Helping others in real life and in the laboratory: pride and prosocial behavior

Background: Prosocial behavior may depend on the emotions experienced, and positive emotions such as pride may promote helping, offering support, donating, and other prosocial activities. Two studies were conducted to examine the relationship between pride and prosocial behavior.

Participants and procedure: A correlational study, Study 1 (N = 365), was conducted during the second week of the 2022 war in Ukraine. In Study 2, a laboratory experiment (N = 82) was conducted to test the effect of pride (recalling an event in which a person felt proud) on prosocial behavior. A pilot study demonstrated the effectiveness of the experimental manipulation. Prosocial behavior was operationalized as the amount of money donated to charity in support of people in need and the number of leaflets taken in support of recruitment for the study.

Results: Study 1 results showed a positive but weak correlation between pride and involvement in helping, as well as the number of hours spent helping Ukrainian refugees. Study 2 results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups in the amount of money donated to charity and in the number of leaflets taken.

Conclusions: Our studies have provided new evidence for the role of pride in stimulating prosocial behavior. The inconsistent results of our research suggest that further studies are needed to better understand the relationship between pride and prosocial behavior.