Abstract

Influential theories have proposed that prosociality toward strangers varies across human societies. Further, such impersonal prosociality can be driven by self-image concerns and guilt or by social image concerns and shame. Here, we examine whether the influence of these different mechanisms on prosocial behavior varies across culturally diverse nations. We conducted a pre-registered behavioral experiment with 7,978 participants in 20 countries across five continents. Participants made monetary allocation decisions between themselves and strangers in binary-choice dictator games. To examine how self-image and guilt versus social image and shame influence prosociality, we introduced two variations to this decision-making task. First, to activate self-image concerns, we varied information about the negative externalities of participants’ decisions (full versus hidden). Second, to activate social image concerns, we varied the observability of participants’ decisions (public versus private). Additionally, we measured guilt- and shame-proneness at the individual and country levels. We found robust evidence for willful ignorance and guilt-driven prosociality across all countries. Allowing individuals to avoid information about the consequences of their actions substantially decreased prosociality. Guilt-prone, rather than shame-prone, individuals were more responsive to information about the negative consequences of their actions. In contrast, we found that making decisions observable among strangers had negligible effects on prosociality. Our findings highlight the importance of providing transparent information about the negative externalities of individuals’ choices to encourage prosocial behavior across cultural contexts.

Practical information