Cross-Cultural Insights on the Role of Psychological and Institutional Factors for Real-World Prosocial Behavior and Cultural Change
Authors:   , Graf Caroline Sieglinde 
Published: August 2024

This dissertation provides cross-cultural insights on the role of social-psychological and institutional factors for real-world prosocial behavior and cultural change. At the core is the idea that culture – the set of norms, institutions, practices, beliefs and values shared by groups of people – profoundly shapes the way people perceive, understand, and interact with the world. We incorporated culture into theoretical models designed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of behavior, such as the motivational drivers of incentives or the reputational effects of social norms. This integration refined the models’ assumptions and theoretical constructs, thereby generating better predictions of behavior. The main focus of the thesis was to understand prosocial behavior. This is an important type of behavior to study, since many of the global challenges we face require individual prosocial action. Throughout the thesis, we studied the role of culture for real-world behavior, which allows us to go beyond simulations or lab observations and test the predictions of the theoretical models “in the wild”. By examining to what extent cross-cultural variation in factors such as social norms, trust and institutional policies explains behavior, we could discern culturally universal from idiosyncratic aspects of human psychology. However, culture is not static and is also influenced by human psychology. People change their attitudes and practices over time and design policies and laws that guide and constrain behavior. Therefore, we also examined the processes that underlie such cultural change, which is key for anticipating future cultural shifts. We found substantial variation in cultural factors, both across Europe and the world, which in turn predicted variation in (prosocial) behavior. Even in the case of blood donor incentives, for which global guidelines by the World Health Organization exist, we found considerable variation in policies around the world. People in different countries also vary in the way they perceive different types of incentives for blood donors, such as financial incentives and time off work. In countries where incentives are provided, individuals are more likely to donate blood if there are positive norms regarding these incentives. We also observed that trust in the healthcare system predicted blood donation behavior, but that the objective state of healthcare did not. In countries with more trust in the healthcare system, people have a higher likelihood of donating blood. When examining the determinants of cultural change, we found that contemporary cultural change is associated with historical marriage policies that promoted a nuclear family structure and marriages to unrelated others. More historical exposure to these marriage policies is related to more positive attitudes towards change and more change in cultural practices. We also found evidence that the underlying mechanism by which these marriage policies shape cultural change is by reconfiguring social networks. Overall, our findings underscore the importance of culture for understanding real-world prosocial behavior and cultural change. Gaining insights into the role of culture is crucial for advancing our understanding of human psychology, but also for contributing to the development of strategies for tackling our most pressing global challenges.