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Intelligence and Prosocial Behavior: Do Smart Children Really Act Nice?

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Abstract

Results of previous studies of the relationship between prosocial behavior and intelligence have been inconsistent. This study attempts to distinguish the differences between several prosocial tasks, and explores the ways in which cognitive ability influences prosocial behavior. In Study One and Two, we reexamined the relationship between prosocial behavior and intelligence by employing a costly signaling theory with four games. The results revealed that the prosocial level of smarter children is higher than that of other children in more complicated tasks but not so in simple tasks. In Study Three, we tested the moderation effect of the average intelligence across classes, and the results did not show any group intelligence effect on the relationship between intelligence and prosocial behavior.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Project for Young Scientists Fund, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. Y0CX021S01), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KSCX2-EW-J-8), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30670716) and Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Geoffrey H. Blowers assisted in English expression and content editing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 10A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Ru Han, Jiannong Shi & Wenzhong Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 10A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Wu Yong

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  1. Ru Han
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  2. Jiannong Shi
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Correspondence to Jiannong Shi.

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Han, R., Shi, J., Yong, W. et al. Intelligence and Prosocial Behavior: Do Smart Children Really Act Nice?. Curr Psychol 31, 88–101 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-012-9133-6

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