Universal norm psychology leads to societal diversity in prosocial behaviour and development

Bailey R. House (), Patricia Kanngiesser, H. Clark Barrett, Tanya Broesch, Senay Cebioglu, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Alejandro Erut, Sheina Lew-Levy, Carla Sebastian-Enesco, Andrew Marcus Smith, Süheyla Yilmaz and Joan B. Silk
Additional contact information
Bailey R. House: University of York
Patricia Kanngiesser: Freie Universität Berlin
H. Clark Barrett: University of California, Los Angeles
Tanya Broesch: Simon Fraser University
Senay Cebioglu: Simon Fraser University
Alyssa N. Crittenden: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Alejandro Erut: University of California, Los Angeles
Sheina Lew-Levy: University of Cambridge
Carla Sebastian-Enesco: Universidad de La Rioja
Andrew Marcus Smith: University of California, Los Angeles
Süheyla Yilmaz: Freie Universität Berlin
Joan B. Silk: Arizona State University

Nature Human Behaviour, 2020, vol. 4, issue 1, 36-44

Abstract: Abstract Recent studies have proposed that social norms play a key role in motivating human cooperation and in explaining the unique scale and cultural diversity of our prosociality. However, there have been few studies that directly link social norms to the form, development and variation in prosocial behaviour across societies. In a cross-cultural study of eight diverse societies, we provide evidence that (1) the prosocial behaviour of adults is predicted by what other members of their society judge to be the correct social norm, (2) the responsiveness of children to novel social norms develops similarly across societies and (3) societally variable prosocial behaviour develops concurrently with the responsiveness of children to norms in middle childhood. These data support the view that the development of prosocial behaviour is shaped by a psychology for responding to normative information, which itself develops universally across societies.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0734-z

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