when confronted with a variety of emergency situations, echoing prosocial tendencies assessed in laboratory settings (Bokszczanin, 2012; Macksoud &
Aber, 1996; Raboteg‐šaric et al., 1994; Vezzali et al., 2016).
In terms of spontaneous prosocial behavior observed in situ, children as young as five or six years old in a context of war developed increased prosocial behavior compared to before the onset of war in a longitudinal study (Raboteg‐šaric et al., 1994). This illustration of general early prosociality in an emergency context contrasts with findings establishing an age difference in children’s prosocial behavior. Li et al. (2013) found that levels of prosocial behavior increased after a major earthquake in older 9-year-old children, yet they decreased in younger children (6 years old). Another illustration can be found among pre-adolescents ages 9 to 12, who expressed helping intentions towards fellow victims of an earthquake and its multiple aftershocks (Vezzali et al., 2016). Similarly, children ages 10 to 16 exposed to wartime separation from parents and witnesses to violent acts reported higher prosocial attitude than children unexposed to violence directed towards others (Macksoud & Aber, 1996). Adolescents tend to engage in spontaneous helping, as illustrated by Bokszczanin (2012) in the case of major flooding and subsequent social support provided by adolescents to the community through material, emotional, and informational assistance. The spotlight has also been put on adolescent altruistic behavior in crisis situations including school shootings (Turkewitz et al., 2019).
In addition to understanding and preventing the negative consequences of exposure to emergency situations, long-term consequences on prosocial behavior itself are an essential parameter. The
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 14 lack of longitudinal study designs due to the difficult task of recruiting disaster victims as subjects and ensuring proper and necessary follow-up (Maki et al., 2019) sheds very little light on this question. Li et al. (2013) found that, in keeping with the “altruistic community” notion that underlines immediate post-disaster helping (Barton, 1969), altruistic tendencies returned to baseline levels several months after exposure to a natural disaster. However, in a wartime context, an example of a long-lasting and continuous crisis situation with exposure to violence and aggression led children to identify with main society-wide helpers and express their desire to become doctors, teachers, or lawyers to foster peace (Raundalen & Dyregrov, 1991). This finding is in line with studies among adults that highlighted increased altruism towards both in-group and outgroup members in war-torn populations over a year after a war (Hartman & Morse, 2020).
Engaging in prosocial actions towards an individual’s own community also appears to increase family and peer relationships and foster overall adjustment, a sense of identity, and self-efficacy
(Pancer et al., 2007).
Research on prosocial behaviors in disaster-affected children has garnered growing attention in recent years, yet additional studies are needed to understand specific influencing factors in order to provide adequate support for subsequent events and in their path towards adulthood. The mechanisms that help explain and understand the onset of prosocial behavior have been considered in adults and are detailed in the following section, adding yet another layer to our understanding of the development of human prosociality in emergency situations.
5. Prosocial behavior and altruism displayed by adults in an emergency context
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Despite the common and persistent belief that adults generally engage in self-preservative behavior in the face of danger (Dezecache, 2015; Drury et al., 2013; Schweingruber & Wohlstein, 2005), we now know that perception of danger is largely associated with subsequent prosociality
(Dezecache, 2015; Drury, 2018). Prosociality during an emergency, when individuals remain under a threat, is somewhat of a puzzle (Dezecache, 2015). At the proximate levels of analysis, it has been proposed that routine social norms continue to prevail (Johnson, 1987a, 1987b) or that the exposure to a common danger fosters a sense of social identity that introduces ad hoc ‘in- group’ supportive norms (Drury, 2018). The question remains of why natural selection favors individuals that possess traits that would make them prone to pay a cost for others, often non- related individuals, at their direct expense in particular when reciprocity is unlikely to occur. It may be that such situations were not part of our ecology, rarely exposing us to high danger together with many non-genetically related individuals. This would mean our spontaneous and prosocial- leaning social heuristics (Rand et al., 2012; Rand & Epstein, 2014) would be maintained because they have proven advantageous over our evolutionary past. Alternatively, actions considered to be prosocial may in fact be strategies that also maximize one’s own immediate benefits, either because social contact is in itself reassuring and a primitive need (Dezecache et al., 2017;
Dezecache, Frith, et al., 2020; Mawson, 2005, 2017) or because we flexibly adjust behavior as the function of contextual features and use prosocial strategies when they are immediately more profitable than non-social or self-preservative ones (e.g. possible escape, see Dezecache, Martin, et al., 2020; but see also Bartolucci et al., 2021).
Despite conceptual quandaries, prosociality is commonly observed in adults during emergencies, that is, shortly after the onset of the emergency, and before it gets resolved (Dezecache, 2015).
Two recent examples from the literature can be used to highlight the reality of these phenomena
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 16 in highly life-threatening situations. In a recent study (Dezecache, Martin, et al., 2020), 32 semi- directed interviews were conducted with survivors from the mass shooting at Bataclan concert hall in Paris, France, in November 2015. On that day, three terrorists armed with rifles entered the concert hall and shot at the 1,500 spectators, before taking hostages. Interviews revealed that prosocial behavior was commonly reported, although affected by the material situation of respondents (e.g., whether they were minimally protected by a wall or not; and whether they could exit or not). Prosocial behavior, possibly specific to this type of danger, included giving information to others (e.g., telling other hostages that the shooter was reloading his weapon, giving a few seconds to escape), providing physical protection (e.g., touching other hostages to provide physical comfort) or emotional comfort (e.g., reassuring others). A tentative analysis further suggested that the bulk of these prosocial behaviors likely reflected altruistic tendencies, providing benefits to others at cost for oneself.
Another recent study examined court hearings from direct witnesses of the Costa Concordia disaster in Italy in November 2012 in which a cruise ship sank after a collision with an underwater rock (Bartolucci et al., 2021). A majority of passengers left their cabins and decided to evacuate, against crew instructions. Cooperation and help, including passing along crucial information, were commonly reported. Again, some particular features of the environment such as the perceived rarity of lifeboats may have promoted competitive behavior among victims. Generally, however, cooperation was the norm (Bartolucci et al., 2021).
It is not easy to draw a firm line between the very moment of the emergency and the end of it, notably because it is not always clear to victims themselves that a threat has disappeared for good, for example in the case of earthquakes that typically entail aftershocks. Research has shown, however, that prosociality is also very common in the aftermath of an emergency. For instance,
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 17 commuters of London buses helped one another following a bombing by providing physical and emotional support to others (Drury et al., 2009). Again, the feeling that there was a shared common fate among victims appeared to be critical in shaping prosocial actions among them, in bombings as in other emergency situations (on earthquakes, see Drury et al., 2016). What happens when physical and emotional support cannot be provided in the traditional ways described above?
Epidemics and pandemics, with the current COVID-19 pandemic as an unfortunate yet timely illustration, tend to highlight that humans are able to engage in prosocial behavior adapted to environmental and contextual constraints.
6. Staying far to remain close: reinventing prosocial behavior in the COVID-19
pandemic
The SARS-CoV-2 virus, identified in January 2020, began a swift worldwide spread as the fifth documented pandemic since the 1918 influenza outbreak (Liu et al., 2020). Lockdowns and shelter-in-place measures implemented by numerous countries drastically altered daily life as children and adults were asked to stay home to stop the spread of the virus, with social isolation, disrupted routines, school closures, mask wearing and separation from peers (Bartlett & Vivrette,
2020; Pfefferbaum & North, 2020). After a short subside in the pandemic’s progression in many countries throughout the summer, cases began rising again in the fall months, launching the
“second wave” of the virus observed at time of writing.
Immediate prosocial behavior displayed by individuals within their communities during the first wave involved spontaneous acts of helping with daily tasks, showing support for essential workers, and fostering an enhanced sense of community through collective behaviors such as clapping at a certain hour (Wolf et al., 2020). Despite the lack of in-person social contact, group affiliation and
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 18 social interaction seeking behaviors were observed during the first wave in many countries, especially via social networks and humor-based content (Amici, 2020; Aresi et al., 2020). This behavior typically creates collective emotion and may increase solidarity (Garcia & Rimé, 2019;
Zaki, 2020).
Beyond the initial burst of compassion, often referred to as a “post-disaster utopia” that characterizes immediate and visible helping behaviors (Fritz, 1961; Morris-Suzuki, 2017), prosocial behavior in the longer-term progression of the pandemic is of particular interest.
Importantly, the pandemic has offered up a novel facet of prosocial behavior, redefining and enriching the notion of what it means to act prosocially or altruistically.
Indeed, as the world realized that the COVID-19 pandemic was a relatively long-term situation with no rapidly available treatment or vaccine and the short-lived sense of “altruistic community” waned, physical distancing and mask wearing became necessary to limit propagation of the virus
(Chu et al., 2020). Physically staying away from others has become the new way of helping.
Prosocial comforting, at least in-person, has temporarily been replaced by prosocial protection (see
Figure 1). Providing emotional comfort must bypass the hurdle of hampered emotional reading due to mask wearing (Carbon, 2020; Nestor et al., 2020).
Figure 1
Possible changes in individual prosocial behavior in an epidemic, based on the developmental model of the three types of prosocial behavior introduced by Dunfield & Kuhlmeier, 2013
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Despite going against this human tendency to provide physical comfort (Liddle et al., 2015), individuals have been found to be receptive to public messages explaining the benefits of these measures and generally act accordingly and prosocially (Abel & Brown, 2020; Heffner et al., 2021;
Jordan et al., 2020). On a more individual level, adopting this long-haul prosocial behavior appears to be associated with greater empathy (Pfattheicher et al., 2020) as well as a heightened sense of social responsibility (Alvis et al., 2020; Oosterhoff & Palmer, 2020). These findings are interesting to characterize prosociality in epidemic and pandemic settings as a whole, yet future research will be necessary to provide a wider outlook on prosocial behavior exhibited from the early stages up until the end of the pandemic as well as in different cultures affected.
7. Discussion and methodological considerations
Altruistic actions in the midst and aftermath of an emergency depend largely on context, immediate danger, and individual capabilities at a given moment (see Table 1). Emergency situations are intrinsically uncertain, with an array of possible impacts on victims and their living conditions,
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 20 livelihood, health and in the most extreme conditions, life itself. They have consequences on an individual level, as well as on an interpersonal, group, and intergroup level, making the question of prosocial actions amongst individuals, both children and adults, all the more essential in these contexts (Cadamuro et al., 2021). Despite individual danger including the risk of losing one’s life, prosocial behaviors are observed in many different emergency situations (e.g., natural disasters, wars, terror attacks…) regardless of their timeframe, location and outcome, although they do not give rise to one single type of behavior. Studies highlight that humans have a natural tendency to act altruistically and do so both in childhood and adulthood despite the many hurdles in emergency and disaster situations, suggesting that prosociality is observed early in development, persists in adulthood and is also observed in different cultures. As observed in laboratory research, prosociality relies on several social and perceptual mechanisms including empathy, executive function, and adhesion to social norms.
However, when physical proximity becomes impossible, and when facial expressions remain hidden (e.g. mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic), humans adapt and rely on other cues and strategies, from perspective-taking to the use of humor and its trademark reliance on incongruity, to reduce their own negative affect and that of others as well as develop creative collaborative and prosocial problem-solving (Bailey & Im-Bolter, 2020; Strick et al., 2009;
Warneken et al., 2011). These strategies allow individuals to engage in helping, sharing and comforting behavior, albeit in ways that take into account contextual constraints. It appears that despite significant changes in daily life and the context in which prosocial behavior is usually deployed, humans are drawn to enacting such behavior and developing the means to do so.
Researching prosocial behaviors in response to emergencies, however, presents several major challenges and limitations. Such situations occur suddenly and by definition cannot be studied in
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 21 controlled settings (although video surveillance footage recorded during an event is used in some instances in behavioral research, see Philpot et al., 2020). Consequently, research takes place in a variety of timeframes within a crisis, from a handful of hours to months or even years for other situations. Whereas some studies focus extensively on behavior, or the report thereof, in the midst of an emergency (Dezecache, Martin, et al., 2020), others analyze the immediate aftermath of events, or consequences ranging in the weeks to years after a traumatic event (Masten & Osofsky,
2010).
The complex dynamics of prosociality following a disaster thereby imply that a post-event longitudinal design may be the most appropriate to develop a full view of post-disaster functioning in a social context. However, studies are often retrospective with rare pre-event measures (on the
Sichuan earthquake see Li et al., 2013; on the 2010 Chile earthquake see Drury et al., 2016 and
Maki et al., 2019; on the Christchurch earthquake see Sibley & Bulbulia, 2012). An additional consideration is the waxing and waning of prosocial behavior in emergency contexts, where instant unity in the aftermath of a disaster can be followed by low levels of perceived social support within an affected community as time goes by (Kaniasty & Norris, 2004; Norris, 2005; Palinkas et al.,
1993). Participants can also be hard to track down due to injuries, emotional distress, displacement and poor communication infrastructure in the midst or directly following an emergency
(Goldmann & Galea, 2014). Due to heterogeneity and unpredictability of behaviors, methods are hardly comparable, making accurate replication and generalization challenging. Research methods in groups of children, for example, range from self-reports or teacher reports to experimental procedures more closely resembling techniques used in a laboratory setting such as the dictator game, a measure of altruistic tendency (Benenson et al., 2007; Li et al., 2013). Encouragingly,
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 22 recent studies have adopted multi-informant and multi-method approaches for research on vulnerable and at-risk youth (Shi et al., 2020).
A difference of note between prosociality observed in controlled settings compared to in situ altruistic behavior is the factor of uncertainty. Uncertainty can be manipulated in laboratory experiments, yet it remains fixed in time, much different from the repeated uncertainty that individuals experience in an emergency situation. The effect of uncertainty on prosocial behavior in the long run is a necessary question, as humans collectively progress towards uncertain times when it comes to climate and political stability. Indeed, research has found that uncertainty regarding the possible negative impact of their actions on another’s well-being leads to prosocial actions (Kappes et al., 2018), yet uncertain cost to oneself on the contrary leads to more excuse- driven behavior and lowered generosity in a laboratory setting and in a virtual emergency setting
(Bode et al., 2015; Garcia et al., 2020). Prosociality in the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, seems intrinsically related to a feeling of uncertainty. It may therefore prove to be a valuable real- life illustration for future global events, including considerations of vaccination as a large-scale prosocial solution to the pandemic with an associated and widely-shared element of uncertainty
(Wells et al., 2020). Group belonging and its relationship to prosocial behavior must also be taken into account, as in-group identification tends to act towards reducing or at the very least tolerating uncertainty and also promotes prosocial behavior (Everett et al., 2015; Hogg, 2001; Vives &
FeldmanHall, 2018). A feeling of proximity, whether through group belonging or shared features, may modulate altruistic behavior and may extend beyond physical interaction to adopting new societal rules or choosing when to donate to a specific cause (on the name-letter effect in disaster donations see Albayrak-Aydemir & Gleibs, 2021; Chandler et al., 2008; Duclos & Barasch, 2014;
Tunçgenç et al., 2021).
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 23
8. Conclusion
Despite their great heterogeneity, taken together, studies on prosocial behavior tend to confirm that humans across cultures act altruistically during and immediately in response to harmful situations (Aknin et al., 2013). However, it remains unclear how long such behavior lasts in time and whether acting prosocially has long-term positive consequences at the individual level, given that factors such as type of exposure, i.e. material damage or witnessing human distress, can differentially impact prosocial response (Falk & Graeber, 2020; Vardy & Atkinson, 2019).
On a final and more semantic note, the concept of prosociality itself is used differently in various fields. If prosociality is defined as any behavior that is advantageous to another individual, whether or not the behavior is also advantageous to the agent (i.e., whether it is altruistic or cooperative, see Dezecache, Martin, et al., 2020) may affect which behaviors are considered by researchers. A behavior that is immediately advantageous to a given recipient may also end up being detrimental in the longer run, making prosociality difficult to define precisely across fields of research.
Despite obvious and important methodological challenges, existing studies are of great interest and provide a necessary terrain to bring laboratory measurements and real-life contexts together.
Implementing robust and insightful analysis of prosocial behavior in emergency settings themselves requires prior understanding of what occurs in controlled settings. One needs the another to gain a wider picture of the many variables that affect human reaction to danger as well as the full scope of possible behaviors, from childhood to adulthood.
This full scope can only be reached when researchers from different fields bring their unique approach, method and theory together to help complete the ever-growing puzzle of how humans act in the face of disaster situations. An evolutionary approach provides a robust framework for
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 24 the observation and interpretation of behavior and psychological mechanisms (Muthukrishna &
Henrich, 2019). Apprehending human behavior in response to actual harm is fundamental, and interdisciplinary collaborations between researchers interested in these topics are also an indispensable condition towards a better understanding of prosociality in emergency across the lifespan.
THE EMERGENCY OF PROSOCIALITY 25
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