Prosocial Behavior Is Associated With Transdiagnostic Markers of Affective Sensitivity in Multiple Domains

Luis Sebastian Contreras-Huerta, Patricia L. Lockwood, Geoffrey Bird, Matthew A.J. Apps, Molly J. Crockett

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Prosocial behaviors—actions that benefit others—fundamentally shape our interpersonal interactions. Psychiatric disorders have been suggested to be related to prosocial disturbances, which may underlie many of their social impairments. However, broader affective traits, present to different degrees in both psychiatric and healthy populations, also have been linked to variability in prosociality. Therefore, it is unclear to what extent prosocial variability is explained by specific psychiatric disorders relative to broad affective traits. Using a computational, transdiagnostic approach in two online studies, we found that participants who reported being more affectively reactive across a broad cluster of traits manifested greater frequencies of prosocial actions in two different contexts: They reported being more averse to harming others for profit, and they were more willing to exert effort to benefit others.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)820-835
Number of pages16
JournalEmotion
Volume22
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Psychology

Keywords

  • Affective traits
  • Computational modeling
  • Prosocial behavior
  • Psychiatric traits
  • Transdiagnostic

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