IndexIntroductionLiterature review and hypothesesProsocial behavior and altruismCultureAltruism and cultureExpected resultsDiscussionReferencesThis paper aimed to examine the effect of prosocial behavior on ingroup and outgroup members, particularly in altruism, through cultures. We hypothesize that for individuals in an individualistic culture, altruistic behavior would remain the same whether the beneficiaries were related to the participant or not. For individuals in a collectivistic culture, we hypothesize that altruistic behavior would be more prevalent if beneficiaries were related to the participant, and would decrease if beneficiaries were unrelated to the participant. The practical and theoretical implications of the expected results will be further discussed in this article. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayKeywords: cross-cultural study, altruism, group membership, individualism, collectivism, Hofstede, prosocial behaviorIntroductionIt is happier to give than to receive. Humanity is a predominantly social species, even indulging in ruinous behavior for the benefit of others. Interestingly, myriad scientific studies have also shown that acts of altruism work wonders for your health. According to Post (2005), altruistic behaviors are related to better health, mental well-being and contribute to longevity through improved mental and physical health. In the 1980s, the term "Mother Teresa Effect" was conceived after a study showed that by watching an altruistic act - in this case, a short film of Mother Teresa spending time in an orphanage - participants showed significant improvements in their Health. immune systems (McClelland & Kirshnit, 1988). Existing research does not provide much evidence for the association between prosocial behavior and Hofstede's cultural dimensions of individualism–collectivism. Furthermore, the vast majority of related studies evaluate their relationships indirectly, and the information reported by these studies is mostly inconsistent. Literature Review and Hypotheses Prosocial Behavior and Altruism The concept of altruism falls within a broader class of prosocial behavior that is “defined by society as generally beneficial to other people and to the current political system” (Wright, 2015). This includes a variety of behaviors that are intended to benefit others. An important distinction to make is that while helping concerns the results of an action, the concept of altruism involves the motivations underlying behavior to produce an action. Classic definitions in psychology have considered internal motivation as a defining and important characteristic of altruistic helping (Brown & Gaertner, 2008). Altruism is a profound and sophisticated anomaly in human behavior, and thus the term has been employed in other ways to fit specific analyzes across different research contexts relevant to the needs of other disciplines. For example, altruism in the definition of economics by Fischbacher and Fehr (2003) states that the “definition of altruism as costly acts that confer economic benefits on other individuals”. On the other hand, altruism in biology refers to behaviors that reduce personal reproduction (Clavein & Chapuisat, 2012). Therefore, with different definitions of altruism in other fields of science, it is important to establish a definition in psychology before delving into this phenomenon. According to the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (Wright, 2015), altruism is defined as “behavior intended tobenefit another, even when this action risks a possible sacrifice to the well-being of the actor” (Monroe, 1996). In the book, he aids our understanding of altruism and details some critical aspects of the concept of altruism. First, altruism should involve action, so possessing only goodwill thoughts without action is not an act of altruism. Secondly, the action must aim to achieve a goal or result. Third, the action should increase the well-being of another, involuntary or otherwise. Fourth, the concept of altruism assumes that intentions/motivations matter more than consequences. This is to say that even an altruistic act that entails negative consequences should be considered altruistic. Fifth, it is identified with a possible reduction in the actor's well-being. Batson (2014) however points out that altruism does not necessarily involve self-sacrifice, but is intrinsically self-sacrificial. Finally, actors should not expect rewards following an altruistic act. In the existing literature, there has been a significant lack of empirical research in the psychological literature between altruism and culture. The vast majority of existing research explores the relationship between a person's nature and altruism, including various factors such as age (Blakey, Mason, Cristea, McGuigan & Messer, 2019) and physical attractiveness (Farrelly, 2017 ). Therefore, there is still a lack and importance in understanding a person's culture – an individual's environment – ​​and how altruism can manifest itself across different cultures. Culture According to Hofstede (2001), he defines individualism and collectivism in terms of social norm as "Individualism represents a society in which ties between individuals are loosened: each is expected to care only for himself and his one's immediate family" while "Collectivism represents a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive groups, which throughout their lives continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioned loyalty". tendency of people to value the individual over the group, giving priority to personal goals over collective ones. On the other hand, collectivism gives priority to group goals over personal ones, even if personal and group goals are. both considered important (Triandis, 1989). dynamic implies that motivations for individual gains are stronger in individualistic cultures while collectivist cultures motivate the individual to obtain group advantages through cooperation. Although this research uses the individualism-collectivism construct to designate two types of cultural ideology, it also involves the individual's culture. orientation through the concept of self-construction, as proposed by Markus and Kitayama (1991). Two types of self-construction proposed by Markus and Kitayama are independent construction and interdependent construction. Independent self-construal refers to people who see their self-image as autonomous and constant across different contexts. Internal attributes are considered more important than social standards. People in North American countries are some examples of cultures that maintain an independent view of themselves. Interdependent self-construal refers to people viewing themselves as connected to others and their social contexts. Individuals perceive themselves as part of a surrounding social relationship and recognize that their behaviors are determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others in the relationship. It is exemplified in East Asian cultures. As a result of this variation of self-construction, cultureit subsequently exerts variable effects on cognition, emotions, and motivation (Markus & Kitayama, 2001). Altruism and culture Several traits of a collectivistic culture seem to allude to the possibility that individuals in such a society may possess higher levels of altruism than members of an individualistic culture. First, by referring to the definitions of individualism and collectivism, respectively “ties between individuals are loose” and “people are integrated into strong and cohesive groups”, comparisons can be made regarding motivations for helping behavior. This means to say that in individualistic societies individuals are more concerned with their personal well-being rather than the collective goal, while it is in the collective interest for an individual within a collectivist society to participate in prosocial behavior to achieve a goal collective. collective goal. This is supported by a study conducted by Mullen and Skitka (2009) who found that people raised in collectivistic societies are more familiar with the idea of ​​helping others while people raised in individualistic societies tend to engage in helping behaviors more rarely. This suggests that members of a collectivistic culture may demonstrate a higher degree of altruism than others in an individualistic culture who are less interested in helping others and are more interested in their own personal well-being. Second, willingness to participate in prosocial behavior may depend on the level of sympathy an individual faces, and the situations that elicit a sympathy response may differ for each individual depending on their cultural orientation. According to the book Empath and its development (Strayer, 1990) Eisenberg and Miller define sympathy as “an emotional response resulting from the emotional state or condition of another that is not identical to the other's emotion, but consists of feelings of pain or concern for another". In their book they make a distinction between altruistically (sympathetically) motivated helping and selfishly motivated helping. From the perspective of an altruist, the altruistic goal is to reduce the distress of another and a cost is incurred for do not help the altruist with little benefit. On the other hand, if the motive for helping is predominantly selfish (to reduce one's personal distress), this goal can be achieved more easily by running away rather than by helping individual processes a situation as altruistically motivated helping or selfishly motivated helping would differ based on the individual's personality and life experience, among other factors, that exists within a predominant culture. This is supported in the same study by Mullen and Skitka (2009) through two points. The authors noted that a situation that elicits liking (or lack of liking) can determine willingness to engage in prosocial behavior and that this can be culturally variable. Furthermore, individuals were more likely to help when sympathy was elicited and especially unlikely to help when sympathy was not elicited, regardless of cultural context. Thus, although the factors that elicit sympathy may vary across cultures, feelings of sympathy may appear to be associated with greater helping, regardless of cultural context. Therefore, based on the literature review on the individualism-collectivism dimension of Hofstede's cultural dimensions and altruism, the following hypotheses were formulated for an experimental study:H1A: For people from individualistic cultures, altruistic behavior would be the same if the beneficiarieswere not related or related to the person.H1B: For people from collectivistic cultures, altruistic behavior would be lower if the beneficiaries were strangers to the person. On the other hand, altruistic behavior would be higher in person-related beneficiaries. Expected Results A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) is predicted to result in a significant main effect of culture, where Japanese participants would report higher levels of apathy than American participants. A significant main effect of self-efficacy will also be revealed, as seen by the lower levels of apathy reported by participants in the high self-efficacy conditions. Furthermore, a significant interaction effect between culture and self-efficacy is expected to demonstrate the moderating effect of self-efficacy on apathy. That is, people belonging to individualistic cultures would show no difference in altruistic behaviors between in-groups and out-groups. While people from collectivistic cultures would show more altruism towards people related to them. Discussion This study aimed to uncover the relationship between culture and altruism and directly evaluate Hofstede's cultural dimensions of individualism-collectivism among prosocial behavioral tendencies. Overall, the expected results support the two hypotheses. It is therefore concluded that the cultural dimension underlying individualism-collectivism is indeed associated with levels of prosocial behavior, in particular altruism. Furthermore, it is suggested that perhaps the level of sympathy one has for another, regardless of whether both beneficiaries are strangers or different cultural backgrounds, may be one of the factors that help explain this observed cultural difference in prosocial behavior. The findings of this study carry with them significant theoretical and practical implications. First, this study helps to contribute to filling the research gap regarding the construct of altruism. Second, having used the widely studied cultural value of individualism-collectivism, this study can easily be further replicated to examine levels of apathy in other individualistic and collectivistic cultures such as various Western and Eastern societies respectively. Finally, altruism is proposed to be compassionate rather than selfish. Therefore, while this study offers new insights into the interaction between culture and prosocial behavior, particularly altruism, the study also extends the potential for other prosocial behaviors such as proactive and reactive behaviors (Nostrand & Ojanen, 2018) that may also interact with Hofstede's cultural behaviors. dimensions. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay A key limitation of this study is due to its experimental design in a controlled environment. In a prefabricated laboratory experiment, the experimental design can eliminate many real-life effects. For this reason, future research could address some issues related to the generalizability of the current findings by using different manipulations of the same variables and assessing prosocial behavioral tendencies in a more realistic context (e.g. by designing an experiment in which participants would present various situations requiring action prosocial or better yet evaluate prosocial behavioral tendencies in a natural context). Finally, a more complex research design could have illuminated more detailed aspects of the specific question such as the nature of Hofstede's dimensions of cultural individualism-collectivism in the host society., &.