Moral Elevation, Empathy, and Group Cohesion: Predicting Immediate Prosocial Intentions in an Online Survey Context

Keywords: psychology, moral elevation, prosocial behavior, empathy, group cohesion

TL;DR: A study on moral elevation and prosocial behavior

Abstract: Moral elevation, the uplifting emotion elicited by witnessing virtuous acts, has been proposed as a key motivator of altruism. This study examined whether elevation promotes prosociality through affective and social mechanisms. A sample of 300 participants was recruited via Prolific and randomly assigned to view either an elevating or a neutral video. Following the induction, participants completed measures of moral elevation, empathy, group cohesion, and prosocial intentions, along with an optional donation task. Results confirmed that the elevation induction increased reported feelings of elevation, empathy, cohesion, and prosocial intentions. Mediation analysis showed that empathy partially explained the relationship between elevation and prosociality, while moderation analysis revealed that group cohesion strengthened the effect of empathy on prosocial intentions. Moderated mediation further indicated that the indirect effect of elevation was conditional on group cohesion. However, elevation did not significantly influence donation behavior, highlighting a gap between intentions and observable altruism.

Submission Number: 305