Giving, helping and acting for others.
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26 to 50 of 602Meta-analysis of family-centered helpgiving practices research.
A meta-analysis of 47 studies investigating the relationship between family-centered helpgiving practices and parent, family, and child behavior and functioning is reported. The studies included more than 11,000 participants from seven different countries. Data analysis was guided by a practice-based theory of family-centered helpgiving that hypothesized direct effects of relational and participatory helpgiving practices on self-efficacy beliefs and parent, family, and child outcomes. Results showed that the largest majority of outcomes were related to helpgiving practices with the strongest influences on outcomes most proximal and contextual to help giver/help receiver exchanges. Findings are placed in the context of a broader-based social systems framework of early childhood intervention and family support.
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Lehmann L (2007)cohort or longitudinalMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usJournal of evolutionary biology75 citations The evolution of trans-generational altruism: kin selection meets niche construction.
A cornerstone result of sociobiology states that limited dispersal can induce kin competition to offset the kin selected benefits of altruism. Several mechanisms have been proposed to circumvent this dilemma but all assume that actors and recipients of altruism interact during the same time period. Here, this assumption is relaxed and a model is developed where individuals express an altruistic act, which results in posthumously helping relatives living in the future. The analysis of this model suggests that kin selected benefits can then feedback on the evolution of the trait in a way that promotes altruistic helping at high rates under limited dispersal. The decoupling of kin competition and kin selected benefits results from the fact that by helping relatives living in the future, an actor is helping individuals that are not in direct competition with itself. A direct consequence is t…
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Oxytocin and vasopressin modulation of prisoner's dilemma strategies.
Background: The neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin have been repeatedly implicated in social decision making by enhancing social salience and, generally, cooperation. The iterated and sequential version of the prisoner's dilemma (PD) game is a social dilemma paradigm eliciting strategies of cooperation versus competition.
Aims: We aimed to characterise the role of PD players' sex, game partner type (computer vs. human) and oxytocin or vasopressin inhalation on the player's strategy preference.
Methods: Participants (153 men; 151 women) were randomised to intranasal 24 IU oxytocin, 20 IU vasopressin or placebo, double-blind, and played the PD. We examined main and interactive effects of sex, drug and partner type on strategy preference.
Results: We found a pervasive preference for a tit-for-tat strategy (i.e. general sensitivity to the partner's choices) over unconditional cooperation…
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Grandparental investment: past, present, and future.
What motivates grandparents to their altruism? We review answers from evolutionary theory, sociology, and economics. Sometimes in direct conflict with each other, these accounts of grandparental investment exist side-by-side, with little or no theoretical integration. They all account for some of the data, and none account for all of it. We call for a more comprehensive theoretical framework of grandparental investment that addresses its proximate and ultimate causes, and its variability due to lineage, values, norms, institutions (e.g., inheritance laws), and social welfare regimes. This framework needs to take into account that the demographic shift to low fecundity and mortality in economically developed countries has profoundly altered basic parameters of grandparental investment. We then turn to the possible impact of grandparental acts of altruism, and examine whether benefits of g…
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Do health partnerships with organisations in lower income countries benefit the UK partner? A review of the literature.
Background: Health partnerships between institutions in the UK and Low or Lower- middle Income Countries are an increasingly important model of development, yet analysis of partnerships has focused on benefits and costs to the Low and Lower- Middle Income partner. We reviewed the evidence on benefits and costs of health partnerships to UK individuals, institutions & the NHS and sought to understand how volunteering within partnerships might impact on workforce development and service delivery.
Methods: A systematic review of both published literature and grey literature was conducted. Content relating to costs or benefits to the UK at an individual, institutional or system level was extracted and analysed by thematic synthesis. The benefits of volunteering described were mapped to the key outcome indicators for five different UK professional development structures. A framework was develo…
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Behavioral genetic analyses of prosocial behavior in adolescents.
Prosocial behavior is an important aspect of normal social and psychological development. Adult and child twin studies typically estimate the heritability of prosocial behavior to be between 30 and 50%, although relatively little is known about genetic and environmental influences upon prosocial behavior in adolescence. We therefore examined reports of prosocial behavior in a large longitudinal family study of 1160 adolescent twin pairs (aged between 13 and 19 years). Prosocial behavior was assessed at two time points by self-report and at the second time point by additional parent-ratings using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997). Adolescent females were reported to be significantly more prosocial than males (p < .001). Univariate analyses primarily showed moderate heritability and large nonshared environmental influences. There was a moderate genetic corre…
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The expectations and attitudes of patients with chronic kidney disease toward living kidney donor transplantation: a thematic synthesis of qualitative studies.
Background: Living kidney donation offers superior outcomes over deceased organ donation, but incurs psychosocial and ethical challenges for recipients because of the risks imposed on their donor. We aimed to describe the beliefs, attitudes, and expectations of patients with chronic kidney disease toward receiving a living kidney donor transplant.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies of patients' attitudes toward living kidney donation using a comprehensive literature search of electronic databases to February 2013. The findings were analyzed using thematic synthesis.
Results: Thirty-nine studies (n ≥ 1791 participants) were included. We identified six themes: prioritizing own health (better graft survival, accepting risk, and desperate aversion to dialysis), guilt and responsibility (jeopardizing donor health, anticipating donor regret, and causing donor inco…
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A systematic review of social, economic and diplomatic aspects of short-term medical missions.
Background: Short-term medical missions (STMMs) represent a grass-roots form of aid, transferring medical services rather than funds or equipment. The objective of this paper is to review empirical studies on social, economic and diplomatic aspects of STMMs.
Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted by searching PubMed and EBSCOhost for articles published from 1947-2014 about medical missions to lower and middle income countries (LMICs). Publications focused on military, disaster and dental service trips were excluded. A data extraction process was used to identify publications relevant to our objective stated above.
Results: PubMed and EBSCOhost searches provided 4138 and 3262 articles respectively for review. Most articles that provide useful information have appeared in the current millennium and are found in focused surgical journals. Little attention is paid to aspects o…
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A systematic review of sperm donors: demographic characteristics, attitudes, motives and experiences of the process of sperm donation.
BACKGROUND This systematic review aimed first to integrate the current body of knowledge on the demographic, institutional and psychosocial information on sperm donors, and second to provide insight into the actual experiences of men who donate and the attitudes towards potential donation. METHODS Electronic databases (PUBMED, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase and Web of Science) were searched with no date restriction using a specific search strategy followed by a snowball strategy. English language peer-reviewed abstracts and full texts were screened for eligibility and the risk of bias was assessed with 15 criteria. Eligibility, quality assessments and data extraction were performed by two independent researchers, resolving disagreement by discussion. RESULTS The initial search retrieved 857 studies and after quality assessment, 29 studies were retained for data extraction. Data from nine count…
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The motivations and experiences of living kidney donors: a thematic synthesis.
Background: Living kidney donation is associated with better recipient outcomes compared with deceased kidney donation, but living kidney donors face the risk of physical and psychological complications. The aim of this study was to synthesize published qualitative studies of the experiences and perspectives of living kidney donors.
Methods: We conducted a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies of motivations to donate and experiences after donation of living kidney donors. MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and reference lists of articles were searched to April 2011.
Results: 26 studies involving 478 donors were included. We identified 6 themes about the decision to donate: compelled altruism, inherent responsibility, accepting risks, family expectation, personal benefit, and spiritual confirmation. Three themes dominated the impact of donation and postdonation:…
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Mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian settings: linking practice and research.
This review links practice, funding, and evidence for interventions for mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in humanitarian settings. We studied practice by reviewing reports of mental health and psychosocial support activities (2007-10); funding by analysis of the financial tracking service and the creditor reporting system (2007-09); and interventions by systematic review and meta-analysis. In 160 reports, the five most commonly reported activities were basic counselling for individuals (39%); facilitation of community support of vulnerable individuals (23%); provision of child-friendly spaces (21%); support of community-initiated social support (21%); and basic counselling for groups and families (20%). Most interventions took place and were funded outside national mental health and protection systems. 32 controlled studies of interventions were identified, 13 of which were rando…
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Attitudes toward organ donation and donor behavior: a review of the international literature.
Objective: To conduct a systematic review of published research that assessed the predictors of attitudes toward deceased organ donation, willingness to donate, and donor behavior.
Data sources: MEDLINE, PreMEDLINE, PsycInfo, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature were searched for the period from 1988 to 2009.
Study selection: Eligible studies included members of the general public (i.e., not transplant recipients, donor families, or health professionals) and used multivariate analyses for quantitative assessment of predictors. Data Extraction-The search identified 33 relevant studies. Owing to heterogeneity in populations and measures, results were summarized rather than subjected to meta-analysis.
Data synthesis: Research suggests that individuals who are younger, female, have higher education levels and socioeconomic status, hold fewer religious beliefs, hav…
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Spontaneous altruism by chimpanzees and young children.
People often act on behalf of others. They do so without immediate personal gain, at cost to themselves, and even toward unfamiliar individuals. Many researchers have claimed that such altruism emanates from a species-unique psychology not found in humans' closest living evolutionary relatives, such as the chimpanzee. In favor of this view, the few experimental studies on altruism in chimpanzees have produced mostly negative results. In contrast, we report experimental evidence that chimpanzees perform basic forms of helping in the absence of rewards spontaneously and repeatedly toward humans and conspecifics. In two comparative studies, semi-free ranging chimpanzees helped an unfamiliar human to the same degree as did human infants, irrespective of being rewarded (experiment 1) or whether the helping was costly (experiment 2). In a third study, chimpanzees helped an unrelated conspecifi…
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The evolution of altruism in humans.
Humans are an intensely social species, frequently performing costly behaviors that benefit others. Efforts to solve the evolutionary puzzle of altruism have a lengthy history, and recent years have seen many important advances across a range of disciplines. Here we bring together this interdisciplinary body of research and review the main theories that have been proposed to explain human prosociality, with an emphasis on kinship, reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, punishment, and morality. We highlight recent methodological advances that are stimulating research and point to some areas that either remain controversial or merit more attention.
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Altruism through beard chromodynamics.
The evolution of altruism, a behaviour that benefits others at one's own fitness expense, poses a darwinian paradox. The paradox is resolved if many interactions are with related individuals so that the benefits of altruism are reaped by copies of the altruistic gene in other individuals, a mechanism called kin selection. However, recognition of altruists could provide an alternative route towards the evolution of altruism. Arguably the simplest recognition system is a conspicuous, heritable tag, such as a green beard. Despite the fact that such genes have been reported, the 'green beard effect' has often been dismissed because it is unlikely that a single gene can code for altruism and a recognizable tag. Here we model the green beard effect and find that if recognition and altruism are always inherited together, the dynamics are highly unstable, leading to the loss of altruism. In cont…
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Borissova A, Ferguson B, Wall MB, Morgan CJ, Carhart-Harris RL, Bolstridge M, Bloomfield MA, Williams TM, Feilding A, Murphy K, Tyacke RJ, Erritzoe D, Stewart L, Wolff K, Nutt D, Curran HV, Lawn W (2021)randomised controlled trialMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usJournal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England)29 citations Acute effects of MDMA on trust, cooperative behaviour and empathy: A double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment.
Background: 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is being actively researched as an adjunct to psychotherapy. It may be beneficial to trust, empathy and cooperative behaviour due to its acute prosocial effects.
Aim: To test (a) the acute effects of MDMA on measures of empathy, trust and cooperative behaviour, and (b) subacute changes in mood three days after MDMA administration.
Methods: Twenty-five participants (n=7 female), participated in this double-blind, repeated-measures, placebo-controlled experiment. Participants attended two acute sessions, one week apart. Each acute session was followed by a subacute session three days later. Participants received placebo (100 mg ascorbic acid) during one acute session, and MDMA (100 mg MDMA-HCl) at the other, with order counterbalanced. Participants completed the following tasks assessing prosocial behaviour: a trust investment task, a tr…
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Solberg LI, Crain AL, Maciosek MV, Unützer J, Ohnsorg KA, Beck A, Rubenstein L, Whitebird RR, Rossom RC, Pietruszewski PB, Crabtree BF, Joslyn K, Van de Ven A, Glasgow RE (2015)randomised controlled trialMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usAnnals of family medicine42 citations A stepped-wedge evaluation of an initiative to spread the collaborative care model for depression in primary care.
Purpose: Scale-up and spread of evidence-based practices is one of the most important challenges facing health care. We tested whether a statewide initiative, Depression Improvement Across Minnesota-Offering a New Direction (DIAMOND), to implement the collaborative care model for depression in 75 primary care clinics resulted in patient outcome improvements corresponding to those reported in randomized controlled trials.
Methods: Health plans provided a new monthly payment to participating clinics after a 6-month intensive training program with ongoing data submission, networking, and consultation. Implementation was staggered, with 5 sequences of 10 to 40 clinics every 6 months. Payers provided weekly contact information for members from participating clinics who were filling antidepressant prescriptions, and we conducted baseline and 6-month surveys of 1,578 patients about their care a…
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Bourke AF (2011)reviewMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usProceedings. Biological sciences69 citations The validity and value of inclusive fitness theory.
Social evolution is a central topic in evolutionary biology, with the evolution of eusociality (societies with altruistic, non-reproductive helpers) representing a long-standing evolutionary conundrum. Recent critiques have questioned the validity of the leading theory for explaining social evolution and eusociality, namely inclusive fitness (kin selection) theory. I review recent and past literature to argue that these critiques do not succeed. Inclusive fitness theory has added fundamental insights to natural selection theory. These are the realization that selection on a gene for social behaviour depends on its effects on co-bearers, the explanation of social behaviours as unalike as altruism and selfishness using the same underlying parameters, and the explanation of within-group conflict in terms of non-coinciding inclusive fitness optima. A proposed alternative theory for eusocial …
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Lehmann L, Rousset F (2010)reviewMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences132 citations How life history and demography promote or inhibit the evolution of helping behaviours.
In natural populations, dispersal tends to be limited so that individuals are in local competition with their neighbours. As a consequence, most behaviours tend to have a social component, e.g. they can be selfish, spiteful, cooperative or altruistic as usually considered in social evolutionary theory. How social behaviours translate into fitness costs and benefits depends considerably on life-history features, as well as on local demographic and ecological conditions. Over the last four decades, evolutionists have been able to explore many of the consequences of these factors for the evolution of social behaviours. In this paper, we first recall the main theoretical concepts required to understand social evolution. We then discuss how life history, demography and ecology promote or inhibit the evolution of helping behaviours, but the arguments developed for helping can be extended to es…
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Building character strengths and virtues in Sri Lanka: a cluster randomized pre-post evaluation of a school-based intervention.
BACKGROUND: Sri Lanka (SL) is a multiethnic nation that has endured a decades-long civil war and a devastating tsunami. These events led to a widespread loss of life, displacement, destruction of family and social infrastructure, and economic collapse. Their impact was compounded by adverse social determinants such as poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, and homelessness. Sri Lankan youth are particularly vulnerable to the cumulative effects of these acute and chronic stressors, underscoring the urgent need for interventions that foster resilience and healing. METHODS: We will implement a 10-week school-based program - Leadership, Empathy, Altruism, Personal Growth, and Social Responsibility (LEAPS) - to cultivate character strengths in youth. The program will be culturally and historically tailored to the SL context, and will integrate key tenets from the country’s four major religio…
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A functional MRI study on how oxytocin affects decision making in social dilemmas: Cooperate as long as it pays off, aggress only when you think you can win.
We investigate if the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT), known to moderate social behaviour, influences strategic decision making in social dilemmas by facilitating the integration of incentives and social cues. Participants (N=29) played two economic games with different incentive structures in the fMRI scanner after receiving OT or placebo (following a double blind, within-subject design). Pictures of angry or neutral faces (the social cues) were displayed alongside the game matrices. Consistent with a priori hypotheses based on the modulatory role of OT in mesolimbic dopaminergic brain regions, the results indicate that, compared to placebo, OT significantly increases the activation of the nucleus accumbens during an assurance (coordination) game that rewards mutual cooperation. This increases appetitive motivation so that cooperative behaviour is facilitated for risk averse individuals. OT …
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Falb KL, Tanner S, Ward L, Erksine D, Noble E, Assazenew A, Bakomere T, Graybill E, Lowry C, Mallinga P, Neiman A, Poulton C, Robinette K, Sommer M, Stark L (2016)randomised controlled trialMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usBMC public health31 citations Creating opportunities through mentorship, parental involvement, and safe spaces (COMPASS) program: multi-country study protocol to protect girls from violence in humanitarian settings.
Background: Violence against adolescent girls in humanitarian settings is of urgent concern given their additional vulnerabilities to violence and unique health and well-being needs that have largely been overlooked by the humanitarian community. In order to understand what works to prevent violence against adolescent girls, a multi-component curriculum-based safe spaces program (Creating Opportunities through Mentorship, Parental involvement and Safe Spaces - COMPASS) will be implemented and evaluated. The objectives of this multi-country study are to understand the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of COMPASS programming to prevent violence against adolescent girls in diverse humanitarian settings.
Methods/design: Two wait-listed cluster-randomized controlled trials are being implemented in conflict-affected communities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (N = 886 girls …
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Cortes Barragan R, Dweck CS (2014)randomised controlled trialMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America55 citations Rethinking natural altruism: simple reciprocal interactions trigger children's benevolence.
A very simple reciprocal activity elicited high degrees of altruism in 1- and 2-y-old children, whereas friendly but nonreciprocal activity yielded little subsequent altruism. In a second study, reciprocity with one adult led 1- and 2-y-olds to provide help to a new person. These results question the current dominant claim that social experiences cannot account for early occurring altruistic behavior. A third study, with preschool-age children, showed that subtle reciprocal cues remain potent elicitors of altruism, whereas a fourth study with preschoolers showed that even a brief reciprocal experience fostered children's expectation of altruism from others. Collectively, the studies suggest that simple reciprocal interactions are a potent trigger of altruism for young children, and that these interactions lead children to believe that their relationships are characterized by mutual care …
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Engagement matters: lessons from assessing classroom implementation of steps to respect: a bullying prevention program over a one-year period.
Steps to Respect: A Bullying Prevention Program (STR) relies on a social-ecological model of prevention to increase school staff awareness and responsiveness, foster socially responsible beliefs among students, and teach social-emotional skills to students to reduce bullying behavior. As part of a school-randomized controlled trial of STR, we examined predictors and outcomes associated with classroom curriculum implementation in intervention schools. Data on classroom implementation (adherence and engagement) were collected from a sample of teachers using a weekly on-line Teacher Implementation Checklist system. Pre-post data related to school bullying-related outcomes were collected from 1,424 students and archival school demographic data were obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics. Results of multilevel analyses indicated that higher levels of program engagement wer…
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Rini C, Austin J, Wu LM, Winkel G, Valdimarsdottir H, Stanton AL, Isola L, Rowley S, Redd WH (2014)randomised controlled trialMEDLINE-indexed journal, not yet read by usHealth psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association35 citations Harnessing benefits of helping others: a randomized controlled trial testing expressive helping to address survivorship problems after hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
Objective: Prior research supports the hypothesis that cancer survivors who help others face treatment experience a range of psychosocial and health-related benefits as a result of peer helping. This study investigates an expressive helping (EH) intervention designed to harness those benefits by targeting survivorship problems among cancer survivors treated with hematopoietic stem cell transplant. EH includes two components: (a) emotionally expressive writing (EW; writing one's deepest thoughts and feelings about the transplant experience in a series of brief, structured writing sessions) followed by (b) peer helping (PH; helping other people prepare for transplant by sharing one's own transplant experiences along with advice and encouragement through a written narrative).
Method: EH was compared with neutral writing (NW), EW (without PH), and PH (without EW) in a 4-arm randomized contro…
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