TY  - JOUR
A1  - Susewind, Moritz
A1  - Walkowitz, Gari
T1  - Symbolic Moral Self-Completion – Social Recognition of Prosocial Behavior Reduces Subsequent Moral Striving
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - According to theories on moral balancing, a prosocial act can decrease people’s motivation to engage in subsequent prosocial behavior, because people feel that they have already achieved a positive moral self-perception. However, there is also empirical evidence showing that people actually need to be recognized by others in order to establish and affirm their self-perception through their prosocial actions. Without social recognition, moral balancing could possibly fail. In this paper, we investigate in two laboratory experiments how social recognition of prosocial behavior influences subsequent moral striving. Building on self-completion theory, we hypothesize that social recognition of prosocial behavior (self-serving behavior) weakens (strengthens) subsequent moral striving. In Study 1, we show that a prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness when it was socially recognized as compared to a situation without social recognition. Conversely, when a self-serving act is socially recognized, it encourages subsequent helpfulness. In Study 2, we replicate the effect of social recognition on moral striving in a more elaborated experimental setting and with a larger participant sample. We again find that a socially recognized prosocial act leads to less subsequent helpfulness compared to an unrecognized prosocial act. Our results shed new light on the boundary conditions of moral balancing effects and underscore the view that these effects can be conceptualized as a dynamic of self-completion.
KW  - prosocial behavior
KW  - social influence
KW  - social recognition
KW  - self-regulation
KW  - moral balancing
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-211327
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 11
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rodrigues, Johannes
A1  - Ulrich, Natalie
A1  - Mussel, Patrick
A1  - Carlo, Gustavo
A1  - Hewig, Johannes
T1  - Measuring prosocial tendencies in Germany: sources of validity and reliablity of the revised prosocial tendency measure
JF  - Frontiers in Psychology
N2  - The prosocial tendencies measure (PTM; Carlo and Randall, 2002) is a widely used measurement for prosocial tendencies in English speaking participants. This instrument distinguishes between six different types of prosocial tendencies that partly share some common basis, but also can be opposed to each other. To examine these constructs in Germany, a study with 1067 participants was conducted. The study investigated the structure of this German version of the PTM-R via exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlations with similar constructs in subsamples as well as via measurement invariance test concerning the original English version. The German translation showed a similar factor structure to the English version in exploratory factor analysis and in confirmatory factor analysis. Measurement invariance was found between the English and German language versions of the PTM and support for the proposed six-factor structure (altruistic, anonymous, compliant, dire, emotional and public prosocial behavior) was also found in confirmatory factor analysis. Furthermore, the expected interrelations of these factors of prosocial behavior tendencies were obtained. Finally, correlations of the prosocial behavior tendencies with validating constructs and behaviors were found. Thus, the findings stress the importance of seeing prosocial behavior not as a single dimension construct, but as a factored construct which now can also be assessed in German speaking participants.
KW  - measurement invariance
KW  - prosocial tendency measure
KW  - prosocial behavior
KW  - altruism
KW  - validation
KW  - German translation
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-159351
VL  - 8
ER  -