Cortical regulation of helping behaviour towards others in pain.

Humans and animals exhibit various forms of prosocial helping behaviour towards others in need1-3. Although previous research has investigated how individuals may perceive others' states4,5, the neural mechanisms of how they respond to others' needs and goals with helping behaviour remain largely unknown. Here we show that mice engage in a form of helping behaviour towards other individuals experiencing physical pain and injury-they exhibit allolicking (social licking) behaviour specifically towards the injury site, which aids the recipients in coping with pain. Using microendoscopic imaging, we found that single-neuron and ensemble activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) encodes others' state of pain and that this representation is different from that of general stress in others. Furthermore, functional manipulations demonstrate a causal role of the ACC in bidirectionally controlling targeted allolicking. Notably, this behaviour is represented in a population code in the ACC that differs from that of general allogrooming, a distinct type of prosocial behaviour elicited by others' emotional stress. These findings advance our understanding of the neural coding and regulation of helping behaviour.

Altruism and natural selection in a variable environment.

Hamilton's rule provides the cornerstone for our understanding of the evolution of all forms of social behavior, from altruism to spite, across all organisms, from viruses to humans. In contrast to the standard prediction from Hamilton's rule, recent studies have suggested that altruistic helping can be favored even if it does not benefit relatives, as long as it decreases the environmentally induced variance of their reproductive success ("altruistic bet-hedging"). However, previous predictions both rely on an approximation and focus on variance-reducing helping behaviors. We derived a version of Hamilton's rule that fully captures environmental variability. This shows that decreasing (or increasing) the variance in the absolute reproductive success of relatives does not have a consistent effect-it can either favor or disfavor the evolution of helping. We then empirically quantified the effect of helping on the variance in reproductive success across 15 species of cooperatively breeding birds. We found that a) helping did not consistently decrease the variance of reproductive success and often increased it, and b) the mean benefits of helping across environments consistently outweighed other variability components of reproductive success. Altogether, our theoretical and empirical results suggest that the effects of helping on the variability components of reproductive success have not played a consistent or strong role in favoring helping.

Negative energy balance hinders prosocial helping behavior.

The internal state of an animal, including homeostatic requirements, modulates its behavior. Negative energy balance stimulates hunger, thus promoting a range of actions aimed at obtaining food. While these survival actions are well established, the influence of the energy status on prosocial behavior remains unexplored. We developed a paradigm to assess helping behavior in which a free mouse was faced with a conspecific trapped in a restrainer. We measured the willingness of the free mouse to liberate the confined mouse under diverse metabolic conditions. Around 42% of ad libitum-fed mice exhibited a helping behavior, as evidenced by the reduction in the latencies to release the trapped cagemate. This behavior was independent of subsequent social contact reward and was associated with changes in corticosterone indicative of emotional contagion. This decision-making process was coupled with reduced blood glucose excursions and higher Adenosine triphosphate (ATP):Adenosine diphosphate (ADP) ratios in the forebrain of helper mice, suggesting that it was a highly energy-demanding process. Interestingly, chronic (food restriction and type 2 diabetes) and acute (chemogenetic activation of hunger-promoting AgRP neurons) situations mimicking organismal negative energy balance and enhanced appetite attenuated helping behavior toward a distressed conspecific. To investigate similar effects in humans, we estimated the influence of glycated hemoglobin (a surrogate of long-term glycemic control) on prosocial behavior (namely charity donation) using the Understanding Society dataset. Our results evidenced that organismal energy status markedly influences helping behavior and that hypothalamic AgRP neurons are at the interface of metabolism and prosocial behavior.

Inclusive Fitness May Explain Some but Not All Benefits Derived from Helping Behavior in a Cooperatively Breeding Bird.

AbstractIn cooperative breeding systems, inclusive fitness theory predicts that nonbreeding helpers more closely related to the breeders should be more willing to provide costly alloparental care and thus have more impact on breeder fitness. In the red-cockaded woodpecker (Dryobates borealis), most helpers are the breeders' earlier offspring, but helpers do vary within groups in both relatedness to the breeders (some even being unrelated) and sex, and it can be difficult to parse their separate impacts on breeder fitness. Moreover, most support for inclusive fitness theory has been positive associations between relatedness and behavior rather than actual fitness consequences. We used functional linear models to evaluate the per capita effects of helpers of different relatedness on eight breeder fitness components measured for up to 41 years at three sites. In support of inclusive fitness theory, helpers more related to the breeding pair made greater contributions to six fitness components. However, male helpers made equal contributions to increasing prefledging survival regardless of relatedness. These findings suggest that both inclusive fitness benefits and other direct benefits may underlie helping behaviors in the red-cockaded woodpecker. Our results also demonstrate the application of an underused statistical approach to disentangle a complex ecological phenomenon.

Social restructuring during harsh environmental conditions promotes cooperative behaviour in a songbird.

Cooperation may emerge from intrinsic factors such as social structure and extrinsic factors such as environmental conditions. Although these factors might reinforce or counteract each other, their interaction remains unexplored in animal populations. Studies on multilevel societies suggest a link between social structure, environmental conditions and individual investment in cooperative behaviours. These societies exhibit flexible social configurations, with stable groups that overlap and associate hierarchically. Structure can be seasonal, with upper-level units appearing only during specific seasons, and lower-level units persisting year-round. This offers an opportunity to investigate how cooperation relates to social structure and environmental conditions. Here, we study the seasonal multilevel society of superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus), observing individual responses to experimental playback of conspecific distress calls. Individuals engaged more in helping behaviour and less in aggressive/territorial song during the harsher non-breeding season compared to the breeding season. The increase in cooperation was greater for breeding group members than for members of the same community, the upper social unit, comprised of distinct breeding groups in association. Results suggest that the interaction between social structure and environmental conditions drives the seasonal switch in cooperation, supporting the hypothesis that multilevel societies can emerge to increase cooperation during harsh environmental conditions.

Helping Others Facilitates Well-Being for Indigenous Peoples Living With HIV/AIDS in Canada.

Research has found that helping others facilitates well-being for Indigenous peoples living with HIV and AIDS, but limited research exists that investigates the mechanism(s) underlying this relationship. Indigenous perspectives posit that helping others facilitates well-being through the development of an individual's spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental aspects (four aspects). Similarly, self-determination theory posits that helping others facilitates well-being by satisfying basic psychological needs. In the present study, we examined if helping others facilitates well-being through the fulfillment of the spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental aspects among Indigenous peoples living with HIV and AIDS. We used a convergent parallel mixed methods design, coupled with a community-engaged approach grounded in the United Nations Greater Involvement of People Living with HIV and AIDS principles and Indigenous and decolonizing research methodologies. Survey (n = 117) and interview data (n = 9) collected by an Indigenous-led HIV/AIDS organization in Canada were employed to examine the relationship between helping, the four aspects, and well-being. Participants were primarily First Nations leaders and mentors who live with HIV/AIDS, with some Métis and Inuit. A parallel multiple mediation model and reflexive thematic analysis were used to analyze the relationship between helping, the four aspects, and well-being. Mixed-methods findings support the idea that helping others promotes well-being by fulfilling the emotional and mental aspects. Qualitative findings demonstrated this relationship for all four aspects. This research may facilitate the development of programs to support Indigenous peoples living with HIV/AIDS well-being and contribute to the literature on integrating Indigenous perspectives and methodologies within psychological research.

Task demands matter in shaping how preschoolers express instrumental helping, comforting, and sharing: A longitudinal analysis.

The current research provides a detailed longitudinal examination of instrumental helping, comforting, and sharing in early childhood. Preschoolers completed a series of prosocial behavior tasks when they were 2 years old (n = 200), 3 years old (n = 161), and 4 years old (n = 135). As expected, children's prosocial behaviors increased with age across all tasks. Yet children's prosocial behaviors were more nuanced than expected, with significant differences in scores between trials within each type of prosocial behavior. Cross-lagged panel modelling revealed that instrumental helping at 3 years predicted comforting when an experimenter was sad or cold at 4 years. Furthermore, children's comforting of a sad experimenter at 3 years predicted sharing their own toy with a sad experimenter at 4 years. These findings offer novel insights into the developmental trajectory of three types of prosocial behavior in early childhood.

Individual and contextual-level predictors of progression in the bystander intervention model.

The situational model of bystander behavior is a validated 5-step process for understanding intervention in bullying and sexual harassment, yet the individual-level and contextual-level factors that facilitate the progression from one step to the next are not well understood. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether individual characteristics (social-emotional skills, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, and personal attitudes toward bullying and sexual harassment) and contextual-level factors (school climate and perceived peer attitudes toward bullying and sexual harassment) explained the association between subsequent steps of the bystander intervention model. A sample of 788 high school students completed several validated measures of these constructs. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that each step significantly and positively predicted the next step, and the addition of a direct path from accepting responsibility to helping improved model fit. The mediational model indicated that individual-level characteristics had significant direct effects on interpreting bullying and sexual harassment as problems, accepting responsibility, and helping, and indirect effects from noticing the bullying and sexual harassment to all subsequent steps except knowing. In contrast, contextual-level effects contributed to accepting responsibility in an inverse direction.

A qualitative study of factors involved in the helping behaviors of suicide prevention gatekeepers.

This study explores the factors involved in the capacity of newly trained suicide prevention gatekeepers to engage in the identification and support of people at risk of suicide. In-depth telephone interviews were conducted with 18 gatekeepers from various settings who had participated in a larger quantitative study of the impact of gatekeeper training. Conventional content analysis was performed on the data collected. Participants said that gatekeeper training provided key information and legitimized their role. Previous experience with suicidal friends and family members motivated their involvement and helped them to engage with at-risk individuals. Support available from the setting, including attitudes toward suicide, resources for referrals and promotion of the gatekeeper activities, were instrumental in gatekeepers' ability to fulfill their role. Gatekeeper programs may benefit from adopting a comprehensive approach to gatekeeper helping behaviors by attending to their contextual influences, and the effects of gatekeepers' personal experiences.

Bystander Motivations and Barriers to Helping Intoxicated Peers.

We examined the prevalence of self-reported motivations and barriers to helping intoxicated peers among emerging adults (N = 377; Mage = 18.64; 75% women, 88% White) attending a Southeastern university and whether motivations and barriers differed by age, gender, race, and class standing. Respondents aged 19-24 were more likely to endorse the motivation item "Because it was your "turn" to be the helper/designated driver (DD) that night" than eighteen-year-olds. Race differences were also reported for the motivation item, "Because the person was your friend", where White participants were more likely to endorse this item than non-White participants. Men also reported more Burden/Hassles-related barriers than did women.

Helping behaviours of community members towards older adults and the related factors: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Community members can play important roles in helping older adults in their community. This study aimed to clarify the actual situation of community members' helping behaviours towards older adults and examine the related factors. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted using an online survey system with a sample of 1000 community members in the Tokyo metropolitan area selected using quota sampling. Participants were asked about their experiences with helping an older adult, involvement with older adults with dementia, knowledge of dementia and care resources in the community, and perceptions regarding the community. Content analysis was used to classify participants' freely answered responses about helping behaviours, with logistic regression analysis subsequently used to examine the related factors. RESULTS: Community members provided older adults with various types of spontaneous help, including help with walking (20.0%), accident care (16.8%), giving directions to a destination (11.6%), accompanying them to a destination (12.9%), and support in daily life (10.4%). In the multinominal logistic regression analysis, advanced helping behaviours were associated with having a family member with dementia, experiences involving people living with dementia, knowledge of dementia and community support centres, and a stronger sense of community integration (P < 0.05). The reasons for not being able to help included being physically unable to (42.5%), not feeling responsible (19.3%), not knowing how to help (17.4%), and hesitating to help (14.4%). CONCLUSION: The results suggest that providing learning opportunities for community members could further promote their helping behaviours for older adults. These could include interacting with older adults, especially those living with dementia; promoting a sense of community integration; or receiving training in helping actions. Such efforts could support the development of an effective community-based care system for older adults.

Spontaneous helping in pigs is mediated by helper's social attention and distress signals of individuals in need.

Helping behaviour is of special interest for prosociality because it appears to be motivated by the needs of others. We developed a novel paradigm to investigate helping in pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) and tested 75 individuals in eight groups in their home pens. Two identical compartments were attached to the pen, equipped with a window, and a door that could be opened from the outside by lifting a handle. Pigs in all groups spontaneously opened doors during a 5-day familiarization. During testing, each pig was isolated once from its group and placed in one of the two compartments, in a counter-balanced order. In 85% of cases, pigs released a trapped group member from the test compartment within 20 min (median latency = 2.2 min). Pigs were more likely and quicker to open a door to free the trapped pig than to open a door to an empty compartment. Pigs who spent more time looking at the window of the compartment containing the trapped pig were more likely to help. Distress signals by the trapped pig increased its probability of being helped. Responses are consistent with several criteria for identifying targeted helping, but results can also be explained by selfish motivations.

Infants and toddlers leverage their understanding of action goals to evaluate agents who help others.

Why do infants and toddlers prefer helpers? Four experiments (conducted from 2019-2022; n = 136, 66% White, 15% Asian, 4% Black, 2% Hispanic/Latino, 13% multiracial, majority USA) investigated whether infants and toddlers favor agents whose actions allow others to achieve their goals. In the key experiment, 8-month-old infants and 15-month-old toddlers viewed a protagonist who tried and failed to open a box that contained a toy while two other agents (helpers) observed; then the toys were exchanged and the helpers opened different boxes. Infants and toddlers differently evaluated the two helpers, consistent with their developing means-end understanding. Together, the present four experiments connect infants' and toddlers' evaluations of helping to their understanding of goal-directed behavior.

Compliance or empathy-What links maternal sensitivity and toddlers' emotional helping?

Emotional helping-that is, helping based on others' emotional distress-has been suggested to be a central prosocial response to others in need. Developmental theorizing proposed that emotional helping has social origins. Whereas research indeed demonstrated a link between maternal sensitivity and children's emotional helping, developmental theories stress different mediating processes. Emotion-sharing theories claim empathic concern to be the crucial link for helping, whereas internalization theories base children's helping on children's compliance. To investigate these hypotheses, the current study explored empathy and compliance as two possible mediators for the relation between maternal sensitivity and children's emotional helping at 18 months of age. Overall, maternal sensitivity was positively related to children's empathy, children's compliance, and children's emotional helping. Interestingly, children's empathy-but not children's compliance-mediated the link between maternal sensitivity and children's emotional helping. These findings deepen our understanding of the psychological processes subserving emotional helping during infancy and support theories that stress the socioemotional origins of children's prosocial behavior.

Personal values and sustained attention as predictors of children's helping behavior in middle childhood.

OBJECTIVE: This study tested the effect of personal values (motivation) and sustained attention (cognitive ability) on children's helping behavior. METHOD: Children (N = 162, age range 8-9 years, mean = 8.81, SD = 0.43) completed value ranking and go/no-go tasks, and their helping behavior was examined. RESULTS: Children who valued self-transcendence over self-enhancement helped more than others. Surprisingly, children's lack of sustained attention was associated with more helping among those who valued self-transcendence over self-enhancement or openness-to-change over conservation values. Valuing both self-transcendence and openness-to-change was also associated with more helping. CONCLUSIONS: Children are more likely to help others if they value self-transcendence and openness to change. Notably, children's tendency to act upon these values may be facilitated (rather than obstructed by) low attention skills.

Delayed negative effects of prosocial spending on happiness.

Does prosocial behavior promote happiness? We test this longstanding hypothesis in a behavioral experiment that extends the scope of previous research. In our Saving a Life paradigm, every participant either saved one human life in expectation by triggering a targeted donation of 350 euros or received an amount of 100 euros. Using a choice paradigm between two binary lotteries with different chances of saving a life, we observed subjects' intentions at the same time as creating random variation in prosocial outcomes. We repeatedly measured happiness at various delays. Our data weakly replicate the positive effect identified in previous research but only for the very short run. One month later, the sign of the effect reversed, and prosocial behavior led to significantly lower happiness than obtaining the money. Notably, even those subjects who chose prosocially were ultimately happier if they ended up getting the money for themselves. Our findings revealed a more nuanced causal relationship than previously suggested, providing an explanation for the apparent absence of universal prosocial behavior.

The Five Cs of Positive Youth Development: Configurations of Thriving in Four U.S. Adolescent Samples.

Positive youth development (PYD) models are widespread, but the empirical evidence for them is primarily nomothetic (i.e., investigations of universal patterns). Contemporary developmental theory suggests that concepts and processes within PYD models should also be explored with respect to specificity. This study demonstrates how the Five Cs Model, a predominant PYD model, can be advanced using group-differential methods. Secondary data from four studies of adolescents were used to test: (1) Whether there were subgroups who varied in their patterns of scores across the Five Cs, and (2) Whether subgroups also varied in Contribution behaviors. Unexpectedly, the four data sets used could not be combined, yielding an opportunity to discuss consistencies and inconsistencies in findings across the four data sets through contextual and sample differences. Findings demonstrate how understanding specificity in theorized concepts and processes in PYD models can complement studies of universal patterns, which are both necessary to advance PYD research and practice.

Motivating nurses' coworker-directed helping behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic: Role of managerial humour and nurses' power distance orientation.

AIMS: The aims of the research are to investigate (1) the influence of managerial humour on nurses' coworker-directed helping behaviour, (2) the mediating effect of nurses' feelings of energy between managerial humour and nurses' coworker-directed helping behaviour and (3) the moderating effect of nurses' power distance orientation. DESIGN: This is a quantitative study. A three-wave survey design was conducted to collect data from direct managers to nurse dyads. METHODS: The random sampling method was employed. Data were collected from the supervisor to subordinate dyad at three time points during the first half of 2021. A total of 235 paired data sets of nurses and their direct managers were collected from a large state-owned Chinese hospital. We used hierarchical regression analyses via SPSS 22.0 software to examine the hypotheses. RESULTS: (1) Managerial humour can foster nurses' coworker-directed helping behaviour via accumulating their feelings of energy. (2) Power distance orientation moderates the effect of managerial humour on feelings of energy as well as the indirect effect of managerial humour on nurses' coworker-directed helping behaviour via feelings of energy, in a way that these effects are stronger when nurses have higher (vs. lower) level of power distance orientation. CONCLUSION: Managerial humour can increase nurses' feelings of energy, which in turn, motivates them to help their coworkers. Nurses' power distance orientation is an important boundary condition that constrains managerial humour effectiveness. IMPACT: Hospital managers could use more humour during their interactions with nurses because managerial humour can promote nurses' feelings of energy and coworker-directed helping behaviour. Hospitals can take humour into account during managers' selection and training to improve management effectiveness. Managers in eastern countries should use more humour during their interactions with followers. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Nurses and their direct managers from a large state-owned Chinese hospital contributed to this study by completing the survey.

Disaster preparedness and community helping behaviour in the wake of the 2020 Oregon wildfires.

Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity owing to climate change. Individual-level behavioural responses-notably, disaster preparedness and community helping actions (such as donating and volunteering)-supplement government efforts to respond to such phenomena, but rarely have they been explored together. Using data from a survey administered soon after the 2020 Oregon wildfires, this paper compares a range of socio-demographic, experiential, attitudinal, and communication-related factors associated with these two individual-level behavioural responses. Findings indicate that respondents who reported experiencing a higher degree of harm and heightened concern about climate change after the wildfires were more likely to report disaster preparedness and community helping actions. Those who reported more frequent informal discussions about the wildfires, consulting more sources to seek information on them, and higher percentages of friends, neighbours, and community members taking actions to prepare for future wildfires also reported more disaster preparedness and community helping actions. Disaster preparedness actions were also positively associated with seeking information from formal/official sources.