Receiving Social Support Motivates Long-Term Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior - actions aimed to benefit other individuals, groups, or communities - are important for promoting and maintaining a healthy society. Extant research on the factors driving prosocial behavior has mainly addressed short-term effects, overlooking the factors that motivate long-term prosocial behavior. Building on attachment theory, the authors theorize that an interpersonal factor, receiving social support, can foster prosocial behavior in the long-term, both in the environment where the support was received and beyond it. The authors argue that receiving social support positively predicts felt security - a sense of being safe, cared for, and loved - which in turn associates with higher motivation to engage in behaviors that benefit others. The authors test their hypotheses with cross-sectional, longitudinal, retrospective, and experimental data. In Study 1, data from a sample of international business school alumni validate past research and show a significant positive relationship between receiving social support and engaging in prosocial behavior both within and beyond the environment in which support was received. Study 2 leverages data of US adults in a multi-wave study to show that receiving social support predicts prosocial activities several years later. Study 3 uses a retrospective survey to show that receiving social support relates positively to long-term prosocial behavior through higher felt security. Study 4 experimentally manipulates social support and further demonstrates that receiving social support fosters prosocial behavior through boosting felt security. Overall, the authors' findings show that receiving social support motivates long-term prosociality through its positive association with felt security.