Heroic Helping: The Effects of Priming Superhero Images on Prosociality

Tongeren, Daryl R. Van; Hibbard, Rachel; Edwards, Megan; Johnson, Evan; Diepholz, Kirstin; Newbound, Hanna; Shay, Andrew; Houpt, Russell; Cairo, Athena H.; Green, Jeffrey

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02243

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Of importance, we do not expect that the obtained effects are unique to children. Other human and nonhuman social categories may elicit broad prosocial motivations and behaviors, including groups that are viewed as deserving of help (e.g., the elderly, victims) and groups that are themselves associated with prosocial behavior (e.g., nurses, superheroes; Aarts et al, 2005;Van Tongeren et al, 2018). We chose to examine the effects of child salience not because they are the only category to elicit such effects but because the social cognitive effects of this category have the potential for high global relevance, and these effects may be underestimated in their pervasiveness and potential impact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values

Wolf

Thorne

Iosifyan

et al. 2021

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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Organizations often put children front and center in campaigns to elicit interest and support for prosocial causes. Such initiatives raise a key theoretical and applied question that has yet to be addressed directly: Does the salience of children increase prosocial motivation and behavior in adults? We present findings aggregated across eight experiments involving 2,054 adult participants: Prosocial values became more important after completing tasks that made children salient compared to tasks that made adults (or a mundane event) salient or compared to a no-task baseline. An additional field study showed that adults were more likely to donate money to a child-unrelated cause when children were more salient on a shopping street. The findings suggest broad, reliable interconnections between human mental representations of children and prosocial motives, as the child salience effect was not moderated by participants’ gender, age, attitudes, or contact with children.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values

Wolf

Thorne

Iosifyan

et al. 2021

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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show abstract

“…Heroism is a mental construction or schema (Allison & Goethals, 2013), which fulfils basic human needs (Franco et al, 2018). Heroes serve a purpose at intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cultural levels, for example by influencing people to act in prosocial ways and by exhibiting exemplary moral behavior (Van Tongeren et al, 2018). In a study of lay perceptions of the social and psychological role of heroes, Kinsella et al (2015) found that heroes fulfil three primary functions of "enhancing", "moral modeling", and "protecting."…”

Section: Heroismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The macropsychology of COVID-19: Psychological governance as pandemic response.

McVeigh¹,

MacLachlan²

2022

American Psychologist

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Controlling the pandemic has necessitated governments across the world to implement behavior change agenda, through new policies, laws, and public communication strategies. The concept of "psychological governance" has therefore been crucial to curtailing the pandemic. Psychological governance is the application of insights from behavioral and psychological sciences to public policy for the purpose of influencing behavior at the individual, group, and population levels. Similarly, a macropsychology perspective aims to understand and shape behavior at the population level, through the application of psychology to factors that influence the settings and conditions of our lives, such as policies, institutions, systems, and structures. Psychological governance and a macropsychology perspective are key to effectively supporting pandemic preparedness, coping, and recovery at the population level. In this paper, the role of psychological governance in responding to COVID-19 is considered. This paper also examines the role of several macropsychological factors in the pandemic, including heroism, trust in government, culture, and equitable access and human rights. Public Significance StatementCOVID-19 is spread mainly through human behavior. The scale of COVID-19 renders it a population health challenge, which requires a response that is coordinated by government, using insights from behavioral science. Psychological science is uniquely positioned to provide insight into behavior change to control the spread of the virus and to support an equitable response to the pandemic. To do so, however, psychology will need to focus beyond the individual level, to policies, institutions, and systems at the population level.

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“…In some cases, they are extolled as moral exemplars who protect and save those in need (Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou 2015a). Psychology research suggests that heroic behavior can arouse positive emotions such as elevation, gratitude, and admiration (e.g., Algoe and Haidt 2009), and can inspire people to take prosocial or altruistic action (e.g., Van Tongeren et al 2018). Inspiring narratives about heroes' sacrifices and saving others in need can instill hope, improve morale, and motivate people to transcend difficult situations (Kinsella, Ritchie, and Igou 2015b).…”

Section: Chinese Media's Framing Tactics During the Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing as an Information Control Strategy in Times of Crisis

Xia¹,

Huang

Zhang

2022

J. East Asian Stud.

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How can authoritarian regimes effectively control information to maintain regime legitimacy in times of crisis? We argue that media framing constitutes a subtle and sophisticated information control strategy in authoritarian regimes and plays a critical role in steering public opinion and cultivating an image of competent government during a tremendous crisis. Using structural topic models (STM), we conduct a textual analysis of more than 4,600 news reports produced by seven Chinese media outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that Chinese media, instructed by the propaganda authorities, used a heroism frame to feature frontline medics’ sacrifices when saving others in need and resorted to a contrast frame to highlight the poor performance of the United States in the fight against COVID-19. We also show that both state and commercial media outlets used these two frames, though the tone of commercial media coverage was generally more moderate than the state media version.

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Heroic Helping: The Effects of Priming Superhero Images on Prosociality

Cited by 13 publications

References 23 publications

The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values

The Salience of Children Increases Adult Prosocial Values

The macropsychology of COVID-19: Psychological governance as pandemic response.

Framing as an Information Control Strategy in Times of Crisis

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