The correlates and structure of prosocial behaviors in late adolescents were examined using a newly constructed, multidimensional measure. In Study 1, 249 college students (145 women; M age = 19.9 years) were administered the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM) which assesses 6 types of prosocial behaviors: altruistic, compliant, emotional, dire, public, and anonymous. Measures of sympathy, perspective taking, personal distress, social desirability, global prosocial behaviors, social responsibility, ascription of responsibility, vocabulary skills, and prosocial moral reasoning were also completed. Test-retest reliability and further validity of the PTM were demonstrated in Study 2 with a sample of 40 college students (28 women; M age = 22.9 years). Results from both studies yielded evidence of adequate reliability and validity of the PTM and support the notion of differentiated forms of helping.

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The Development of a Measure of Prosocial Behaviors for Late Adolescents

Prosocial behavior consists of behaviors regarded as beneficial to others, including helping, sharing, comforting, guiding, rescuing, and defending others. Although women and men are similar in engaging in extensive prosocial behavior, they are different in their emphasis on particular classes of these behaviors. The specialty of women is prosocial behaviors that are more communal and relational, and that of men is behaviors that are more agentic and collectively oriented as well as strength intensive. These sex differences, which appear in research in various settings, match widely shared gender role beliefs. The origins of these beliefs lie in the division of labor, which reflects a biosocial interaction between male and female physical attributes and the social structure. The effects of gender roles on behavior are mediated by hormonal processes, social expectations, and individual dispositions.

The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender.

Investing in normative, age-graded social roles has broad implications for both the individual and society. The current meta-analysis examines the way in which personality traits relate to four such investments -- work, family, religion, and volunteerism. The present study uses meta-analytic techniques (K = 94) to identify the cross-sectional patterns of relationships between social investment in these four roles and the personality trait domains of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Results show that the extent of investment in social roles across these domains is positively related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and low psychoticism. These findings are more robust when individuals are psychologically committed to rather than simply demographically associated with the investment role.

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Social Investment and Personality: A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship of Personality Traits to Investment in Work, Family, Religion, and Volunteerism

The present study was designed to examine the psychometric properties of a multidimensional measure of prosocial behaviors to use with early adolescents and middle adolescents. One hundred thirty-eight students (X age = 15.8 years; 80 girls; 70% White, non-Hispanic) from a public middle school and high school completed measures of prosocial moral reasoning, sympathy, perspective taking, aggression, ascription of responsibility, social desirability, verbal skills, and a revised prosocial tendencies measure (PTM-R). The questionnaires were completed in two sessions each separated by a 2-week time span (to assess test-retest reliability of the PTM-R). Moreover, teacher ratings of adolescents’ generosity and helpfulness toward others were obtained. Analyses were conducted separately for early adolescents and middle adolescents and results showed adequate reliability and evidence of validity for PTM-R. Discussion focused on individual differences in prosocial behaviors among early adolescents and middle adole...

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Sociocognitive and Behavioral Correlates of a Measure of Prosocial Tendencies for Adolescents

In a meta-analysis, the authors test the theoretical formulation that religiosity is a means for self-enhancement. The authors operationalized self-enhancement as socially desirable responding (SDR) and focused on three facets of religiosity: intrinsic, extrinsic, and religion-as-quest. Importantly, they assessed two moderators of the relation between SDR and religiosity. Macro-level culture reflected countries that varied in degree of religiosity (from high to low: United States, Canada, United Kingdom). Micro-level culture reflected U.S. universities high (Christian) versus low (secular) on religiosity. The results were generally consistent with the theoretical formulation. Both macro-level and micro-level culture moderated the relation between SDR and religiosity: This relation was more positive in samples that placed higher value on religiosity (United States > Canada > United Kingdom; Christian universities > secular universities). The evidence suggests that religiosity is partly in the service of self-enhancement.

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Religiosity as Self-Enhancement: A Meta-Analysis of the Relation Between Socially Desirable Responding and Religiosity:

Cross-cultural assessment of altruism and its correlates

The aim of this study was to explore how the relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19 has been represented on the social media site Twitter. NCapture was used to collect textual Tweets on a weekly basis for three months during the pandemic. In total, 21,140 Tweets containing the keywords vitamin D and COVID were collected and imported to NVivo12. An inductive thematic analysis was carried out on the Tweets collected on the first (12/2/2021) and last week (21/5/2021) of the recording period to identify themes and subthemes. Quality control of the coding was conducted on a sample of the dataset (20%). Data were also compared to the ground truth to explore the accuracy of media outputs. The four main themes identified were a)association of vitamin D with COVID-19, b)politically informed views, c) vitamin D deficiency and d) vitamin D source. When compared to the ground truth, the majority of information relating to the key findings was incorrect for all of the findings. This study contributes to the area of research by highlighting the extent of the issue social media sites face with health-related misinformation. In the context of COVID-19, it is important that sites such as Twitter improve their existing misinformation policies, as misinformation can be detrimental in disease prevention.

Why were Twitter Users Obsessed with Vitamin D during the first year of the pandemic?

The scientific basis for the potential relationship of vitamin D status with COVID-19 is mainly based upon the association of low serum concentration of 25(OH)D with increased susceptibility to acute respiratory tract infections, which are prevalent within the COVID-19 pathology. As such, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, vitamin D was at the centre of media attention, often portrayed as a potential therapeutic agent in the combat to slow down the rate of the infection. The aim of this investigation was to examine how the relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19 was presented in different media sources (traditional e.g. UK newspapers vs. social e.g. Twitter) and assess the level of misinformation associated with this issue by comparing media content to evidence-based guidelines. Data were collected over the first year of the pandemic (February 2019–20), from the social medium Twitter and 5 of the most widely read UK based newspapers using the keywords “vitamin D” and “COVID”. An inductive thematic analysis was carried out on the data to identify themes and subthemes. Quality control of the coding was conducted on a sample of the dataset (20%). Data were also compared to the “ground truth” identified as the NICE report titled “COVID-19 rapid guideline: vitamin D” to explore the accuracy of media outputs. The same four themes were identified from both traditional and social media sources, ‘association of vitamin D with COVID-19’, ‘politically informed views’, ‘vitamin D deficiency’ and ‘vitamin D sources’. All but two of the sub themes were also identical. However, the content within each subtheme differed across sources. For example, newspapers regularly recommended 10 microgram supplements, whereas Twitter users frequently stated that this dose was “grossly underestimated”. When relevant codes were compared to the NICE report, 72% of the codes from newspaper articles were ‘correct’, whereas 81% of the codes from Twitter relating to were ‘incorrect’. Although the same types of information were shared across media sources highlighted by the identical main themes, the representation of the relationship of vitamin D with COVID-19 differed. This study highlights that health-related misinformation remains a prevalent issue especially on social media platforms, despite attempts from companies such as Twitter to combat the issue. The amount of misinformation was notably lower in the newspaper articles, but still present. Future research should focus on the accuracy of media outputs to further investigate health misinformation as an issue (in both traditional and social media) and how that may affect public health. Attempts should be made to improve journalistic integrity through more rigorous and standardised regulations enforced across all media outlets so that public knowledge on current events is based on evidence rather than conjecture.

Dirk Pennington

Papers

Cross-cultural assessment of altruism and its correlates

Why were Twitter Users Obsessed with Vitamin D during the first year of the pandemic?

A year in the public life of COVID-19 and vitamin D: representation in UK news and social media and implications for future health communications