Social Mindfulness and Prosociality Vary Across the Globe

Authors

Niels Van Doesum, Leiden University
Ryan Murphy, University of Zurich
Marcello Gallucci, University of Milano-Bicocca
Adam W. Stivers, Gonzaga UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Humans are social animals, but not everyone will be mindful of others to the same extent. Individual differences have been found, but would social mindfulness also be shaped by one’s location in the world? Expecting cross-national differences to exist, we examined if and how social mindfulness differs across countries. At little to no material cost, social mindfulness typically entails small acts of attention or kindness. Even though fairly common, such low-cost cooperation has received little empirical attention. Measuring social mindfulness across 31 samples from industrialized countries and regions (n = 8,354), we found considerable variation. Among selected country-level variables, greater social mindfulness was most strongly associated with countries’ better general performance on environmental protection. Together, our findings contribute to the literature on prosociality by targeting the kind of everyday cooperation that is more focused on communicating benevolence than on providing material benefits.

Pages

e2023846118

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023846118

Volume

118

Issue

35

Publication Date

8-23-2021

Keywords

social mindfulness, cross-national differences, low-cost cooperation

Disciplines

Psychology

Comments

This item is included in the Center for Climate, Society, & the Environment's Faculty Publications Bibliography.

Find more Climate Studies works by Gonzaga University faculty at the bibliography's home here.

ISSN

1091-6490

Recommended Citation

Van Doesum, N. J., Murphy, R. O., Gallucci, M., Aharonov-Majar, E., Athenstaedt, U., Au, W. T., Bai, L., Böhm, R., Bovina, I., Buchan, N. R., Chen, X.-P., Dumont, K. B., Engelmann, J. B., Eriksson, K., Euh, H., Fiedler, S., Friesen, J., Gächter, S., Garcia, C., … Van Lange, P. A. M. (2021). Social mindfulness and prosociality vary across the globe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(35), e2023846118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023846118

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