Social mindfulness is cooperative interpersonal behavior in which individuals consider the needs and perspectives of others. Social mindfulness, which costs little or nothing, usually consists of small acts of attention or kindness. Yet, most research on human cooperation has been on costly behavior like spending time or money. Less was known about socially mindful behaviors that take hardly any effort. In a major collaboration, 65 international researchers now investigated whether social mindfulness varies across countries and regions. The researchers recorded the tendency of social mindfulness in various decision-making tasks in which individuals leave or limit choice for others. One task might look like this: There is one red apple and three green apples on a plate. Taking a green apple leaves someone else a wider option set – green or red apples. Taking the one red apple takes this choice away - an action that is less prosocial.
The study involved 8,354 participants from 31 developed countries and regions. The researchers found significant differences between countries. Because the mechanisms underlying these differences are complex, follow-up studies will further explore this variability. Another interesting finding of the study was that countries with high levels of social mindfulness performed relatively better in achieving environmental goals - which raises the idea that low-cost cooperation and kindness at the individual level may also be relevant to global problems. The researchers plan to investigate exactly how this works in further studies.
Another finding was that social mindfulness was associated with higher-cost cooperation at the individual and country level. Therefore, the findings are of both scientific and societal interest to the researchers. The background is that the current study focuses on what most people would call kindness or thoughtfulness. More expensive forms of cooperation might be called helpfulness. "We know now that countries might differ quite strongly in terms of both kindness and helpfulness. At present it is unclear where these differences come from," says Prof. Dr. Bernd Weber of the Center for Economics and Neuroscience (CENs) at the University of Bonn. He collaborated on the study with Susann Fiedler of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn. The researchers suggest that differences in the degree of social mindfulness may be important for a society's social capital.
Publication: Niels J. Van Doesum et al.: Social Mindfulness Across the Globe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023846118
Press release by Leiden University