No abstract

Prosocial elements of organizational citizenship behavior, contextual performance, citizenship performance, extra-role behavior, and organizational spontaneity are driven largely by beliefs about the importance of prosocial behavior for work effectiveness. These beliefs are a person’s prosocial implicit trait policy (ITP). We discuss recent theoretical and empirical work that develops the concept of prosocial ITP and tests hypotheses about relations between (a) prosocial ITPs; (b) their trait antecedents in agreeableness, benevolent values, social vocational interests, and emotional intelligence; and (c) their consequences for prosocial performance. Because prosocial action is especially critical in occupations that involve providing services and help to others, we focus primarily on management and administration, voluntary community service, medical practice, and legal practice. We review studies performed to develop measures of prosocial ITPs and test their relations with basic traits and prosocial performance. We also describe an effort to develop a generic measure of prosocial ITP.