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The salience of children increases adult prosocial values
Version 2 2023-06-12, 08:09
Version 1 2023-06-10, 01:30
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 08:09 authored by Lukas J Wolf, Sapphira R Thorne, Marina Iosifyan, Colin Foad, Samuel Taylor, Vlad CostinVlad Costin, Johan C Karremans, Geoffrey Haddock, Gregory R MaioOrganizations often put children front and center in campaigns to elicit interest and support for prosocial causes. Such initiatives raise a key theoretical and applied question that has yet to be addressed directly: Does the salience of children increase prosocial motivation and behavior in adults? We present findings aggregated across eight experiments involving 2,054 adult participants: Prosocial values became more important after completing tasks that made children salient compared to tasks that made adults (or a mundane event) salient or compared to a no-task baseline. An additional field study showed that adults were more likely to donate money to a child-unrelated cause when children were more salient on a shopping street. The findings suggest broad, reliable interconnections between human mental representations of children and prosocial motives, as the child salience effect was not moderated by participants’ gender, age, attitudes, or contact with children.
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Publication status
- Published
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- Published version
Journal
Social Psychological and Personality ScienceISSN
1948-5506Publisher
SAGE PublicationsExternal DOI
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1-10Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2021-10-26First Open Access (FOA) Date
2021-10-26First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2021-10-25Usage metrics
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