ArticlePublisher preview available

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

January 2020
Nature Human Behaviour 4(1):1-9

DOI:10.1038/s41562-019-0734-z

Authors:

Bailey R House

Arizona State University

Patricia Kanngiesser

University of Plymouth

Tanya MacGillivray

Simon Fraser University

Show all 12 authorsHide

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.

Arrangement of the apparatus and testing area Example setup in Pune, India (left), Phoenix, United States (middle) and La Plata, Argentina (right).

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Results of models 1b, 2 and 3 a, Results of model 1b, which estimates the probability that adults chose 1/1 in the eight societies. The horizontal lines and shaded regions represent the regression estimates and 95% CIs (functions ‘MAP’ and ‘link’, R package ‘rethinking’). The circles and vertical lines represent the proportions and 95% CIs of the raw data (function ‘binom.confint’, R package ‘binom’; the exact proportions are provided in Supplementary Table 2). The triangles represent the mean DG offers in a previous study by Henrich et al.⁴. b, Results of model 2, which estimates the probability that adults judged the Generous norm prime to be most correct. The horizontal lines and shaded regions represent regression estimates and 95% CIs (functions ‘MAP’ and ‘link’, R package ‘rethinking’; the exact proportions are provided in Supplementary Table 2). The circles and vertical lines represent the proportions and 95% CIs of the raw data (function ‘binom.confint’, R package ‘binom’). c, Results of model 3, which estimates how the 1/1 choices of adults are predicted by whether they judged the Generous norm prime to be most correct, and by the estimated probability that someone in their society would judge the Generous norm prime to be most correct. The black line shows the weak prior distribution; the red line shows the ‘posterior distribution for the estimated probability of society judgement’ parameter (Supplementary Table 4); and the blue line shows the posterior distribution for the ‘subject’s own judgement parameter’ (Supplementary Table 4).

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Results of models 4b, 5, 7 and 8 a, Results of model 4b. The lines represent regression estimates of the probability that children will choose 1/1 in each of the eight societies, as a function of participant age (functions ‘MAP’ and ‘link’, R package ‘rethinking’). The circles and vertical bars represent the proportions and 95% CIs of adults’ choices of 1/1 (function ‘binom.confint’, R package ‘binom’). The model coefficients are provided in Supplementary Table 5. b, Results of model 5. The solid line plots the magnitude with the 95% CI of the estimated relationship between children’s 1/1 choices and the 1/1 choices of adults, as a function of child age (the model was constructed using Rstan; link, Bernoulli_logit). This captures the emerging positive relationship between older children’s DG choices and the DG choices of adults’ from their society. The negative values of the effect size for the youngest children is due to young children in Berlin and La Plata being the least likely to choose 1/1 despite adults from those societies being the most likely to choose 1/1. Model coefficients are provided in Supplementary Table 6. c, Results of model 7. The solid line plots the magnitude with the 95% CI of the estimated relationship between children’s 1/1 choices and the 1/1 choices of adults, as a function of child age (the model was constructed using Rstan; link, Bernoulli_logit). This captures the emerging positive relationship between older children’s DG choices and the DG choices of adults from their society. d, Results of model 8. The solid line plots the magnitude with the 95% CI of the estimated relationship between children’s 1/1 choices and the judgements of adults as to whether or not the generous norm prime is most correct, as a function of child age (the model was constructed in Rstan; link, Bernoulli_logit). This captures the emerging positive relationship between older children’s DG choices and judgements about norms by adults from their society.

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Results of models 6c and 6d a, The lines and shaded regions represent regression estimates and 95% CIs for the probability that children will choose 1/1 in the Generous, Both OK and Selfish norm prime conditions, combining samples from the six different societies (functions ‘MAP’ and ‘link’, R package ‘rethinking’). b–g, The lines and shaded regions represent regression estimates and 95% CIs for the probability that children will choose 1/1 in the Generous, Both OK and Selfish norm prime conditions for the Berlin (b), La Plata (c), Phoenix (d), Pune (e), Shuar (f) and Wichí (g) societies (functions ‘MAP’ and ‘link’, R package ‘rethinking’).

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Articles

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0734-z

1Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK. 2Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. 3Faculty of Education

and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 4Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

5Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. 6Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas,

Las Vegas, NV, USA. 7Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. 8Department of Education Science, Universidad de La Rioja,

Logroño, Spain. 9School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA. *e-mail: bailey.house@york.ac.uk

Human cooperative abilities are core to our success as a spe-

cies1,2 and differ in at least two important ways from those

of other animals. First, people orchestrate group-level coop-

eration with large numbers of unrelated individuals. Second, coop-

erative behaviours vary considerably across societies3,4, and this

variation emerges during middle childhood5–9, the developmental

period between about 6 and 11 years of age. Some have suggested

that the evolution of both can be explained if human social prefer-

ences are at least partly shaped by local cultural norms5, which we

acquire through an evolved psychology for learning and conform-

ing to social norms6,7. According to this claim, we can explain what

makes humans so successful by demonstrating (1) that our proso-

cial behaviour is linked to social norms, and (2) that we have a uni-

versally developing psychology for responding to these norms.

Norms are central to numerous theoretical models of human

sociality and development5,8–11, and are generally conceived as

phenomena that regulate behaviour through prescriptions and

proscriptions12. Following Bicchieri8,13, we define a social norm as

a behavioural rule that individuals conform to when they believe

that: (1) a sufficiently large number of people in their community

conforms to the rule (empirical expectation), and (2) a sufficiently

large number of people in their community expect them to conform

to the rule (normative expectations). A descriptive norm, by con-

trast, would focus on empirical expectations. There is already some

evidence that norms underlie variation in prosociality across soci-

eties and groups4,14. However, most studies have only documented

this variation across societies or explained it using society-level

variables3,15. Empirical evidence that societal variation in norma-

tive expectations gives rise to variation in prosocial behaviours is

needed. Such evidence would show that the prosocial behaviour of

individuals is predicted by what members of their society believe

to be normatively ‘correct’ in a particular situation (social norms).

We must also distinguish the influence of social norms from that

of individuals’ own beliefs about what is correct (personal norms).

To connect societal variation in prosocial behaviour to the

development of a universal psychology for social norms, we must

also show that, across diverse societies, the tendency of children

to respond to social norms is increasing during the same period

that adult-like prosocial behaviour is forming. Children are sensi-

tive to normative information as young as 1.5–4 years of age16. At

this age, they enforce norm conformity in others17, follow descrip-

tive and injunctive norms18,19, are sensitive to moral and conven-

tional rules20, and they know that different groups follow different

norms17. Later, during middle childhood, children demonstrate an

increasing responsiveness to novel social norms in experimental

settings18, suggesting that children of this age are becoming increas-

ingly committed to modifying their behaviour to conform to social

norms. Interestingly, this is the same age at which societal variation

in children’s prosocial choices seems to emerge in costly sharing

tasks (that is, tasks involving a choice between outcomes that ben-

efit oneself and outcomes that benefit others)15,21–24. These findings

suggest that middle childhood is a particularly important period

for the adoption of locally appropriate prosocial behaviours, and

this could be the product of children’s increasing responsiveness to

social norms at this age. As children are already sensitive to norms

by the time that they reach middle childhood, changes in behaviour

during middle childhood may be due to developmental changes in

their willingness to conform to norms, particularly their willingness

to conform to norms that impose costs on them.

If societal variation in the prosocial behaviour of adults is linked

to societal beliefs about correct prosocial choices, this provides evi-

dence that prosocial behaviour is motivated by social norms above

and beyond personal norms (prediction 1). If children’s responsive-

ness to social norms is developing during childhood, then—with

Universal norm psychology leads to societal

diversity in prosocial behaviour and development

Bailey R. House 1,2*, Patricia Kanngiesser 3, H. Clark Barrett 4, Tanya Broesch 5,

Senay Cebioglu 5, Alyssa N. Crittenden 6, Alejandro Erut4, Sheina Lew-Levy7,

Carla Sebastian-Enesco8, Andrew Marcus Smith 4, Süheyla Yilmaz3 and Joan B. Silk2,9

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 pro-

vide evidence that (1) the prosocial behaviour of adults is predicted by what other members of their society judge to be the cor-

rect 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.

NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR | VOL 4 | JANUARY 2020 | 36–44 | www.nature.com/nathumbehav

Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved

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Widespread cooperation is a defining feature of human societies from hunter-gatherer bands to nation states [1, 2], but explaining its evolution remains a challenge. Although positive assortment of cooperators is recognized as a basic requirement for the evolution of cooperation, the mechanisms governing assortment are debated. Moreover, the social structure of modern hunter-gatherers, characterized by high mobility, residential mixing, and low genetic relatedness [3], undermines assortment and adds to the puzzle of how cooperation evolved. Here, we analyze four years of data (2010, 2013, 2014, 2016) tracking residence and levels of cooperation elicited from a public goods game in Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. Data were collected from 56 camps, comprising 383 unique individuals, 137 of whom we have data for two or more years. Despite significant residential mixing, we observe a robust pattern of assortment that is necessary for cooperation to evolve; in every year, Hadza camps exhibit high between-camp and low within-camp variation in cooperation. We find little evidence that cooperative behavior within individuals is stable over time or that similarity in cooperation between dyads predicts their future cohabitation. Both sets of findings are inconsistent with models that assume stable cooperative and selfish types, including partner choice models. Consistent with social norms, culture, and reciprocity theories, the strongest predictor of an individual's level of cooperation is the mean cooperation of their current campmates. These findings underscore the adaptive nature of human cooperation-particularly its responsiveness to social contexts-as a feature that is important in generating the assortment necessary for cooperation to evolve.

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Humans are both highly prosocial and extremely sensitive to social norms, and some theories suggest that norms are necessary to account for uniquely human forms of prosocial behavior and cooperation. Understanding how norms influence prosocial behavior is thus essential if we are to describe the psychology and development of prosocial behavior. In this article I review recent research from across the social sciences that provides (1) a theoretical model of how norms influence prosocial behavior, (2) empirical support for the model based on studies with adults and children, and (3) predictions about the psychological mechanisms through which norms shape prosocial behavior. I conclude by discussing the need for future studies into how prosocial behavior develops through emerging interactions between culturally varying norms, social cognition, emotions, and potentially genes.

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Young children can be extremely prosocial - willing to help and share with others and comfort them in distress. However, the origins of social problems like prejudice and discrimination also appear early in development. In this paper, I discuss research investigating how group membership affects children's tendency to be prosocial. Existing research on this topic has focused primarily on sharing behaviour and shown that, in general, children allocate more resources to members of their own groups. After reviewing this important literature, I make the case for extending research with young children to other forms of prosociality. This has the potential to inform our understanding of the mechanisms behind ingroup favouritism in prosociality and help us understand routes towards interventions to encourage more egalitarian behaviour.