Cross-national social preferences across 25 nations
Global challenges require prosociality across national borders – not only between governments, but also among individuals.
In this project, we examined how willing people from 25 nations were to act prosocially toward individuals from other nations. We focused on key factors that might shape such cross-national prosociality, such as similarity between nations, economic and institutional conditions, and conflict. Specifically, we investigated how both individual perceptions and contextual factors specific to each pair of interacting nations influence intergroup prosociality. The figure below maps these cross-national social preferences, showing how prosocial people in each nation acted toward people from other nations around the world.
Our results show that cross-national prosociality varies significantly and goes beyond simple ingroup favoritism, that is the preferential treatment of individuals from one’s own nation compared to individuals from other nations.
People acted more prosocial toward other individuals from culturally similar nations and toward those perceived as similar in national stereotypes. Prosociality was higher in nations with more reliable and stable institutions, and individuals from wealthier nations tended to be especially prosocial toward people from less wealthy nations. By contrast, prosociality declined when relations between nations were marked by perceived or actual conflict.
Together, these findings underscore the importance of considering both social perceptions and contextual factors unique to each bilateral relationship when developing theories of global prosociality and fostering prosociality in the face of global challenges.
For more details, find our paper here: [ADD LINK].
For further inquiries, please contact Vanessa Clemens (vanessa.clemens(at)uni-koeln.de).
Values represent the average cross-national social preference (SVO angle) of individuals from the respective sender nation towards the individuals from the respective receiver nation. Values can range from -16° to 61°, with lower values indicating a more competitive orientation and higher values indicating a more prosocial orientation. For details on the task used to assess the cross-national social preferences, please see below. This data is based on a fully-incentivized study conducted in 25 nations in fall, 2023 (Nsample = 6,182, Ndecisions = 154,550).
To assess cross-national social preferences, we used a modified version of the standard SVO slider task: the nation-specific SVO slider, in which participants allocated Talers (experimental currency) between themselves and recipients from 25 different nations, with the recipient’s nationality explicitly stated[1][2]. The Talers served as real monetary stakes and were later converted into payments in participants’ local currency, ensuring comparable incentives across all participating nations.
The example below shows one example item for a participant from Japan deciding how to divide Talers with a participant from China.
Each participant completed six such items showing nine possible payoff combinations between themselves and the other person each for individuals from 25 different nations. Participants selected their preferred allocation for each item.
From these choices, we calculate a social value orientation (SVO) angle that captures the extent to which individuals value others' outcomes alongside their own[2].
The resulting angles range from -16° to 61°, with higher values indicating higher social preferences, that is, a more prosocial orientation and valuation of the outcomes of other persons. Most individuals are classified as prosocial (22° to 57°) or proself (-12° to 22°), while altruists (above 57°) and competitors (below -12°) are rare[3][4].