(Critical Issues in Social Justice) Siegwart Lindenberg, Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk (Auth.), Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk, Siegwart Lindenberg (Eds.)-Solidarity

Solidarity and Prosocial
Behavior
An Integration of Sociological and

Psychological Perspectives
CRITICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL JUSTICE
Series Editor: Melvin J. Lerner, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Advisory Editors:
Ronald C. Dillehay, Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies, University of Nevada,
Reno;
Leo Montada, Center for Justice Research, University of Potsdam, Germany
CURRENT SOCIETAL CONCERNS ABOUT JUSTICE

Leo Montada and Melvin J. Lerner
ENTITLEMENT AND THE AFFECTIONAL BOND:

Justice in Close Relationships
Edited by Melvin J. Lerner and Gerold Mikula
THE JUSTICE MOTIVE AS A PERSONAL RESOURCE:

Dealing with Challenges and Critical Life Events
Claudia Dalbert
LEGACY OF INJUSTICE:
Exploring the Cross-Generational Impact of the Japanese-American Internment
Donna K. Nagata
LIVING AND DYING WELL

Lewis Petrinovich
REGULATING RELIGION:
Case Studies from Around the Globe
Edited by James T. Richardson
RESPONSES TO VICTIMIZATION AND BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD

Edited by Leo Montada and Melvin J. Lerner
SOLIDARITY AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR:

An Integration of Sociological and Psychological Perspectives
Edited by Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk, and Siegwart
Lindenberg
THEORY, JUSTICE, AND SOCIAL CHANGE:

Theoretical Integrations and Critical Applications
Christopher Williams and Bruce Arrigo
VALUES, ACHIEVEMENT, AND JUSTICE:

Studies in the Psychology of Deservingness
Norman T. Feather
Solidarity and
Prosocial Behavior
An Integration of Sociological
and Psychological Perspectives
Edited by
Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache,

and Bram Buunk
University of Groningen
Groningen, Netherlands
Siegwart Lindenberg
Detlef Fetchenhauer
Andreas Flache
Bram Buunk
Siegwart Lindenberg
Series Editor:
Melvin J. Lerner
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005930805
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Contributors
Hans-Werner Bierhoff, University of Bochum, 44801 Bochum, Germany

Bram P. Buunk, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands,
9712 GL
Pieternel Dijkstra, Slochtermeenteweg 44, Slochteren, The Netherlands,
9621 CP
David Dunning, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853
Detlef Fetchenhauer, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Netherlands, 9712 GL
Andreas Flache, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Linda Bridges Karr, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Siegwart Lindenberg, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Michael W. Macy, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853
Lucas C.P.M. Meijs, Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The
Netherlands, 3000 DR
Marco Perugini, University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom,
CO4 3SQ
Karin Sanders, University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands, 5000 LE
Ren Veenstra, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands,
9712 GL
Gerben van der Vegt, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Evert van de Vliert, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
Rafael Wittek, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands,
9712 GL
Karen van der Zee, University of Groningen, Groningen, The
v
About the Contributors
Hans-Werner Bierhoff is full professor of social psychology at the

University of Bochum (Germany). One of his research foci is the expla-
nation of prosocial behavior. On this topic he has published in journals
like the Journal of Personality and has edited different books on solidar-
ity and responsibility. Recently he published a textbook on prosocial
behavior.
Bram P. Buunk is full professor of social psychology at the University of

Groningen. He is interested in a wide range of topics (e.g., evolutionary
psychology, social comparison processes, and health psychology) and has
more than 300 scientific publications on his record. Inter alia he has pub-
lished in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the Journal of
Personality, and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. He was
recently appointed Academy Chair by the Royal Netherlands Academy of
Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Pieternel Dijkstra is currently working as a freelance author. She is

mainly interested in gender differences in mating behavior and jeal-
ousy. The results of her research have been published in the European
Journal of Social Psychology, Personal Relationships, Evolution and
Human Behavior, and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
David Dunning is full professor of psychology at Cornell University.

His research focuses on biases in the perception of self and others. He
is a former associate editor of the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology and has published in major social psychological journals
like the Journal of Applied Psychology, Motivation and Emotion, Social
Cognition or the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Detlef Fetchenhauer is both, full professor of social and economic

psychology at the University of Cologne (Germany) and lecturer at
the department of sociology at the University of Groningen. He is
mainly interested in evolutionary psychology and in determinants
vii
viii About the Contributors
and explanations of prosocial and antisocial behavior. His work has

been published in Evolution and Human Behavior and in Personality
and Individual Differences. Furthermore, he co-edited a German book
on solidarity.
Andreas Flache is assistant professor of sociology at the University of

Groningen. His main research is in the fields of social integration social
networks, cooperation and formal modeling of social behavior. He has
published his work in, for example, The Journal of Conflict Resolution,
Annual Review of Sociology, Rationality and Society and Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
Linda B. Karr is currently a senior researcher at the department of

sociology of the University of Groningen. Her main research inter-
est(s) is the study of volunteer organizations where she presently car-
ried out the first large-scale international survey study on scouting
organizations.
Michael W. Macy is full professor of sociology at Cornell University.

His main research interests are the study of cooperation and collective
action, social simulation, learning theory, and behavioral game theory.
His work appeared in a large number of international journals and
books, some of which are the American Journal of Sociology, American
Sociological Review, and Annual Review of Sociology.
Lucas C.P.M. Meijs is assistant professor of management of nonprofit

organizations at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His main
research topics are member motivation and management in volunteer
organizations. His work appeared in books and international journals
such as the Journal of Volunteer Management and Voluntary Action.
Siegwart M. Lindenberg is full professor of theoretical sociology at the

University of Groningen. His main research areas are the study of soli-
darity, organizational governance, social rationality, and framing the-
ory. He published his work in numerous international journals such as
Journal of Management and Governance, Journal of Management and
Governance, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, and
in his book Handbook of Sociological Theory.
Marco Perugini is senior lecturer at the University of Essex (England).

Besides other topics he is interested in personality research and reci-
procity in human behavior. His work has been published in the British
Journal of Social Psychology, the European Journal of Social
Psychology, the European Journal of Personality, and the Journal of
Behavioral Decision Making.
About the Contributors ix
Karin Sanders is full professor of human resource management at the

University of Tilburg. Her main research fields are solidarity at work
and the governance of modern organizations. Her work was published,
for example, in Small Group Research and the Journal of
Organizational and Occupational Psychology.
Ren Veenstra is senior researcher at the department of sociology of the

University of Groningen. His main research interests are the develop-
ment of pro- and antisocial behavior and the analysis of school effec-
tiveness and school performance indicators. Publications of his work
appeared in Educational Research and Evaluation and International
Journal of Education and Religion.
Gerben van der Vegt is associate professor of management and organi-

zation at the department of human resource management at the
University of Groningen. His research focuses on the processes associ-
ated with the integration of knowledge and expertise in work teams,
effective team design, organizational diversity, and socialization. He
has published in journals like Personnel Psychology, Journal of
Management, and the Academy of Management Journal.
Evert van der Vliert is full professor of organizational and applied psy-
chology at the University of Groningen. His main research deals with
conflicts in organizations and with the influence of ambient tempera-
ture on cross-cultural differences in human behavior. Besides author-
ing several books he published in the Journal of Cross-cultural
Psychology, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Organizational
Behavior, and the Academy of Management Journal.
Rafael P. M. Wittek is full professor of sociology at the University of

Groningen. His main research fields are in organizational governance,
informal networks in organizations, and organizational change. He
published his work in Computational and Mathematical Organization
Theory, the Journal of Mathematical Sociology, and Research in the
Sociology of Organizations (edited volume).
Karen van der Zee is full professor of organizational psychology at the

University of Groningen. Her research interests lie in the field of per-
sonality research, coping with critical life events, and cultural diver-
sity in organizations. She has published in the Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personality
and Individual Differences, and the Journal of Personality.
Contents
About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii
Introduction
1. Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior:
A Framing Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Siegwart Lindenberg, Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache,
and Bram Buunk
Part I. Micromechanisms
2. Prosocial Behavior, Solidarity, and Framing Processes . . . . . . .23
Siegwart Lindenberg
3. Learning and Framing in Social Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
Andreas Flache and Michael W. Macy
4. Perceptions of Prosociality and Solidarity in
Self and Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Detlef Fetchenhauer and David Dunning
Part II. Personality and Socialization

5. Personality and Solidary Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Karen van der Zee and Marco Perugini
6. The Development of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Prosocial and
Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93
Ren Veenstra
Part III. Social Context: Networks and Social Exchange

7. The Ultimate Betrayal? Infidelity and Solidarity in Close
Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111
Bram P. Buunk and Pieternel Dijkstra
xi
xii Contents
8. Understanding the Joint Effects of Interdependence

and Diversity on Solidarity in Work Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125
Gerben van der Vegt and Andreas Flache
Part IV. Institutional Context

9. Employees Organizational Solidarity within Modern
Organizations: A Framing Perspective on the Effects
of Social Embeddedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141
Karin Sanders, Andreas Flache, Gerben van der Vegt,
and Evert van de Vliert
10. Sustaining the Motivation to Volunteer in Organizations . . . .157
Linda Bridges Karr and Lucas C.P.M. Meijs
Part V. Cultural Context

11. Ethnic Identity and Solidarity with Functional Groups . . . . .175
Karen van der Zee
12. Solidarity in the Absence of External Sanctions:
A Cross-Cultural Study of Educational Goals and
Fair-Share Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191
Detlef Fetchenhauer and Rafael Wittek
13. Wealth, Climate, and Framing: Cross-National Differences
in Solidarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207
Evert van de Vliert and Siegwart Lindenberg
Part VI. Outlook

14. How to Explain Prosocial and Solidary Behavior:
A Comparison of Framing Theory with Related Meta-
Theoretical Paradigms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225
Hans-Werner Bierhoff and Detlef Fetchenhauer
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .243
Preface
This book is the product of an intensive cooperation between psychol-

ogists and sociologists who study solidarity and prosocial behavior,
and its fruits are briefly summarized in Chapter 1. The topics of soli-
darity and prosocial behavior are at the core of both disciplines and
thus one might expect that an intensive cooperation like the one that
produced this book is not uncommon. Surprisingly however, it is
extremely rare that sociologists and psychologists get together to com-
bine their knowledge in these fields. Instead, researchers from both
disciplines tend to ignore each others work quite generally, and the
work on prosocial and antisocial behavior is no exception.
The conviction that sociology and psychology can benefit from
each others work led usa group of sociologists and psychologists at
the University of Groningen (The Netherlands)in 1999 to launch a
joint research project on solidarity and prosociality. The aim was to
find a common ground on which insights from each discipline could
contribute to a broader understanding of solidarity and prosocial
behavior. This interdisciplinary research project was called Prosocial
Dispositions and Solidary Behavior and it was financed by the
University of Groningen as a so-called breedtestrategie program (i.e., a
program for broadening disciplinary approaches).
The research group that incorporated most of the contributors to
this book started with great enthusiasm, but we soon learned that the
cooperation between the disciplines was more difficult than initially
expected. One major problem was language. We realized only gradually
that sometimes one thing had different names in the other discipline
(e.g., prosocial behavior vs. solidarity), but the same term may also have
different meanings (e.g., framing). At times, linguistic conventions of
one discipline appeared awkward to scholars of the other. For example,
one of the editors of this volume refused to accept the terms Ego and
Alter to be used throughout the book, although these terms are widely
accepted in sociology.
One consequence of the terminological differences between sociol-
ogy and psychology was our attempt to avoid any kind of jargon in this
xiii
xiv Preface
book unless it was necessary to explain the respective terms. We hope

that the reader will profit from the terminological clarity and simplicity
that we aimed to reach throughout the different chapters.
After we learned to speak (or at least to understand) each others
language, the experiences of our research team can be seen as a good
illustration of what Van der Vegt and Flache (Chapter 8 of this volume)
found: diversity in knowledge and background can foster productivity
and solidarity in work teams if its members realize the profits that may
issue from such diversity.
Although this book (and the underlying project) was initiated by
researchers affiliated at the University of Groningen, we succeeded in
getting input, ideas, and collaboration from prominent researchers in
the field outside our university. In March 2001 and in October 2002 we
invited a number of internationally highly recognized scholars from
both psychology and sociology to spend some time with us at the
Dutch island of Schiermonikoog. At these symposia we profited from
their perspectives and comments on our common project and felt
much encouraged to pursue the common path. We are very thankful for
their enthusiasm and their willingness to travel sometimes thousands
of miles to participate in a 3-day meeting.
Attendants of the first meeting were Hans-Werner Bierhoff
(University of Bochum, Germany), Chris Barveldt (University of
Utrecht), David Dunning (Cornell University), Douglas Heckathorn
(Cornell University), Marco Perugini (University of Essex), and Rolf
Ziegler (University of Munich, Germany).
Attendants of our second symposium were Richard Fabes (Arizona
State University), Carol Martin (Arizona State University), Michael
Macy (Cornell University), Randy Hodson (Ohio State University), and
Chris Snijders (University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands).
Our guests not only gave us precious ideas and comments, but
through discussions many of them actually got involved in the projects
underlying this book and became co-authors of a chapter in our volume.
The close cooperation between sociologists and psychologists
within this book is also highlighted by the fact that many chapters were
written jointly by scholars from both disciplines. We hope that the
reader may find it difficult to identify which parts of the various chap-
ters were written by a sociologist and which by a psychologist. This
would be a sign that we were successful in integrating the perspectives
on solidarity and prosocial behavior.
This book summarizes the outcomes of our interdisciplinary coop-
eration during the past years, but it does not mark its end. To the con-
trary, in the meantime a second research project linking sociologists
and psychologists has started at the University of Groningen. Thus, our
common exploration of the riches and difficulties of combining sociol-
ogy and psychology has only just begun. The different perspectives
Preface xv
and insights summarized in this book will hopefully also help the
reader to come to a better understanding of prosocial behavior and sol-
idarity and encourage cross-disciplinary research.
Finally, we would like to thank the University of Groningen for a
generous grant for the entire project.
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior:

A Framing Approach
Siegwart Lindenberg, Detlef Fetchenhauer,
Andreas Flache, and Bram Buunk
This book is about what sociologists call solidarity and social

psychologists call prosocial behavior. Any group or society heavily
depends on the willingness of its members to help others in need, to
contribute to a common good, to show themselves worthy of trust, and
to be fair and considerate. While this is widely recognized, it is less
obvious what makes people behave solidarily in one situation and
keeps them from acting solidarily in another situation.
It was our intention to offer a fresh look at this age-old question by
focusing on the cognitive processes that influence an actors degree of
solidarity and that mediate the influence of both the personality of a
given actor and the situation in which a behavior takes place. One
conclusion from such a perspective is that we all are to some degree like
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (i.e., we are able to be highly altruistic in some
situations but are brutally selfish in others). In the studies presented in
this book, we focused on goal framing and mental models as two corre-
sponding mechanisms that allow us to switch our solidary behavior
between situations and relationships. Goal framing denotes cognitive
processes (such as selective attention or selective activation of knowl-
edge structures) related to the realization of particular goals. A mental
model refers to a particular idea actors have of the sort of relationship
they are in and the behaviors and expectations that are appropriate
within this relationship. For example, in the workplace, members of
work teams often have two main goals: Getting the job done and main-
taining smooth social relationships with colleagues. However, the out-
comes of group work may change radically when workers initially
frame the situation primarily in terms of task output, but then switch
their attention to social relations, or vice versa. Correspondingly, work-
ers may hold a mental model of their peer relations in terms of friend-
ship (putting priority on ties above task) or in terms of professional
colleagues (where the task prevails).
3
4 S. Lindenberg, D. Fetchenhauer, A. Flache, and B. Buunk
To explore the important role that cognitive processes like framing

and mental models may play in the explanation of prosocial and sol-
idary behavior, sociologists and psychologists have joined forces in this
book, as neither discipline alone is able to cover the whole spectrum of
theoretical questions that are involved in such an explanation. This new
approach offers new insights into the conditions that make or break sol-
idary behavior and it offers a paradigm for the integration of insights
from a number of overlapping generations of research on the topic
within sociology, economics, psychology, and evolutionary theory.
Existing Approaches to Prosocial and Solidary Behavior
Let us briefly recount these approaches. Within sociology, the ques-

tion of how and when solidary and prosocial behavior arises or fails to
arise has traditionally been the core business of sociologists like
Durkheim (1893/1964, 1897/1970) and Parsons (see Parsons and Shils,
1951). Their answers basically focused on processes of socialization in
which norms are internalized, and prosocial personalities are formed.
The failure of solidarity is then a failure of socialization, personality for-
mation, or both (for recent expressions of this view, see Hoffmann
[1983] or Gottfredson and Hirschi [1990]).
The answers generated by the socialization approach were an
important advance, but they were not quite satisfactory because they
failed to explain the influence of changing situations. For example,
when many people have to contribute to create a jointly desired out-
come, people often free-ride even though they may have been socialized
very well (Olson, 1965). In such social dilemma (Dawes, 1980) situa-
tions in which nonsocial behavior is good for each group member but
bad for the group as a whole, it may be better to look at peoples self-
interest rather than at their socialization. This is exactly what happened
in the 1970s. The major paradigm for investigating what was then
called cooperative behavior (in social dilemma situations) leaned
heavily on rational choice theory from economics and game theory
rather than on socialization theory (e.g., Axelrod, 1984; Coleman, 1990;
Hechter, 1987). Rational choice could handle situational aspects very
well, especially variations in incentives to act cooperatively. Here, too,
considerable advances were made. Yet, a problem with the rational
choice approach was that it could not accommodate cooperative behav-
ior in situations in which self-interest was not served by cooperative
behavior (Camerer, 2003; Frank, 1988). For these reasons, new develop-
ments in evolutionary biology soon seemed relevant to the study of
cooperative behavior, especially the idea that some forms of solidary
behavior may have become hardwired in the course of evolution
(Trivers, 1971). The assumption of pure self-interest shifted from
1: Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior 5
the individual to the level of the gene, which maximizes inclusive fit-
ness (Dawkins, 1976). The central idea here was that a genetic
predisposition toward altruistic behavior can survive and spread in a
population as long as this behavior favors reproduction and survival of
the organism that bears the gene (Hamilton, 1964). This left the possi-
bility open that the individual was at least partially altruistic in the
service of the selfish gene. Scholars from all social and behavioral sci-
ences were inspired by evolutionary biology, leading to a considerable
growth of insights into all sorts of prosocial or solidary behavior, and
not just the contribution to collective goods in social dilemma situa-
tions (Gintis, 2003). Once again, however, the situational influences on
solidary behavior (other than group identity) were pushed into the
background.
Within social psychology, the field was dominated for a long time by
the attempt to identify situational determinants of helping behavior. In
addition, social psychologists put much effort into determining whether
pure altruism ever exists. Is human behavior ultimately always governed
by an egoistic motive system or are humans willing to act altruistically
even if they are not rewarded for such behavior? Within this line of
research, social psychologists focused not only on material rewards for
helping others, but also on internal rewards that might result from proso-
cial behavior (e.g., the warm glow of being a moral person or the avoid-
ance of feeling guilty). Especially Batson (1991) empathically argued that
true altruism really exists and that it is triggered by empathic concern for
a person in need. This empathy altruism hypothesis was confirmed in
many empirical studies and experiments (for an overview, see Batson,
1991; Bierhoff, 2002; but see Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuburg,
1997 for a fundamental critique on Batsons work).
Another important line of research is related to the development of
prosocial and solidary behavior in children and juveniles. Based on the
work of Piaget and Kohlberg, it was investigated how the level of proso-
cial behavior is related to childrens and adolescents sociocognitive
development (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998). It was shown that young
children mainly base their moral judgment and moral behavior on the
consequences of their behavior for themselves (e.g., if a certain behav-
ior is punished it is judged to be bad). Later, children tend to evaluate
adherence to social rules and norms as morally good, without question-
ing the legitimacy of such rules. Only in late adolescence are people
able to base their moral judgment and behavior on abstract ethical rules.
All these different approaches focus either on preferences or on con-
straints (varying incentives). However, developments in cognitive psy-
chology and microsociology show with increasing force that the way a
situation is subjectively framed or defined heavily influences choice
and behavior (De Dreu and Boles, 1998; Kahneman and Tversky, 1984).
For some time, the potential of these insights for the explanation of
solidary behavior was not obvious, but it was clearly there. The situa-
tion does not simply confront the individual who has certain prefer-
ences with possibilities and restrictions in choosing according to these
preferences. Framing processes are likely to enhance certain preferences
and push others into the background. The same happens to constraints.
Some are amplified in the individuals perspective; others are only
vaguely perceived. It has long been recognized that there is a subjective
element in the way the world is seen. However, the developments in cog-
nitive psychology and microsociology go beyond this basic insight into
the importance of the subject. First, goal-framing processes are likely to be
influenced by transsituational factors pertaining to the cultural and insti-
tutional contexts and to personality traits of the individual (Clark, Mills,
and Powell, 1986; Hofstede, 2003; Miller, 1984; Mhlau and Lindenberg,
2003; Van Lange, 1999; Van Lange and Liebrand, 1991). Second, it has
been found that cognitive processes are intertwined with motivational
processes as a result of the fact that cognitive processes are heavily influ-
enced by goals (Fitzsimons and Bargh, 2003; Gollwitzer and Moskowitz,
1996). Both facts point to complex interactions between cognitive, situa-
tional, and transsituational factors, and not merely to a subjective filter
between the individual and the situation. This opens the door to a fresh
look at the question when and under what conditions individuals show
solidarity. The question now focuses on the possibility that individuals
can have different core motivations for which the goals and preferences,
the perceived constraints, and the pieces of memory and knowledge are
activated inside the individual cluster in such a way that the principles
of behavior seem to be thoroughly different from those associated with
other core motivations. This perspective also draws attention to the pos-
sibility that incentives may have perverse effects. For example, we know
from the research on intrinsic motivation that money as an incentive for
the performance of activities may change the core motivation and thereby
actually reduce rather than increase the likelihood of the activity being
performed (Deci, Koestner, and Ryan 1999; Fabes, Fultz, Eisenberg, May-
Plumbee, and Christopher, 1989; Frey and Jegen, 2001).
These insights run in part against the traditional view of economists
and many rational choice sociologists that an individuals behavior is
mainly governed by one core motive (self-interest) that must be channeled
by the proper incentives. It also runs against the traditional sociologists
view that individuals are governed by one core motive (to conform to
norms), which must be channeled by socialization. The Nobel Prize-
winning economist Buchanan expressed this new insight, which is
consistent with the metaphor of Jekyll and Hyde, very well when he main-
tained that the constraints, rules, and institutions within which persons
make choices . . . can and do influence the relative importance of the
separate motivational elements (as cited in Mansbridge, 1990, p. 21).
Nevertheless, he did not develop a theory to explain how this can happen.
Another prominent suggestion in this direction has been to introduce

multiple selves into the theorizing on economic modeling. Here, the
individual is seen as a collection of selves, a person governed by different
core motives. Of particular interest is Margoliss model containing a self
with social and a self with egoistic motives (Margolis, 1982). The assump-
tion of such different motives is in line with social psychological research
on the self (for an overview, see Oyserman, 2001). But Margoliss under-
lying model is one of rational choice to be either social or egoistic. There
are some rules that regulate the efficient allocation of resources to each
of the selves. For example, a self with social motives will spend a cer-
tain amount of money on helping other people. The more often it has
done so in the recent past, the more likely it is that the self with selfish
motives will come to the fore, and vice versa. This view of multiple selves
has the obvious advantage that it seems a literal translation of the Jekyll
and Hyde idea. However, this and many other multiple selves models
retain a view of rationality (utility maximization with farsightedness) that
is independent of core motivations. In these models, core motivations are
assumed to be fully represented by sets of preferences. There is no inter-
action between motivation and the kind of rationality. For example, in
Margoliss model, in order to allocate a marginal dollar, an individual
has to compare the utility derived from social (i.e., altruistic) preferences
to the utility derived from selfish preferences, and he or she spends the
money where it gives the highest return in terms of utility. How does the
individual do this? Are the criteria for the comparison independent of
the situation? Seemingly, for Margolis, the perception of the decision
situation is unaffected by the kind of motivation. Years after writing his
1982 book, Margolis observed himself that Ive become much more
aware of the need to augment the mechanical calculus of rational choice
with allowance for how flesh-and-blood cognition and perception
actually work (Margolis, 1990, p. 244).
Clearly, psychological theories are relevant here. However, psycho-
logical theories of prosocial behavior often deal with multiple motives
(or orientations) without elaboration of clear mechanisms that link
the situational context to core motivations. For example, theories of per-
sonality identify relevant traits for prosocial dispositions (such as vari-
ous subscales of the Big Five; see Matthews and Deary, 1998; van der
Zee and Perugini, this volume) but do not tell us much about the influ-
ence of the context on prosocial behavior or the influence of the inter-
action between context, disposition, and prosocial behavior. Similarly,
theories of self-categorization deal with differences in motivation on the
basis of identity (Hogg, 2001). However, the link between situation and
prosocial behavior is not elaborated. The large body of literature on
helping behavior (see Bierhoff, 2002; Latan and Nida, 1981; Schwartz
and Howard, 1982) shows more concern for the role of the situation (for
example, clarity of need, number of bystanders, norms). Nevertheless, it
is focused on just one kind of solidary behavior and, despite the origi-
nal emphasis on the situation, has mainly led to the identification of rel-
evant person-related aspects of helping behavior (such as perception of
need, taking responsibility, self-efficacy, empathy) (Bierhoff, Klein, and
Kramp, 1991). Psychological studies on solidary behavior (such as dual-
concern theory) (see Pruitt and Rubin, 1986) point to many important
factors, and recent developments in dual process theory (see for exam-
ple Strack and Deutsch, 2004) make it clear that selfish versus prosocial
does not coincide in any way with rational versus emotional. These
theories are certainly important for any theory of prosocial behavior, but
they generally lack elaboration of integrated motivational-cognitive
mechanisms that generate different core motivations. As argued above,
without the description of such mechanisms, it is difficult to come to a
comprehensive view of the generation of various forms of solidarybe-
havior in various social contexts. Interest in the description of such
mechanisms can be found more frequently among sociologists who are
concerned with the microfoundations of social behavior.
The crucial question then is, how can it be that the same individ-
uals behavior can be determined by such different sets of motivations?
And, conversely, how can it be that within the same situation dif-
ferent people display different levels of solidary behavior? Clearly,
inputs from both psychologists and sociologists are needed to solve
these puzzles.
Overview of the Theoretical Framework

Used in this Book
In the remainder of this chapter we present a general framework for

the study of solidarybehavior that leaves room for inputs from psychol-
ogy and sociology. This framework is not to be seen as a complete theory
that fully elaborates the mechanisms through which actors personality
characteristics and the characteristics of their social, institutional, and
cultural contexts shape solidary behavior. We leave this task to the chap-
ters that are presented in the remainder of this book.
In Chapter 2, Lindenberg provides a more elaborate version of this
framework and of a specific version of a goal-framing theory that expli-
cates the mechanisms through which the situational context shapes the
subjective definition of the situation and the individuals actions. What
the chapters of the book have in common is more modest than this elab-
orate version. It is a shared framework that contains the key elements of
the framing approach to solidary behavior, depicted in Figure 1.1.
The main elements in this framework are the characteristics of the
acting person, characteristics of the situation in which the behavior
takes place, the ensuing definition of the situation from the point of
the view of the actor, and, finally, the extent to which the actor shows
Person
personality
skills
learning history
Definition of the situation Solidary
framing behavior
mental image of the relationship
Situational context
social
institutional
cultural
FIGURE 1.1. A General Framework for the Study of Solidary Behavior
solidarity. Below, we discuss the elements of this framework and their

relations with each other.
First, by solidary behavior, we mean the following kinds of behav-
ior (see Lindenberg, 1998):
Cooperation. This refers to a common good situation. Ego and Alter
both belong to a group that produces a common good. Ego will con-
tribute to the common good even if an individual can free-ride with-
out negative consequences to him- or herself.
Fairness. This refers to a sharing situation. If there are joint divisible
benefits and costs, and if Ego is the one who can divide them, he will
not seek to maximize his share of the benefits and minimize his
share of the costs, but take his fair share of both (what the fair
share is varies, but is mostly situationally fixed by norms).
Altruism. This refers to a need situation. Ego will help Alter in times
of need (what constitutes need and how much help is minimally
expected for solidary behavior varies).
Trustworthiness. This refers to abstaining from the temptation to
breach implicit or explicit agreements or promises. An actor will
refrain from hurting others even at a cost to him- or herself.
Considerateness. This refers to the avoidance of an offense and to mak-
ing up when things go wrong (mishap situation). This kind of sol-
idary behavior involves taking the experiences of ones interaction
partners explicitly into consideration. Acts can turn out to go against
the expectations of solidary behavior, even if this was not intended.
A person may have been unaware that a certain action was offensive
to an interaction partner or may have had a mishap that turned out
to go against the other persons expectations of solidarity. In that
case, an actor will show that he or she meant to act differently (or
would have acted differently if he or she had been aware of the
offensiveness of the actions, or was for other reasons unable to avoid
acting in this way), that he or she feels sorry that it turned out that
way, and he or she will make amends if the mishap has caused dam-
age to others. Furthermore, if an actor knows in advance that he or
she will not be able to keep to the agreement, the actor will warn oth-
ers in advance, so that they can mitigate the damage.
We argue that the extent to which an actor shows solidarity is

shaped by the actors definition of the situation (see Lindenberg, this
volume). The definition of the situation can be regarded as a motiva-
tional-cognitive process that serves three functions. First, it structures
and organizes the actors subjective perception of the situation; second,
it links the actors selective perception to motivation (i.e., it is linked
to certain overriding goals); and third, it is linked to a mental model
of the social relationship with the partner in any given interaction.
Framing thus governs which aspects of the situation are both cogni-
tively and motivationally prominent.
The general framework also includes the idea that solidary behav-
ior takes place (or fails to take place) in the context of a subjectively
perceived relationship with its own expectations and identities. For
example, an individuals goal frame could be to act appropriately
and the cognitive elements that are associated it. The question of what
would constitute appropriate behavior in this situation would be
answered by the mental model of, say, a friendship relationship and
the norms and expectations associated with such a relationship. For
the explanation of solidary behavior, it is important to have some indi-
cation of what the most important kinds of relationships are.
Interestingly, there is quite a bit of agreement between sociology and
social psychology regarding the categorization of social relationships
into four fundamentally different kinds of relationship: Fiske (1991)
distinguishes communal sharing (unity, community, undifferenti-
ated identity), equality matching (balanced reciprocity among
equals), market pricing (calculated exchange), and authority rank-
ing (hierarchically ordered statuses and differences). Fiskes four
models of social relationships are used by many psychologists who
study social relationships. A related set of supposedly universal social
relationships is often used in sociology. In traditional sociology,
Durkheim (1964) distinguished mechanic and organic solidarity,
where mechanic solidarity refers to a high level of largely unreflected
solidary behavior that is directed only at in-group members with simi-
lar social and cultural characteristics, as in primitive societies.
Organic solidarity is a more widely cohesive but also weaker form of
solidarity where actors are willing to behave solidary even toward
socially or culturally dissimilar counterparts. It is the form of solidar-
ity that according to Durkheim is necessary to hold together modern
societies with a large degree of social differentiation and diversity. In
modern sociology, Lindenberg (1998) aims to ground the distinction of
relationships in a behavioral theory based on framing. He distinguishes
strong solidarity (with equality as distributional norm, primacy of the
group over individuals and dyads, and high expected sacrifice for group
members in case of need; for example, a fire-fighting team), weak soli-
darity (with equity as the distributional norm, primacy of individuals,
and dyads over the group, and low expected sacrifice for others in case
of need; for example, partners in a law firm), opportunistic relationships
(relationship in which everyone seeks to maximize his or her own out-
come without concern for the other; for example, spot market), and sta-
tus relationships (in which one defers to the other, at times also called
authority relationships; for example, the boss-employee relation).
It is important to emphasize that the mental models of a social
relationship are a part of the subjective perception of a given situation
by a certain actor (see Lindenberg, this volume). Therefore, two actors
may disagree about the kind of social relationship they are in. For exam-
ple, Person A may regard Person B merely as a business partner,
whereas Person B may perceive her relationship with Person A to be
more than this (e.g., a friendship). Furthermore, the categorization of
Fiske is only one possible dimension of the mental model of a social
relation. For example, another dimension may involve the question of
whether two interaction partners perceive themselves as partners
(having a common goal) or as competitors (having different goals).
Again, this dimension implies a subjective definition by given actors.
For example, Person A and Person B may agree that they are friends but
still define a common bicycle trip very differently. While Person A may
think that they have a common interest (having a nice day), Person B
may define the situation as a competition (i.e., a bicycle race). Thus,
Person A and Person B have very different expectations about the speed
of the bicycle trip and whether the faster one should wait for the slower
one (another example: a well-known cartoon shows a man and a woman
having sex with each other. The man shouts out proudly I am first).
To summarize, the degree of solidarity of a given actor in a given
situation depends on his or her subjective definition of the situation.
This subjective definition implies motivational and cognitive aspects
(e.g., What are my goals? What do I perceive in the situation? What am
I particularly sensitive to?) as well as the mental model of the relation-
ship (e.g., Who am I in relationship to the other? Is the other person my
friend, my enemy, or my competitor? What is expected of me? What do
I expect from the other?). Neither of these is necessarily tied to con-
scious awareness.
Our framework holds that this subjective definition of a given situ-
ation is influenced by both the person and the situation in which the
person is acting. This idea is not new. Kurt Lewin (1936) already saw
behavior as a function of person and situation. So far, however, it has
not been applied systematically to the study of various aspects of dif-
ferent core motivations and their relation to solidary behavior. The term
person implies personality traits in a narrow sense, such as extroversion,
agreeableness, or conscientiousness, as well as the skills and abilities of

a certain actor (e.g., medical expertise when trying to help a sick person)
or an actors learning history (e.g., an employees experience with his
employer). In order to distinguish more easily between purely situa-
tional factors (such as the presence of others in the situation) and more
stable social influences across situations (such as institutional and cul-
tural influences), we speak of the social context in which these
different elements interact. Whereas social psychologists tend to focus
on circumstances in the situation, sociologists tend to investigate struc-
tural and institutional determinants (e.g., Has an employee a tenured
position or not?). On an even more macroscopic level, some chapters of
our book also deal with cultural determinants of solidary behavior.
Hence, for our book, the two headings of person and social context
serve the function of organizing and structuring the many independent
variables that were used by the different authors and were aimed to
encourage researchers to take into account both groups of variables.
Overview of the Chapters of this Book
We conclude this introduction with a brief overview of the various

chapters and how they relate to the general framework of our book. All
authors share the aim of explaining solidary behavior through an
analysis of the impact of personality characteristics and context condi-
tions on the institutional, social, and cultural levels using cognitive
and motivational filters (framing and mental models) on solidary
behavior. The authors differ, however, in the emphasis they put on par-
ticular elements of our general framework. Part I of the book contains
chapters that deal with the micromechanisms of solidarity. Here, a
closer look is taken at the mechanisms that shape the microlevel indi-
viduals definition of the situation and translate this definition into
solidary behavior. Each of the subsequent parts of our volume puts the
main emphasis on one of the major groups of independent variables
in our general framework: personality, social relations, institutional
context, and cultural context.
Part I on micromechanisms opens with Lindenbergs discussion
of his specific goal-framing theory. He argues that three fundamentally
different ways can be distinguished in which people frame social situ-
ations, corresponding to the hedonic motive to feel better right now,
the more long-term goal to improve ones resources, or the normative
motive to act appropriately. Lindenberg proposes a theory of the
mechanisms that drive frame selection, frame change, and decision
making within frames. He elaborates how, according to his theory, each
of the master frames may lead actors to behave solidarily, but for dif-
ferent reasons and under different conditions.
In Chapter 3, Flache and Macy compare Lindenbergs approach the-

oretically to another general behavioral theory, reinforcement learning
theory. They use game theoretical modeling and computer simulations to
identify the conditions under which learning mechanisms may lead to
long-term solidary behavior in certain simple social exchange situations.
Basically, they find that the two theories generate consistent predictions
for a large range of situations. But they also point to two differences.
First, goal-framing theory argues that actors aspirations for the outcomes
of an exchange may be shaped by their perception of the situation and of
the partner. In reinforcement learning theory, these aspirations are ini-
tially arbitrary and develop in the course of the interaction. Second,
learning theory may be less pessimistic about the chances of relation-
ships recovering after periods of a mutual lack of solidarity.
In Chapter 4, Fetchenhauer and Dunning focus on an aspect of
mental models that was only implicitly addressed in the preceding
chapters. The authors investigated how actors estimate other peoples
solidary behavior. Clearly, expectations about others solidarity shape
decisively how we define the relationships we are in and, accordingly,
our solidary behavior. Fetchenhauer and Dunning report on experi-
mental research showing that most people expect others to show less
solidary than they do. The authors review a number of different theo-
retical explanations for this holier than thou effect and discuss how
future research can give new insight into which of these different
explanations is best able to account for this effect.
Part II of the book focuses on the effects of personality character-
istics on solidary behavior. In Chapter 5 van der Zee and Perugini
review studies of a range of personality characteristics that have been
distinguished in personality psychology. The authors show that the
influence of personality on prosocial behavior is likely to run via goal-
framing processes and via mental models. The three master frames dis-
tinguished by Lindenberg (Chapter 2) seem to be particularly useful in
tracing these links. In interaction with situational factors, personality
traits make it more likely that a goal frame will come up in a particu-
lar situation (thereby influencing prosocial behavior), and other traits
are likely to influence the mental models within goal frames. Goal-
framing processes can thus also explain why stable personality traits
do not necessarily lead to trait-consistent behavior across situations.
In Chapter 6, Veenstra combines effects of personality variables on
solidary behavior with effects of the psychosocial environment. He
applies this perspective to solidary behavior of adolescents, putting par-
ticular emphasis on the distinction between prosocial and antisocial
behavior of adolescents, which, he argues, cannot simply be treated as
two sides of the same coin. Based on the books general framework, the
author proposes a heuristic to investigate the relationship between indi-
vidual and psychosocial characteristics, on the one hand, and different
configurations of prosocial and antisocial behavior, on the other hand. In

a nutshell, he argues that both prosocial and antisocial behaviors can be
seen as strategies through which adolescents aim to achieve various forms
of well-being, such as excitement (stimulation), material goods (comfort),
and status. In this perspective, personality traits such as self-control or
aggressiveness develop in early childhood in interaction with the home
situation. These traits then operate as resources or liabilities that shape
adolescents frames and mental models of their relationships with peers,
and thus affect whether adolescents perceive that they obtain their goals
optimally using prosocial or antisocial strategies, or a combination of
both.
Part III of the book shifts the focus to the social context, in partic-
ular to how the content and networks of social relations shape solidary
behavior between those actors who are embedded in the relations. In
Chapter 7 Buunk and Dijkstra treat infidelity in intimate relationships
as a particular form of unsolidary behavior. They argue that the mental
model of an intimate relationship is specific and different from that of
other relationships. In this mental model, fidelity is viewed as a cru-
cial form of solidary behavior. The authors argue that the emotional
importance of fidelity results from pressures toward optimal reproduc-
tion strategies in human evolutionary history. They show, on the basis
of previous research, that the level of fidelity in intimate relationships
may be explained as the outcome of an exchange process in which the
partners develop and co-ordinate their commitment, mutual expecta-
tions, and relationship-specific norms over time. In this process, cer-
tain frames become or fail to become stabilized by both dispositional
factors (e.g., self-esteem and emotional stability) and situational condi-
tions (e.g., opportunity) of the partners. In Chapter 8, van der Vegt
and Flache likewise address effects of social relations on solidary
behavior, but in the different context of work teams. They focus on two
aspects of social relations in the workplace that are becoming increas-
ingly prominent in modern organizations: High interdependence
among organizational members and diversity of work teams in terms of
ethnical background, gender, age, skills, and abilities. The authors
review recent research that showed how solidarity thrives mainly in
teams with a proper match between interdependencies at the level of
work tasks and interdependencies at the level of joint outcomes (e.g.,
group rewards). Diversity may promote solidarity when this match
exists, but it can be disruptive when it does not. Van der Vegt and
Flache show that these findings can be theoretically integrated on the
basis of Lindenbergs framing approach. Broadly, they argue that inter-
dependence in outcomes leads workers to frame their situation in
terms of solidarity with the group, but this frame can only be sustained
when it is backed by factual task interdependencies. Workers may
see diversity as an opportunity for productive exchange when the
solidarity frame dominates, but diversity may impose counterproduc-

tive boundaries between group members when there is little attention
to the group goal.
Part IV of the book emphasizes effects of the institutional context.
The chapters in this part address solidary behavior in organizations. In
Chapter 9 Sanders, Flache, van der Vegt, and Van de Vliert consider
three partially overlapping forms of employees embeddedness in
organizations: Institutional embeddedness refers to formal rules, such
as promotion schemes or payment systems; network embeddedness
pertains to the pattern of informal social relations between employees;
temporal embeddedness is the duration and expected time horizon of
the employment relationship. In line with the recent trend in the orga-
nizational literature, the authors focus on solidary behavior of employ-
ees with regard to the organization. They compare and contrast the
theoretical views of principal-agent theory, a prominent approach in
organizational economics drawing on orthodox rational choice theory,
with the perspective of goal-framing theory on the effects of embed-
dedness on employee solidarity. The authors review a range of previ-
ous empirical studies on the effects of the three forms of embeddedness
and evaluate the predictions of both theories in the light of the empir-
ical evidence. Broadly speaking, Sanders and her co-authors argue that
much of the evidence related to organizational solidarity is consistent
with both approaches, but they also point to some phenomena that
contradict the principal-agent perspective. They show how, in these
cases, it seems possible to resolve the contradiction with the view of
goal-framing theory that formal and informal rules imposed by the
management shape how employees perceive their relationship with
the employer, which, in turn, strongly affects the extent to which
employees are willing to act in solidarity within the firm.
In Chapter 10, a similar theoretical perspective is taken by Karr and
Meijs, in which they study solidarity in voluntary organizations. They
examine what creates sustained motivation to volunteer in a particular
organization. Making use of Lindenbergs application of goal-framing
theory, they distinguish between extrinsic motivation and two forms of
intrinsic motivation. The authors then relate these forms of motivation
to particular management strategies of voluntary organizations (mem-
bership management and program management). The core idea is that
voluntary organizations appeal to all three kinds of motivation, but they
do so with different emphasis and thus with different conditions for the
sustainability of motivation. Organizations that apply membership
management aim to elicit commitment mainly by focusing on the vol-
unteers enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation. For example, such
organizations might stress the fun and social contacts that arise from
the volunteer activity. By contrast, program management emphasizes
the task of the volunteer and thus stresses obligation-based intrinsic
motivation as well as extrinsic motivation (such as gaining experience

useful for ones career). These differences appeal to different kinds of
volunteers and thus are likely to lead to different recruitment strategies.
Part V of the book concentrates on effects of the cultural context on
solidarity. In Chapter 11 van der Zee investigates the conditions under
which cultural minorities may act in solidarity toward institutions of
the larger society. She focuses on the question of which mental models
of relationships are activated if people are in a normative frame. This
depends, she contends, mainly on the kind of identity that is salient in
a given situation. It is argued that immigrants perception of their rela-
tionship with the society in which they live may be shaped by the
extent to which they are integrated into relevant social groups (e.g.,
work teams, school classes) that extend the borders of the cultural
minority. This integration, van der Zee contends, may reduce the
weight that people attach to normative obligations of the minority cul-
ture and may increase attention for the normative demands of the
larger society. Drawing on social identity theory, van der Zee proposes
a number of intervention strategies aimed to strengthen identification
with social groups that cross the minority boundaries.
In Chapter 12, Fetchenhauer and Wittek turn to differences in sol-
idarity between countries. They use international survey data to meas-
ure and compare levels of fair share behavior (e.g., paying taxes) in
various countries. The authors first show that their measure of fair
share behavior at the country level is clearly related to the economic
performance, level of trust, and crime rate of a country. They proceed
to explain differences in fair share behavior. They found that there is
less fair share behavior in countries whose cultures emphasize author-
itarian educational goals, notably countries with a Catholic confes-
sional history and low levels of political democratization. In terms of
our general framework, the results of the study by Fetchenhauer and
Wittek suggest that in such countries people perceive their relationship
with society as a whole as an authority relationship. Accordingly, the
normative obligation to show solidarity toward society as a whole may
in these countries only be followed when sufficient control and sanc-
tions are in place. Conversely, in countries with a more liberal culture,
people, in their relationship with society, may attach a stronger weight
to the goal to act appropriately and, therefore, to not harming the inter-
ests of the government and other citizens.
In the Chapter 13 (the final study of effects of culture), cross-
national differences in solidarity, especially regarding strong and weak
solidarity (which are based on different goal frames, see Lindenberg,
1998), are examined. Van de Vliert and Lindenberg argue that, when
means are scarce, extreme climates generate a high demand for coop-
eration in coping with climatic challenges and are thus likely to foster
strong solidarity in a small group and opportunistic relationships
across groups. The richer countries with extreme climates become, the
more likely that strong solidarity will give way to weak solidarity (and
thus a shift in goal framing). Empirical studies support this view.
In the last chapter of this book, Bierhoff and Fetchenhauer discuss
how the goal-framing theory used in the studies presented in this book
relates to a number of other metatheoretical paradigms that have been
developed within different social sciences. They start by discussing the
relationship of Lindenbergs goal-framing theory with the selfishness
assumption of neoclassical economics, normative game theory, and
classical rational choice theory. They then relate the goal-framing
approach to functionalistic sociology, to Freuds psychoanalytic theory,
to personality psychology, and to social psychological theories of
prosocial and solidary behavior. Lastly, they compare the assumption
of Lindenbergs theory with explanations of altruistic behavior that
have been developed within evolutionary biology and evolutionary
psychology. By comparing the framing approach with other metatheo-
retical paradigms, Bierhoff and Fetchenhauer emphasize the integra-
tive potential of this approach, but also point to areas in which the
theory needs further elaboration.
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PART I
Micromechanisms
CHAPTER 2
Prosocial Behavior, Solidarity,

and Framing Processes
Siegwart Lindenberg
There is no shortage of theories of prosocial behavior. Sociology,

psychology, and economics are blessed with many such theories. When
one looks at all three fields, one is struck by confusion. How do the var-
ious theories add up? Do they rival each other? Do they complement
each other? Are they simply incompatible? Can one simply ignore some
of them? These questions are not easy to answer because variables in
these theories are often different, at least in name. For example, the
dependent variable is given many names and it is not immediately obvi-
ous what the differences, if any, are. The terms prosocial behavior and
helping behavior are most often used in psychology. In sociology, the
term solidarity or solidary behavior is most often used; and in econom-
ics we find the terms cooperation and cooperative behavior. At times,
the term altruism is used in all three fields. Do all these terms refer to
the same thing? The independent variables are even more diverse and
difficult to compare. Thus, there is a discount factor in super games,
there are value orientations, we have prosocial personality traits, we
have internalized norms, culturally induced trust, and institutionalized
solidarity. What are we to make of this multitude of concepts?
One way to go about answering these questions is to develop a clas-
sification of the kinds of prosocial behavior that gives place to the various
psychological, sociological, and economic theories. Order can be created
in this way because of the identification of possible dimensions of proso-
cial behavior (for example, along the lines of extrinsic versus intrinsic
motives, or of personal or social norms). The disadvantage of this
approach is that it does not provide the theory that would allow us to
judge the importance of dimensions or the interrelation between dimen-
sions. For example, why is it important to distinguish between extrinsic
and intrinsic motivation for prosocial behavior? Can intrinsic motivation
be stabilized by extrinsic rewards or is it crowded out (see Frey and Jegen,
2001)? In order to deal with such questions, it is necessary to take a closer
look at the mechanisms that generate various forms of prosocial behavior.
23
24 Siegwart Lindenberg
It is my aim here to uncover some of these mechanisms, using the-

ory that was developed earlier (see Lindenberg, 1998, 2001a, 2003).
I will argue that the particular form of prosocial behavior (say, cooper-
ation, altruism, or both; see below) and its relationship to motives
depends on the combination of a frame and a particular mental
model of the relationship. I will use the term prosocial behavior, as this
is the most general term for behavior assumed to be intentionally ben-
eficial to others (not necessarily without self-interest) and involving
some sacrifice. Other concepts, such as solidary behavior, cooperation,
and so forth were defined or explicated on this basis. It is not long ago
that a perceptive observer stated that the trend in recent research is
toward explaining self-interested sources of cooperation (Yamagishi,
1995, p. 315). Surely, much research of this sort is still being con-
ducted. However, owing to the results of this research, and aided by
developments in evolutionary psychology, the cutting edge has moved
on to the question of when and how the same individual is governed
by very different sets of motives, and under what conditions these dif-
ferent sets of motives lead to prosocial behavior. At the very least, then,
one would expect a description of mechanisms of prosocial behavior to
account for the observation that (at least at present) makes research
into prosocial behavior interesting in the first place. One reason is that
prosocial behavior varies situationally within the same individual.
Even though personality traits and value orientations make a person
disposed to act more or less prosocially, situational factors can override
even stable dispositions or interact with stable dispositions (see
Ligthart, 1995). What is more, it is not merely behavior that varies sit-
uationally for the same person; the core motivations to act vary situa-
tionally within the same individual (see for example Ross and Nisbett,
1991; Smeesters, Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, and Yzerbyt, 2003;
Van Lange, 2000). In fact, a theory of prosocial behavior would have to
account for the possibility that each of us is to some degree a Jekyll and
Hyde. How is it possible that the same individuals behavior can be
determined by such different sets of motivations, and how can the
particular situation in which the individual is placed play such an
important role in bringing out either Jekyll or Hyde? The answer to this
question should be a theory of action rather than a list of motives.
Important strides have been made in the literature in this direction. As
some of these are discussed in Chapter 1 in this book and in
Lindenberg (1998), I will not go into a review of the literature here.
Suffice it to say that none of the existing approaches are quite satisfac-
tory with regard to the situational influence. The approach taken here
was made possible by an advance in psychology in which processes of
cognition and processes of motivation were linked (see Gollwitzer
and Bargh, 1996). The core idea in this research was that cognitions
are strongly affected by goals (see Kruglanski, 1996) and that thus
2: Prosocial Behavior, Solidarity, and Framing Processes 25
reflective and emotional processes strongly interact in bringing about

social behavior of any kind (see Strack and Deutsch, 2004). I will
briefly summarize the major building blocks of the theory of prosocial
behavior that can be erected on the basis of this research.
Building Blocks of the Theory
The building blocks of the theory are based on the following guid-
ing ideas: In any action situation, the individuals attention is selective,
which implies that certain aspects of the situation are pushed into the
foreground and others into the background, and the individual becomes
more sensitive to changes in certain situational clues, less sensitive to
others. At the same time, certain concepts become highly accessible,
others are inhibited; certain emotions are aroused; and so forth.
These cognitive processes are linked to motivation by the fact that
they are largely governed by overriding goals. Goals together with the
cognitive processes they engender are here called frames. For exam-
ple, the goal to make a profit in a particular situation steers the cogni-
tion of this situation by making certain features (the opportunities to
make a profit) more salient and making other features (for example,
concern for the well-being of the other) less salient, making the indi-
vidual particularly sensitive to changes in the opportunities to make a
profit and by activating certain concepts that belong to making a profit.
There are a few overriding frames that need to be identified.
Behavior toward others is generally guided by a mental model of a
particular relationship with the other. This mental model is part of the
framing process but can be the result of prior cognitive processes that
were set in motion by an overriding goal. For example, if the overriding
goal is to act appropriately, the mental model must answer the question:
What is appropriate in this situation? It thus provides specific informa-
tion relevant to the goal pursuit in social situations. For example, it con-
tains information on the expectations the other is likely to have in such
a relationship. There are a small number of basic social relationships
(with their mental models) and they need to be identified as well.
The particular form of prosocial behavior (say, cooperation or
altruism, or both; see below) and its relationship to motives depend
on the combination of the frame and the mental model of the rela-
tionship. For example, in a fundraising gathering at a local school,
people frame the situation, say, as instrumental in the sense that the
gathering is seen as a means for reaching a common goal (that the
school can build a special room for pupils to get together socially).
The perceived relationship between the people gathered there is, for
example, one of people who share a common interest. Everyone
throws money into a basket that is passed around several times during
the evening (each time presumably for a different part of the room to
be built). The combination of instrumental frame and common goal
relationship makes it likely that giving is seen as an act of coopera-
tion. Watchful eyes follow the basket and what people put in it.
Everyone is likely to give what he or she thinks the others are giving.
Contrast this with a slightly different situation in which the people
gathered are told that the school needs a room for the social activities
of pupils and that all present are asked, according to their ability,
to help the school build such a room. As a sign of gratitude to each
helper, a roster of contributions will be made public. Now the
situation is framed as helping and the relationship among those
gathered is still one of people with a common interest, but it has been
changed by the emphasis on differences in ability to help the school.
Rich people are now expected to give more than poor (and this dif-
ference shows up in the public roster of contributions). The change
in the relationship is also likely to add status considerations to the
motive to help a good cause. But notice that this combination of help-
ing and status considerations is specific to the situation (helping the
school). Even genetically generous people are unlikely in this situa-
tion to slip money to poorer people to enable them to give more and
thus show up better in the public roster.
The most important factors influencing cognitive processes are
goals, and what influences goals and mental models in a given action
situation are: (a) elements of the social context, such as social aspects
(such as interdependencies, status differences), institutional elements
(such as legal restrictions and norms), cultural elements (such as reli-
gious belief systems, the general level of trust in strangers); and (b) rel-
atively stable traits and skills of the person. A sketch of the
combination of these building blocks can be seen in Figure 2.1.
Person
Personality Goals
traits
skills
learning Prosocial
Cognitive
history behavior
processes
and
Social context Mental
social model of
institutional social
cultural relationship
FRAMING
FIGURE 2.1. Determinants of Prosocial Behavior From a Framing Perspective

Kinds of Prosocial Behavior and Kinds of Relationships
Below I will elaborate and combine these various building blocks.

I will start at the dependent variable (prosocial behavior) and work
backward. Being task or outcome interdependent, or both (i.e., having
functional interdependencies or, more generally, joint production) is
likely to lead to the development of relationships that require prosocial
behavior (see Lindenberg, 1997). There are at least five kinds of proso-
cial behavior (see Lindenberg, 1998). They have been described in
Chapter 1 and are only listed here: cooperation, fairness, altruism,
trustworthiness (i.e., refraining from breaking promises), and being
considerate. They all refer to behavior that benefits others but is, at
least at the moment it is performed, socially accepted as entailing some
form of sacrifice. Thus, for example, a situation in which a person
exchanges a thing with another person to their mutual benefit is
excluded, except in cases where time renders the benefit to one condi-
tional on the others keeping a promise. In Chapter 1 various relation-
ships were distinguished and it was argued that prosocial behavior is
embedded in social relationships. Different relationships require dif-
ferent combinations of kinds of prosocial behavior. Solidarity relation-
ships are likely to involve all five kinds of prosocial behavior. Strong
solidarity relationships (such as close friendships) involve much
higher expected sacrifices than weak solidarity relationships (such as
a relationship between neighbors), and the two also differ in distribu-
tional norms (equality versus equity). But failure to behave prosocially
in all five kinds of sacrifice situations (if and when they occur) is likely
to be interpreted as a lack of solidarity in both strong and weak soli-
darity relationships. An opportunistic relationship does not involve
any prosocial behavior. A status relationship is asymmetric, which
means that it may involve different forms of prosocial behavior acting
down and acting up, for example, trustworthiness and being con-
siderate from below and a modicum of altruism from above. Authority
relationships can vary a great deal in this respect and it might be use-
ful to use the prosocial expectations in order to distinguish them. For
example, in Western societies, authority relationships seem to have the
tendency to become symmetrical with regard to the prosocial behavior
that is expected from the person below and the one above. This, in
turn, is likely to give rise to considerable changes in the way employ-
ment relations are governed and to make fairness a central element in
authority relations (see Lindenberg, 1993; Mhlau and Lindenberg,
2003; Wittek, 1999). There are probably relationships that hover
between opportunism and weak solidarity simply because they are
specific and unlikely to last long enough to cover more situations and
develop into a solidarity or authority relation. Nevertheless, for the
specific situation, there may be too much interdependence for sheer
opportunism. The example given above of fund raising in a school is

such a case. Here, people are gathered for a specific common purpose
that requires cooperation to reach the common goal, nothing more,
nothing less. Other situations may create relations that focus on fair-
ness or showing trustworthiness (by abstaining from breach tempta-
tion). In any case, it seems useful for the researcher to determine for
any particular kind of explanatory problem what relations are likely to
prevail in these situations and what forms of prosocial behavior are
likely to belong to these relations. Before relations influence behav-
ior, they must be cognitively represented in the actors involved. As
argued above, this cognitive representation can be analyzed in term of
mental models.
Mental Models of Relationships
What Is a Mental Model of a Relationship?
The most basic connotation of mental model is some kind of

mental representation that guides reasoning and action. One of the
major functions of mental models is to allow the individual to answer
questions about relevant aspects in his or her physical and social world,
be these aspects simple objects, like chairs, or complex processes like
the political system of the United States. A subcategory of mental
models is prototypes. They capture the exemplary version of the phe-
nomenon and can, therefore, be used to answer questions about it.
For example, the prototype of a relationship can be used to answer the
question If this is a friendship relationship, what should I do? Such a
prototype may be taken to consist of five minimal elements: (1) there is
a set of rules about ones own and the others behavior; (2) there are
expectations about the others behavior based on these rules; (3) there
are the others surmised expectations; (4) there are normative expecta-
tions about ones own behavior; and (5) there is co-orientation about the
expectations (Scheff, 1967), meaning that each partner in a relationship
assumes that the other uses the same mental model. For example, the
mental model of a friendship relationship could look like this: Rules of
friendship (or rule heuristics): Friends are equals; friends dont do any-
thing that would increase the social difference between them (this also
implies fairness); Friends dont harm each other (this also implies
trustworthiness and being considerate); Friends help each other in
need. Expectation about others behavior: The other is my friend and
thus he will behave according to the rules of friendship. Expectations
from the other: The other is my friend and he expects me to act accord-
ing to the rules of friendship. Normative expectations about own
behavior: I am his friend and I ought to behave according to the rules
of friendship. Co-orientation: The other is my friend and therefore

uses the same rules and expectations I do. The mental model of a rela-
tionship is thus more than just a social norm about how to behave.
Some authors speak of relational schemas (see, for example, Baldwin,
1992) to indicate expectations of interactive sequences; other authors
speak of heuristics (see, for example, De Dreu and Boles, 1998;
Simon, 1957) to indicate maxims that should be followed in a relation-
ship (such as Be fair or Your gain is my loss). The prototype of a
relationship includes such schemas and heuristics but also other kinds
of information. It minimally also includes descriptive and normative
expectations and co-orientation. A person is said to create or learn men-
tal models of virtually all relevant aspects of his or her physical and
social world, including social relationships.
Mental Models and Frames
How does a mental model relate to behavior? As we will see, in

order to relate mental models to behavior, more cognitive aspects have
to be considered than are normally considered in the social sciences.
People do not simply conform to the normative expectations con-
tained in a mental model of a relationship. There must be a link to the
goal pursuit of the individual, to the aspects to which the individual
pays attention, to memories that are activated, and so forth. Goals and
cognitive processes are linked, and this insight may be one of the most
important advances in cognitive and motivational psychology in the
past 20 years. For example, if a person is determined to make a profit
in a particular interaction (the goal), he or she will frame the situa-
tion in such a way that the elements that are relevant for making a
profit become salient as well. How does it work? Because framing is so
central to the argument presented here, I will go into it in some detail.
A Theory of Goal-Framing
Basic Mechanisms
The basic mechanism of the motivational-cognitive aspects of

behavior (and a fortiori also prosocial behavior) consists of a number of
interrelated processes. First, peoples perception of a situation is selec-
tive. People focus on some aspects and not on others. Which aspects
they focus on depends mainly on the major goal they are pursuing at
this moment. For example, if a person buys a rare second-hand book
that she wants to read, she focuses on aspects that have to do with
reading the book, such as the attractiveness of its cover and layout,
how thick it is, how lucky she is to have found it now that she is going
on vacation and has time to read, and so forth. If a person buys the
same book as a book salesman with the aim of selling it, he focuses on
other aspects, such as the likely demand for the book, its physical con-
dition as this may affect demand, the possible profit given its present
price, and so forth.
Second, whereas selective attention almost seems trivial, it is not
trivial in its consequences. To focus on certain aspects also means that
other aspects are cognitively pushed into the background. This is more
than a metaphor. What happens is that certain chunks of stored knowl-
edge, certain categories and attitudes, become more easily accessible
and thereby influence the persons information processing (see Higgins
and Brendl, 1995). At the same time, aspects that have been pushed
into the background may be inhibited, thus creating a double selective
effect (see Bodenhousen and Macrae, 1998; Houghton and Tipper,
1996). When we say that a person has a certain frame, therefore, we
mean more than just selective attention. We also mean that, compared
to a person with another frame, this persons cognitive processes are
guided by a goal so that the person thinks of certain things more read-
ily, is more sensitive to certain kinds of information, perceives certain
alternatives more readily than others, and assigns different weights to
certain aspects. For example, when the person who bought the second-
hand book in order to read it leaves the bookshop and is asked to sell
it right then and there for 50% more than she paid just a minute ago,
she will in all likelihood decline. Using the book to make profit is not
an alien idea to her, but, at that moment, this idea is pushed into the
background and is thus cognitively not readily available. By contrast,
the bookseller who bought the book in order to sell it again will quickly
consider this a good deal and sell it or ask for a higher price (see
Braspenning, 1992, for experimental evidence). They thus react very
differently to seemingly the same opportunity.
Third, goals are part of the frame, especially goals that draw on
particular patterns of attitudes, expectations, and behavioral reper-
toires (see Gollwitzer and Moskowitz, 1996; Kruglanski, 1996). In the
literature, we find mainly three groups of goals that have been studied
with regard to their effect on cognitive processes (see also Dunning,
2001). For one, there are approach/avoidance-related goals, such as
gain- and loss-related goals (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984); self-
enhancement and self-defense (Baumeister, 1996; Tesser, 1988). Then,
there are goals concerning reflective versus intuitive processing, such
as deliberative versus implemental goals (Gollwitzer and Bayer, 1999),
accuracy goals (Stapel, Koomen, and Zeelenberg, 1998), epistemic
goals (Ford and Kruglanski, 1995), and performance versus learning
goals (Grant and Dweck, 2003). Finally, there are goals about self-
concern and other-concern, such as the goal to act cooperatively and
the goal to act competitively. For the topic of prosocial behavior, the
latter is the most relevant. For example, the goal to act cooperatively
and the goal to act competitively activate very different patterns of atti-
tudes, expectations, and behavioral repertoires (see Carnevale and
Lawler, 1986; De Dreu and Boles, 1998; Stapel and Koomen, 2005).
However, as we will see, a dimension related to the reflective/intuitive
distinction is also very important for the treatment of prosocial behav-
ior: short-term versus long(er)-term orientation. Behaving prosocially
because it feels good right now will draw on different attitudes, expec-
tations, and aspects of the situation than behaving prosocially because
that may pay off in the future. In all cases, it is goals that, via frames,
link the individual to a situation and give it a particular meaning. The
fact that goals heavily influence cognitive processes links motivation
and cognition. Goals can thus not be represented as ordered pre-
ferences (as is done in the literature on multiple selves), since goals
influence the situationally activated preferences, expectations, and
selection from the behavioral repertoire.
Fourth, in every situation, there are goals that are pushed into the
background by the overriding goal that dominates the framing
process. For example, when the overriding goal is to act cooperatively,
the goals that have to do with guarding ones resources, such as
money, are pushed into the background. We simply do not pay close
attention to cost aspects when the overriding goal is to act coopera-
tively. Even though the goals in the background are inhibited (see
Houghton and Tipper, 1996), this does not mean that they lose all
influence on behavior. Their influence has become indirect and there-
fore much weaker than it would have been if the goal had been in the
foreground. For example, in a supermarket, the overriding goal might
be to be a smart consumer (such a consumer compares prices and is
alert to special offers). In such a situation, small differences in price
can have a large effect on behavior. By contrast, when the overriding
goal is to act cooperatively, the differences in costs play a much
smaller role. But even though relative price effects emanating from the
background goals are muffled, they are still there and they increase
as the costs of acting cooperatively increase. This explicit attention to
the cognitive aspects distinguishes this theory from other multiple
goal or dual concern theories (see Chapter 1) and it is especially the
role of the background goals that is an important distinguishing fea-
ture of this framing approach compared to other framing-like
approaches, be they related to the idea of gain and loss perception
(e.g., Kahneman and Tversky, 1984), to the mobilization of scripts and
schemas (e.g., Abelson, 1981), or to the idea of goal priming (Shah
and Kruglanski, 2003). The following sections deal with how this
interaction between background and foreground goals in the process
of framing works.
Interaction Between Background and Foreground Goals
The influence of background goals on choice exerts itself in two

ways: (a) background goals influence the ordering of alternatives, and
(b) background goals influence the strength of the frame. Let us take
these in order. When the overriding goal is to act cooperatively and
attention to monetary costs is the most important goal in the back-
ground, then the behavioral alternatives perceived will be ordered from
the most cooperative to the least cooperative. There are, however, many
ways in which one may be less than fully cooperative. The background
goal (in our example to guard ones monetary resources) shows up in
the way in which alternatives are set up: less cooperative must go
together with cheaper. There is no use in choosing less cooperative
alternatives that are even more expensive than the most cooperative one
if the background goal is to guard ones monetary resources. The differ-
ence can be seen immediately if one imagines that the most important
goal in the background was to damage the other as a competitor. In
that case, the alternatives in the cooperative frame would still decrease
in cooperativeness but they would not necessarily get cheaper. Rather,
they would become more damaging for the other as a competitor.
The other way in which background goals influence choice is via
the strength of the frame. Think of the strength of the frame in terms of
the strength with which the overriding goal determines choice. Choice
is here conceived of as a distribution of choice probabilities over the
alternatives (see Lindenberg, 1988; Steglich, 2003). The stronger the
frame, the higher the chances of the best alternative being chosen
(i.e., the more skewed the distribution in favor of the best alterna-
tive). As the strength of the frame decreases, the individual still defines
the situation in terms of the overriding goal, but the choice probabili-
ties shift toward a more equal distribution. In this way, the chances of
the second- and third-best alternatives being selected increase. This
implies that the weaker the strength of the frame, the more the choice
reflects the strongest background goal. Take our example again. As the
cost of being cooperative increases, the chances of an alternative being
chosen that is less than fully cooperative but cheaper increase. Note
that there is no adding or subtracting of utilities involved. Thus, there
is no need for a numeraire (i.e., no measure in which both the over-
riding goal and the strongest background goal can be expressed) and no
shadow pricing has to be assumed. The effect is solely produced by the
relative weight of the foreground and background goals.
When a background goal becomes so strong that all alternatives
tend to become equally (un)attractive, the frame is likely to switch,
so that the strongest background goal becomes the new frame and the
previously dominant goal merges into the background. For example,
when being cooperative becomes increasingly incompatible with the
background goal to guard ones (financial) resources, then it is likely

that the goal to guard ones recourses becomes the new dominant
goal and to be cooperative is pushed into the background, with all
the cognitive consequences of such a shift, such as a change in the
aspects that are considered, the accessibility of memory and knowl-
edge chunks, the ordering of alternatives, and so forth (see Steglich,
2003 for empirical evidence).
Goals in the background can also increase the strength of the
frame. For example, the goal to guard ones social capital is likely to
increase the overriding goal in our example (to act cooperatively)
because it is compatible with its realization. However, unlike the
strongest incompatible goal in the background, compatible goals in the
background do not influence the ordering of alternatives. Rather, by
increasing the strength of the frame, they increase the likelihood of the
alternative that is best in terms of the frame being chosen. In the
extreme case of very high frame strength, the choice of the best alter-
native is so certain that, subjectively, there is no choice: There is
only one course of action and that can easily become a habit in which
case activation of the goal directly also activates a particular kind of
action (see Aarts and Dijksterhuis, 2000). For example, when going to
work, people may not think about whether to take the car or the train
(even though the train would be the second-best alternative), but take
for granted that the car is the way to go to work. But this can also occur
without habituation. For example, when confronted with extreme
alternatives (say, your money or your life), people may perceive the
situation as having no choice. This mechanism has important conse-
quences for the effect of information on choice. Individuals are not
very sensitive to information on background goals, and when strength
of the frame is high, they are even deaf to positive information on the
second-best alternative since the highly skewed probability distribu-
tion over alternatives makes only one alternative cognitively salient.
For prosocial behavior, this means that it is possible that, when norms
are concrete (i.e., prescribe a particular action) and the strength of a
normative frame (see below) is high, there is likely to be a kind of
mechanical conformism toward all normatively prescribed behavior,
including prosocial behavior.
Core Motivations: Master Frames and Their

A Priori Strength
Before prosocial behavior can be linked explicitly to framing, it

must be known, what frames? There are, of course, many frames and it
would not do to try to list them. Because it is goals that determine most
of what a frame is like, the question is thus: What kind of goals?
As mentioned above, the most relevant goals for the social sciences
have to do with self versus other, and short term versus long term.
Clearly, we are looking for (a) overriding goals that (b) characterize a
basic direction of action and leave ample room for considerable differ-
ences in lower-order goals. To use a negative example: power (or con-
trol) is sometimes mentioned as such an overriding goal. However, it
does not by itself give action a basic direction. An increase in power
for someone who is cooperatively oriented means an increase in
socially responsible behavior, whereas an increase in power for some-
one who is orientated toward personal gain means an increase in self-
ish behavior (see Chen, Lee-Chai, and Bargh, 2001). Approach and
avoidance and its related responses are also basic and very important
for information processing and behavior (see for example Epstein,
1993; Gollwitzer and Bayer, 1999) but by themselves not tied to either
pole of the dimensions that are crucial for the analysis of social behav-
iorself-other directedness and short- or long-term orientation. Three
goals that can be considered both overriding and basic for the direction
of action have been suggested, and it is worthwhile to take a brief look
at them (see Lindenberg, 2001a, for more detail). I call the frames of
which they are a part master frames. Such frames can be taken to
be core motivations in the sense introduced in the beginning of this
chapter.
Human beings are assumed to strive for improvement of their cur-
rent condition. This assumption has already guided the work of Adam
Smith and David Hume and has, in more recent times, become quite
prominent (see, for example, Frank, 1992; Scitovsky, 1976). Improving
ones condition as a general striving also renders reference points and
social comparison important for the study of motivation and cognition
(Kahneman, 1992; Kahneman and Tversky, 1984). There are roughly
two kinds of improvement: short-term and longer-term improvement,
and it is possible to distinguish between overriding goals for improve-
ment in the short term and improvement in the longer term. Millar and
Tesser (1992) make a related distinction between instrumental and
hedonic goals. For the short term, a general goal is the wish to feel
better right now. It is directed at the emotional state of the self in the
widest sense of the word. This holds not only for positive and negative
bodily states (such as excitement, hunger, thirst, or pain) but also for
positive and negative psychic states such as a sense of loss, angst, affec-
tion, and situational status. The frame that goes along with this goal
may be called the hedonic frame.
With regard to the longer term, a general goal is the wish to
improve ones resources, material or immaterial (such as money, com-
petence, contacts, and general status). The frame that belongs to this
goal can be called the gain frame. Such a frame is directly tied to the
self, but it is removed from direct emotional involvement in the sense
that resources must be used before they have any hedonic effect. By
contrast, the experience of loss of resources (and the goal of loss avoid-
ance) is likely to be directly tied to emotions and thus will more likely
trigger a hedonic frame, instantly shorting the time horizon.
A third general goal (only seemingly unrelated to improvement) is
the wish to act appropriately, which belongs to a frame that may be
called a normative frame. In such a frame, hedonic and gain-related
goals are, if at all present, in the background. The universal ability of
perspective taking (see Tomasello, 1999) in conjunction with universal
epistemic goals is probably at the root of the ability to take on the point
of view of the group and pursue the goal to act appropriately accord-
ing to the group. This phenomenon is by now empirically well
established (see Caporael, Dawes, Orbell, and Van de Kragt, 1989;
Hogg, 2001; Kollock, 1997; Terry and Hogg, 2001) and quite essential
to understanding the power of framing effects. Other-directedness in
this sense relates not to another person per se but to the group as a
whole or to a person as a member of the group. The prosocial behavior
generated by a strong normative frame appears subjectively as a matter
of course; it is a matter of doing the right thing rather than the efficient
(gain) or the friendly (hedonic) thing (see Nunner-Winkler, 1997; Van
Lange, 2000).
Even though socialization is likely to foster this ability, we should
not equate normative framing with the traditional concept of internal-
ization. Internalization has to do with a stable change in preferences,
whereas the goal to act appropriately is a situational goal with the
help of which certain preferences may be activated. Parents clearly
have a regulatory interest in such a goal and are likely to push it dur-
ing socializing their child. Quite generally, parents take an interest in
having their children follow norms even when nobody is watching.
Their socializing efforts are thus likely to make social rewards system-
atically dependent on the goal to act appropriately rather than on the
goal to act in order to get the social rewards or the goal to avoid neg-
ative sanctions since the latter would not work when nobody is
watching. Thus, improvement in social approval and avoiding social
disapproval are likely to be important elements in the background, but
they are not related to the framed goal itself. In fact, these background
goals may be the most important stabilizers of a normative frame (see
Lindenberg, 2001a). Social rewards for prosocial behavior are rarely
forthcoming if others see this behavior as motivated by the desire to get
social approval or avoid disapproval. Thus, when people pursue social
approval and avoidance of disapproval as the explicit goal (within a
hedonic frame), it is likely to be seen socially as a lack of intrinsic
interest in moral behavior and thus not rewarded or may be even pun-
ished. The goal to act appropriately is only indirectly tied to
improvement and is likely to be tied to emotions only negatively,
namely when norms are transgressed (guilt and shame, see Eisenberg,
2000). It clearly distinguishes itself from a hedonic goal (through effort-
ful control) and from a gain-related goal (through the group-related
other-directedness).
A Priori Strength of Frames
A plausible assumption is that what is directly tied to both, emo-

tions and the self, is, ceteris paribus, stronger in determining behavior
than what is only related to the self and not directly to emotions,
which, in turn, is stronger than what is directly related to neither emo-
tions nor self. When this assumption is applied to the three frames, we
get an a priori ordering of strength of the goals and thus of the frames.
One goal is stronger than another if, in direct competition between the
goals to structure the situation, it becomes the foreground goal and the
other is pushed into the background. The hedonic goal is directly
linked to emotions and the self, and it can thus be assumed to be a pri-
ori stronger than the other two goals. This means that unless there are
special supports for the other two goals, the hedonic goal will be the
dominant frame. The gain goal is directly tied to the self but generally
not tied to strong emotions. As such, it is a priori stronger than the nor-
mative goal. In order to reverse this a priori pecking order between
potential master frames, there must be special stabilizers that increase
the strength of the gain or the normative frame. For example, strong
shared and institutionalized religious beliefs in a group of individuals
may create such consistently high amounts of social disapproval for
nonconforming behavior that the normative frame cannot be displaced
by a hedonic or gain frame. Notice that in this case, it is not a fear of
sanctions that leads to the prosocial behavior. Rather, the sanctions
(in the cognitive background) stabilize (and thereby strengthen) the
normative frame, within which there is no weighing of the costs of
benefits of norm-conforming behavior (see Steglich, 2003 for empirical
evidence).
Goal-Framing, Mental Models, and Prosocial Behavior
What can we learn from the above about prosocial behavior? What
hypotheses can be derived? For a framing point of view, it is important for
the understanding of prosocial behavior to know which overriding goals
are in the foreground (as core motivation) and which are in the back-
ground. In principle, all three overriding goals can generate prosocial
behavior, at times even a dynamic change of what is in the foreground
and what is in the background, as we will see. I concentrate below on the
differences between the core motivations (master frames) with regard to

prosocial behavior, along the lines summarized in Table 2.1.
In a normative frame, an individuals main goal is to act appropri-
ately. The answer to the question What is appropriate? comes to a
large extent from the mental model of the relationship and it includes
information about what kind of prosocial behavior is appropriate. Take
a friendship relationship as an example. A close friendship is a strong
solidary relationship. Thus, the mental image of a close friendship con-
tains all five kinds of prosocial behavior, and in a normative frame, the
individual will attempt to act appropriately with regard to all five
kinds of prosocial behavior. Hedonic and gain goals are pushed into
the cognitive background, and this means that the opportunity costs of
behaving according to the relational expectations are also pushed into
the background. It can, therefore, be expected that the stronger the nor-
mative frame, the lower the costs for each of these kinds of behavior
and the rewards for nonconforming behavior are perceived to be, and
thus the less behavior is affected by cost considerations. However,
prosocial behavior in a normative frame is all the more sensitive to the
clarity of the mental image concerning the relation and the norms. In
fact, in an ongoing solidary (and surely also in a modern authority)
relationship, prosocial behavior sends a relational signal to the other
indicating that I, the sender, am in a normative frame and have soli-
darity in my mental model of our relationship (see Lindenberg, 2000).
Because a normative frame is precarious, it is important for others to
know whether a person acts prosocially because he or she is in a nor-
mative frame or because, for example, he or she is acting strategically
from within a gain frame (see Mhlau and Lindenberg, 2003).
Because the normative frame is very much dependent on strong
supports for its stability, it can only withstand the onslaught of gain
and hedonic goals if it is well stabilized by factors like common interest,
TABLE 2.1. Differences in prosocial behavior for different master frames.

Need for social
stabilization Act prosocially Sensitive to
Master frame of the frame when.... disturbance by...
Normative frame high it is appropriate relational

uncertainty and
vague norms
Gain frame medium it is efficient costs and low
degree of
monitoring
Hedonic frame low it feels good own moods and
unfriendliness
of others
widely shared consensus about the importance of acting appropriately,

and clear social sanctions (like strong social disapproval). Such a
frame particularly needs to be supplied with information from mental
models about expectations and norms. When relationships become
confused and norms vague, normative frames are in danger of being
displaced, changing the conditions for the occurrence of prosocial
behavior considerably. Generally, it can be said that whatever lowers
the workings of relational signaling lowers the likelihood of prosocial
behavior generated by a normative frame.
Two examples will illustrate the point. Take the way a professor
deals with her secretary in the pool of secretaries. General expectations
in the modern university in the Netherlands press for equality among all
members of the university community. Hierarchy should not be used
conspicuously. However, hierarchy has not vanished. In all likelihood,
there is relational confusion for professors in dealing with secretaries,
leaning toward equality when things are relaxed and pulling rank when
time pressure is high. What is a need situation in a weak solidary rela-
tionship (requiring prosocial behavior on the part of the secretary and
appropriate gratitude on the part of the professor) is a legitimate demand
in an authority relationship. This, however, creates relational uncer-
tainty in both the professor and the secretary. Vague norms also make it
difficult to act appropriately. For example, when the dress code for a par-
ticular private occasion is not clear, what should one wear? There are
two ways to go about this (short of inquiring about the dress code). One
possibility is to argue, If they dont take the trouble to make the dress
code clear, I can wear what I want. There is no attempt at prosocial
behavior because the norm is vague. Another possibility is to use smart
norms (i.e., higher-order [abstract] norms) about relationships. For
example, such a higher-order norm might be to behave in such a way that
one will not offend the others feeling (be considerate). Now one would
have to figure out what kind of dress would be inoffensive for the hosts
no matter what. Such abstract smart norms appear to be on the
increase as many social norms become more vague (see Nunner-Winkler,
2000). More serious examples of relational confusion (which hampers
the workings of relational signals) can be found in Witteks study of a
paper factory (Wittek, 1999).
For reasons of space, I cannot go into how the framing process is
affected by the goals in the background, but it is obvious that this
makes a big difference. For example, when a person is in a normative
frame, the fear of social disapproval may be in the background, sup-
porting the normative frame (see Steglich, 2003). When fear of social
disapproval is in the foreground (for example, in a hedonic frame), it is
a different matter because now the mental model contains such ele-
ments as the likelihood that one is being observed, and one of the
behavioral alternatives is to cheat or sneak (for a discussion on how
different background goals influence intrinsic versus extrinsic behav-

ior, see Lindenberg, 2001b, see also Karr and Meijs, this volume).
In a gain frame, the individuals main goal is to improve his or her
resources (such as money, general status, or opportunities). As a core
motivation, a gain frame is virtually identical to what is generally
assumed about self-interest. People act prosocially if it is an efficient
means toward increasing gain: if it pays. Contrary to a normative
frame, a gain frame is very sensitive to relative cost issues. If the relative
cost of prosocial behavior rises, other alternatives to the same aim (gain)
may take over. A low degree of visibility of sacrifice (i.e., little monitor-
ing) lowers the possible gain from making a sacrifice for prosocial behav-
ior, and it lowers the cost of failing to make sacrifices, thus making
prosocial behavior less likely. This idea is behind the principle-agent
theory of cooperation in economics (see Milgrom and Roberts, 1992).
Notice that mental images of relations play a role in a gain frame,
too. Of course, in an opportunistic relationship, there are no prosocial
expectations. However, business relations may be oriented toward
keeping a win/win relation going, and that is likely to be interpreted as
some form of a common good situation that requires cooperation.
Game theorists have shown that there are situations in which a gain
frame can generate prosocial behavior, at least in the sense of coopera-
tive behavior. The relationship must then be longer term and the dis-
counting influence of time on the value of the relationship to the
participants must be modest, or there must be possibilities for sanc-
tions (for example, through reputation damage) in the future (see
Buskens, 2002). In analyses by game theorists, the nature of the rela-
tionship is often not worked out even though the examples often point
to relations of weak solidarity (for example, longer-term business part-
ners). For example, Uzzi (1997) identified weak solidarity relation-
ships among many representatives of buyers and suppliers in the New
York apparel industry. The question is whether weak solidarity can be
sustained within a gain frame (and, thus, whether it can be investigated
using a theory that only acknowledges a gain frame). In weak solidar-
ity, all five kinds of prosocial behavior are expected and the question
is whether this is possible within a gain frame. Can weak solidarity be
sustained with relational signals that convey efficiency as the overrid-
ing goal? It does not seem likely, but so far game theorists have not
dealt seriously with this question because (mental models of) relation-
ships have not been considered part of the game except in terms of
payoffs (see reviews by Camerer, 2003, and Rabin, 1998). Theories of
social preferences (see for example Charness and Rabin, 2002; Fehr
and Fischbacher, 2002) go a long way in the right direction but so far
lack any consideration of the situational influence on the selection
of preferences due to the effect of goals on cognitive processes. Going
a step further, Bowles (1998) presents varied and convincing evidence
that the social (including cultural and institutional) context matters for
preferences and psychological processes. However, he refrains from
offering an explanation of how this may work.
A hedonic frame can also be the source of prosocial behavior. Take,
for example, empathy or love, both of which can create strong emotions,
which, in turn, can bring about a hedonic frame when another person is
in distress. An individual in a hedonic frame would then act prosocially
in order to feel better (see Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, and Neuberg,
1997). However, because a hedonic frame is tied to feelings here and
now, it is also fickle. Changes in mood have a considerable influence on
prosocial behavior. A small change can have a large effect. Especially
important is behavior of others that makes one feel bad and renders
prosocial behavior unlikely, and often even increases antisocial
responses. Take irritability or general unfriendliness: These quickly
reduce the willingness of others to behave prosocially. Because a hedo-
nic frame needs no extra support, social situations degenerate to being
dominated by hedonic frames if normative and gain frames lose their
supports. This also affects our view of institutions. They do not just reg-
ulate behavior by incentives but also regulate the stability of normative
and gain frames each in their proper situation (see Lindenberg, 1992).
Conclusion
It was argued that a major issue regarding the explanation of proso-

cial behavior is whether prosocial behavior can emanate from very dif-
ferent core motivations, even in the same individual. If so, what are
these core motivations? How can a theory of action deal with them?
And, finally, how can differences in the occurrence of prosocial behav-
ior be explained on the basis of different core motivations?
The answers to these questions were sought mainly in the theory
of goal framing and of mental models of relationships. Framing is a
process that can create integrated patterns of goal pursuit, with selec-
tive attention to certain features of the situation, with sensitivity to
certain information, and with the activation of certain chunks of mem-
ory and knowledge. It is a combined cognitive-motivational process
that creates core motivations. In an action situation, this process is fed
by the mental model of the social relationship the actor perceives or
intends to have with the other actor(s). This mental model also con-
tains information about the kinds of prosocial behavior expected
within such a relationship. Different kinds of relationship may require
different kinds of prosocial behavior.
Three different master frames were identified that represent dif-
ferent core motivations: a normative frame (with the goal to act appro-
priately), a gain frame (with the goal to increase ones resources),
and a hedonic frame (with the goal to feel better). Prosocial behavior
can occur in each of these frames, but the conditions that affect its
occurrence are very different in each of them. For example, a norma-
tive frame is the most precarious and needs more social support for its
stability than the other frames. In addition, the likelihood of prosocial
behavior occurring in a normative frame is likely to decrease rapidly
with relational confusion and vague norms even if the frame itself is
stable. Prosocial behavior in a gain frame is very sensitive to the influ-
ence of relative costs of such behavior in comparison to the costs of
other alternatives leading to the same goal (gain). In a hedonic frame,
the occurrence of prosocial behavior reacts strongly to changes in
moods and to the atmosphere of the situation in terms of friendliness.
Aspects of the situation (such as social, institutional, and cultural fac-
tors) and of the person (such as personality traits and skills) strongly
influence the kind of master frame and the kind of relational mental
model that are operative in a given situation. These links were not dis-
cussed in detail here, but they will ultimately be the major test of the
usefulness of this approach to the study of prosocial behavior, and
other chapters in this book take a more thorough look at its potential
for explaining prosocial behavior.
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Bacon.
CHAPTER 3
Learning and Framing in

Social Exchange
Andreas Flache and Michael W. Macy
Reciprocity is one of the most widespread and persistent norms for

regulating behavior in long-term social relationships (Gouldner, 1960).
Successful relationships are typically characterized by a pattern of recip-
rocal solidarity, while sour relationships display the mirror imagea
pattern of mutual recrimination (e.g., Buunk and Dijkstra, this volume).
We define solidarity as behavior that benefits others at some cost that is
not immediately compensated (cf. Lindenberg, Fetchenhauer, Flache,
and Buunk, this volume). Reciprocal solidarity is widely observed in
exchanges between family members, firms, and nation-states.
The Puzzle of Reciprocity
The robustness and prevalence of reciprocal solidarity presents a

puzzle. Although both sides benefit from mutual cooperation (the
exchange of valued resources), each is also tempted by incentives and
opportunities to unilaterally defect (to fail to reciprocate the partners
solidary behavior). For example, in business relations such temptation
may occur when a firm has already received payment for a shipment
from a long-standing client, but then suddenly receives an order from
a new client that may be willing to engage in future contracts. The sup-
plier is tempted to give priority to the potential new business relation
and to delay the shipment to its old client, violating in the process the
norm of due delivery for due payment in relations with long-standing
partners. The result may be something that neither of the two old busi-
ness partners actually wants: deterioration of the relationship into
mutual distrust or even disruption of the business contact. Yet numer-
ous experimental studies of exchange behavior have demonstrated
the robustness of reciprocal solidarity despite opportunities to cheat
the exchange partner without danger of being detected or punished
(e.g., Buunk and Schaueffeli, 1999; Ligthart, 1995). Why is reciprocal
45
46 A. Flache and M.W. Macy
solidarity in ongoing exchange relations so widespread and why is the

norm of reciprocity so robust across a variety of exchange situations?
In this chapter, we compare two proposed approacheslearning
and framingthat address why and when reciprocity may prevail
despite the opportunistic temptation to cheat. In framing theory
(Lindenberg, 1998 and this volume), situational characteristics and
the history of the relationship determine whether actors frame their
decisions in the exchange primarily in terms of gain or whether gain
as a dominant goal is tempered or even replaced by the goal to follow
norms of solidarity. These norms can vary in strength. Solidarity
norms are strong when solidary behavior is the actors dominant goal
(i.e., their frame) of the exchange situation. When solidarity norms
are present but weak, then the gain motive still dominates, but it is
tempered by solidarity as a goal in the background. With strong or
weak solidarity, participants in an exchange tend to ignore incidental
temptation to defect and they also tend to forgive each other if things
occasionally go wrong. Only strong temptations or consistent viola-
tions of reciprocity by the exchange partner may bring about such a
salient gain frame that the relationship deteriorates into mutual
defection.
We compare framing theory to a learning-theoretic alternative. Our
learning model draws upon Thorndikes (1911) Law of Effect, which is
based on the principle that pleasure stamps in, pain stamps out. We
show that the Law of Effect suffices to model reciprocity in long-term
relationships, without the need for elaborations to the theory such
as role modeling or social learning (Bandura, 1977) in which actors imi-
tate rules observed in significant or successful others. Using Rapoport
and Chammahs (1965) application of the Bush-Mosteller stochastic
learning model, Macy (1991) showed how penalty-aversive, reward-
seeking agents can elude the trap of mutual defection and establish
a successful ongoing exchange relationship. A random sequence of
bilateral outcomes (either mutual cooperation or mutual defection)
can lead adaptive agents out of the social trap of mutual defection
into stable mutual cooperation, a process he characterized as stochastic
collusion.
Growing interest in framing and learning reflect widespread criti-
cisms of two alternative theories of solidarity in social exchange
rational calculation and natural selection. In the next section, we
outline these criticisms and show how framing and learning approaches
avoid these limitations. Then we compare the behavioral assumptions
underlying framing and learning theory and the implications of framing
and learning for the conditions and dynamics of reciprocal solidarity.
We conclude with a discussion of the complementarities of the two
theories.
3: Learning and Framing in Social Exchange 47
Competing Approaches: Rational Choice and Evolution
Rational choice theory models actors as cognitively sophisticated

and self-interested decision makers who evaluate all possible future
consequences of alternative actions and select the action that maxi-
mizes their self-interest (Coleman, 1990, pp. 1319). In this view, recip-
rocal solidarity is a rational response to enlightened self-interest. In
repeated interactions, egoistic actors who value future outcomes may be
better off if they resist the temptation to take advantage of a cooperative
partner and instead reciprocate. So long as there is a sufficiently long
shadow of the future (Axelrod, 1984; cf. Friedman, 1971), the expec-
tation of long-term gain through a cooperative relationship will deter
rational actors from adopting a strategy of hit and run that is likely to
bring the relationship to an end. This expectation, in turn, rests on the
rational expectation that ones partner will retaliate if cheated and will
likewise resist the temptation to cheat. Accordingly, orthodox rational
choice explanations rest on the assumption of a reflexive rationality of
actors anticipating each others choices (Scharpf, 1990, p. 471).
Numerous critics have argued that this model of action is psycholog-
ically unrealistic because it overestimates the capacity and willingness of
actors to calculate the long-term cumulative benefits against the short-run
advantage of hit and run. For example, Simon (1992, p. 36) regarded
strategic rationality as at best a prescriptive model of how choices should
be made, but one that bears little resemblance to actual decision making.
These criticisms have led researchers to include bounded rationality
explicitly in rational choice explanations. Examples are approaches that
take into account imperfect information processing or models that maxi-
mize utility only in the short term and fail to anticipate long-term future
consequences (e.g., Fudenberg and Levine, 1998).
Theories of learning and framing assume at most a bounded ration-
ality and thus provide microfoundations for cooperative reciprocity that
do not rely on heroic assumptions about perfect rationality and full
information. Instead, learning and framing assume adaptive heuristics
or rules of thumb that impose relatively small cognitive demands
compared to the assumptions in analytical game theory (Orbell and
Dawes, 1991). These heuristics have been identified through experi-
mental analyses of human decision making. With these heuristics,
Orbell and Dawes argue, real decision makers economize on cognitive
effort (1991, p. 517) rather than pursue perfectly rational solutions.
Parallel with the development of models of bounded rationality,
criticism of rational choice explanations led game theorists to explore
evolutionary alternatives. Studies in evolutionary game theory (e.g.,
Axelrod, 1984; Maynard-Smith, 1982) avoid the need to assume that
individual actors have highly sophisticated cognitive abilities. The
optimizing mechanism operates not at the level of individual cogni-

tion, but at the population level, through competitive pressures that
favor the survival and replication of behavioral strategies that are suc-
cessful relative to the population average. In a celebrated computer
tournament, Axelrod (1984) showed that strategies based on tit for
tat (a rule to reciprocate cooperation with cooperation and cheating
with cheating) were far more successful than more aggressive or preda-
tory mutants. Tit for tat succeeds because it never cheats and it never
tolerates cheating by others. It therefore receives the long-term benefits
of ongoing mutual cooperation while minimizing its vulnerability to
cheaters. Cheaters would do well in a population of naive cooperators,
but by driving the latter to extinction, they dig their own graves. In a
population of reciprocators, cheating triggers retaliation. Thus, the
short-term benefit of cheating cannot keep up with the long-term ben-
efits of mutual cooperation enjoyed by reciprocators.
Critics of evolutionary explanations based on natural selection have
pointed out that genetic replication and selection may be a misleading
template for models of adaptation at the cognitive level (Aunger, 2001).
A central problem is that behavioral strategies for exchange in long-term
relationships are not simply hardwired programs that successful actors
automatically pass on to their biological offspring. Adherents of evolu-
tionary psychology argue that the effects of natural selection on contem-
porary human behavior may be much more indirect (cf. Cosmides and
Tooby, 1992). These authors emphasize that natural selection requires a
long time span with stable environmental conditions to effectively shape
the genetic basis of human behavior. Moreover, genetic predispositions
do not carry detailed information about which behavioral response the
organism should choose in a given situation. Instead, genetic programs
may elicit certain emotional responses (e.g., anger) to certain situational
cues (e.g., failure of partner to reciprocate). Within these constraints,
genetic dispositions still leave room for extragenetic behavioral change,
for example, based on learning or conscious deliberation.
Theories of learning and framing address this gap in evolutionary
models of adaptive behavior. In evolution, strategies compete between
the individuals that carry them, not within them. That is, evolutionary
models explore changes in the global frequency distribution of strate-
gies across a population. By contrast, models of learning and framing
operate on the local probability distribution of strategies within the
repertoire of each individual member. Put differently, these models
provide a microfoundation for the extragenetic behavioral change that
is missing in evolutionary approaches. While evolutionary theory
explains long-term cognitive developments such as the human capaci-
ties for learning and framing, these capacities in turn complement
evolutionary theories by explaining more fine-grained adaptive
responses to short-term changes in the environment.
To sum up, both orthodox game theory based on assumptions of

perfect rationality as well as an evolutionary alternative have been
widely used to explain strategies of reciprocal solidarity in social
exchange. Relentless criticisms of these game theoretic approaches have
motivated interest in both framing and learning as alternative explana-
tions of reciprocal solidarity (cf. Lindenberg, this volume; Lindenberg
et al., this volume; Macy and Flache, 2002). However, these two
approaches have developed in parallel, with no attention to their theo-
retical differences and similarities. It is to that question we now turn.
Framing and Learning: Assumptions Compared
The behavioral assumptions in framing and learning theories

occupy a similar niche between evolution and full rationality but are
otherwise very different from one another. An extensive account of
framing explanations of solidary behavior has been given in Chapters
1 and 2 of this volume. Reciprocity in exchanges can be seen as an
instance of weak solidarity. Under conditions of weak solidarity, par-
ticipants in an exchange feel legitimated to pursue the goal of improv-
ing their personal resources through the exchange (Lindenberg, 2001
and this volume), but compliance with social norms remains a salient
secondary goal. That is, solidarity is not so strong a goal that individu-
als are willing to sacrifice resources without the expectation of reci-
procity. But the goal is salient enough that moderate temptations to
cheat are ignored and occasional failures to reciprocate (perhaps due to
mishaps) are forgiven when excuses have been made.
Framing theory specifies relational signals as a crucial mechanism
that stabilizes weak solidarity against the continuous pull from
opportunistic temptation (Lindenberg, 1998). Relational signaling
requires that an occasional failure to reciprocate be accompanied by an
unambiguous signal that no cheating was intended. In a long-term
exchange, such a signal might, for instance, be given through tempo-
rary unconditional cooperation by the party that violated the norm. In
addition to relational signals, framing theory posits loss avoidance as a
mechanism that safeguards against opportunism. As Lindenberg (2001)
argues, when an actor feels threatened by a severe loss (for example,
when cheating by a long-term exchange partner may be particularly
costly), this may trigger a loss frame in which avoidance of the loss
dominates normative or gain-oriented motives. Actors anticipation of
such a frame switch, in turn, may stabilize cooperation, particularly
in situations where unsolidary behavior may elicit retaliatory
responses that can inflict severe losses on the transgressor. For exam-
ple, Mhlau (2000, p. 211) points out in an analysis of framing effects
in organizational governance that the higher the damage potential the
other party controls, the more willing an actor will be to bear the costs
associated with relational obligations (cf. Lindenberg, 1988). Translated
into social exchanges, this loss avoidance implies that cooperative reci-
procity will be particularly stable when the loss of resources obtained
from the exchange partner could be highly damaging for a participant.
In sum, framing theory does not neglect self-interested motives
and leaves ample room for goal-directed individual choice. However,
the model also posits a cognitive miser (Orbell and Dawes, 1991) in
that it assumes that the complexity of individuals decision making in
most decision-making situations is greatly reduced by a focus on one
foreground goal at a time.
Like framing theory, learning theory also relaxes key behavioral
assumptions of the orthodox rational choice approach without disregard-
ing self-interest and goal-driven decision making. There are three key dif-
ferences with analytical game theory based on standard rational choice:
Propinquity replaces causality as the link between choices and
payoffs.
Reward and punishment replace utility as the motivation for
choice.
Melioration replaces optimization as the basis for the distribu-
tion of choices over time.
Propinquity, not Causality
Compared to analytical game theory, the Law of Effect imposes a

lighter cognitive load on decision makers. It assumes experiential
induction of the future consequences of actions that were previously
encountered. By contrast, rational behavior assumes logical deduction
of actions that may never have been experienced. In learning theory,
players develop preferences for those actions associated with better
outcomes in the past, even though the association may be coincidental,
superstitious, or causally spurious.
Reward and Punishment, not Utility
Learning theory differs from game-theoretic utility theory in that it

posits two distinct cognitive mechanisms that guide decision makers
toward better outcomes: approach (driven by reward) and avoidance
(driven by punishment). The distinction means that aspiration levels
are very important for learning theory. The effect of an outcome
depends on whether it is coded as gain or loss, satisfactory or unsatis-
factory, pleasant or aversive.
Melioration, not Optimization
Melioration implies a tendency to repeat choices with satisfactory

outcomes even if other choices have higher utility, a behavioral ten-
dency March and Simon (1958) call satisficing. A good example is the
decision whether to cooperate in an ongoing exchange. Melioration can
imply that each side is satisfied with its current choice when the part-
ner cooperates and dissatisfied when the partner defects. Unsatisfactory
outcomes increase the probability that alternative actions will be taken,
including a tendency to revisit alternative choices whose outcomes are
even worse, a pattern we call dissatisficing.
While the three learning principles may describe decision making
that is suboptimal by conventional game-theoretic criteria, they may be
more effective in leading actors out of social traps than more sophisti-
cated decision-making rules. The outcomes of the exchange that are
regarded as rewards, such as a successful and mutually profitable busi-
ness transaction, induce approach behavior, the tendency to repeat the
associated choices even if other choices have higher utility. In contrast,
outcomes that are coded as punishments, such as being cheated by an
exchange partner, induce avoidance. Taken together, approach and
avoidance imply the possibility that reciprocal solidarity may become
self-reinforcing in exchange relations. As long as participants are suffi-
ciently satisfied with mutual cooperation (approach) and they are suf-
ficiently dissatisfied with failure to exchange (avoidance), learning
dynamics may lead actors to engage in reciprocal cooperation.
Comparison of Theory Implications
Both framing and reinforcement learning theories predict behavior

that corresponds with reciprocal solidarity. But do the models also
make similar predictions about the conditions and dynamics of recip-
rocal solidarity? We found remarkable overlap between the two sets of
predictions, but with one interesting exception. Framing suggests that
frequent norm violations lead inevitably to irreversible deterioration of
the exchange. In contrast, learning theory implies that recovery is pos-
sible, even when actors adapt their aspirations to recent experience.
To compare the implications of framing and learning theories, we
used formal games as stylized representations of strategic interdepend-
ence in ongoing exchanges. Game theory has formalized the problem of
cooperation at the most elementary level as a mixed-motive two-person
game with two choices: cooperate and defect. These choices intersect
at four possible outcomes, abbreviated as CC, CD, DD, and DC. Each
outcome has an associated payoff: R (reward), S (sucker), P (punish-
ment), and T (temptation), respectively. Using these payoffs, we defined
a two-person social dilemma as any ordering of these payoffs such

that mutual cooperation is collectively optimal yet may be undermined
by the temptation to cheat (if T > R) or by the fear of being cheated (if
P > S), or by both. In the game of Stag Hunt, the problem is fear but
not greed (R > T > P > S), and in the game of Chicken, the problem is
greed but not fear (T > R > S > P). The problem is most challenging
when both fear and greed are present, that is, when T > R and P > S.
Given the assumption that R > P, there is only one way this can happen:
if T > R > P > S, the celebrated game of Prisoners Dilemma (PD).
For social exchange situations, the games of Stag Hunt, Chicken,
and PD correspond to different forms of interdependence. As Rousseau
(who invented the game) noted, Stag Hunt games may arise when con-
tributions by all participants are necessary to produce a common good
that everyone values highly. The prototypical example is a work team
that has the opportunity to receive a substantial bonus payment for all
team members, but only when a production target is met for which great
effort on the part of all members is needed. The Chicken game models
a situation where the bonus may be obtained if at least some members
shoulder the burden, but it will certainly be lost if at least a certain frac-
tion of the group fails to pull its weight. Group members may prefer to
free-ride, but if they feel that the bonus may be lost due to others free-
riding, they give in and work hard to avoid the worst. Finally, in the
PD game, contributions do not sufficiently reduce the chances of obtain-
ing the bonus to compensate for the cost of effort. Even in PD, however,
universal defection is suboptimal, because all group members prefer to
work and get the bonus than lose it because of universal free-riding.
To compare predictions for long-term exchange relationships, we
assume that actors in an exchange relation play the underlying game
repeatedly and learn the outcomes after every round of mutual decision
making. For simplicity, we further confine our analysis to symmetrical
games in which the payoffs R, T, P, and S are equal for both players.
With respect to learning theory, we draw on results that we elaborated
elsewhere in formal computational experiments (Flache and Macy,
2002; Macy, 1991; Macy and Flache, 2002). In these studies, we used the
Bush-Mosteller stochastic learning model, a mathematical formaliza-
tion of reinforcement learning. Figure 3.1 provides a schematic
overview of the learning mechanism in our computational model.
Partners Choice: C/D Aspiration Level
Propensity C/D Outcome Payoff Stimulus

[CC,DD,CD,DC ] [R,P,S,T ]
FIGURE 3.1. The Reinforcement Learning Mechanism

The first step in Figure 3.1 is the decision made by each player
whether to cooperate or defect. This decision is probabilistic, based on
the players current propensity to cooperate. The resulting outcome
then generates payoffs (R, S, P, or T) that the players evaluate as satis-
factory or unsatisfactory relative to their aspiration levels. Satisfactory
payoffs present a positive stimulus (or reward) and unsatisfactory pay-
offs present a negative stimulus (or punishment). The stimulus modi-
fies the probability of repeating the associated choice, such that
satisfactory choices become more likely to be repeated, while repeti-
tion of unsatisfactory choices becomes less likely. For a formal specifi-
cation of learning dynamics, we refer interested readers to our previous
publications (e.g., Flache and Macy, 2002; Macy and Flache, 2002).
Unlike reinforcement learning theory, framing theory has not yet
been fully formalized in such a way that model dynamics are directly
comparable. To make a comparison possible, we derived from framing
theory informally stylized facts about the effects of game structures and
game parameters. We compared these facts to the implications of a
computational model of reinforcement learning.
Framing Predictions
The first step is to make assumptions about players frames at the

outset of a repeated game, when the relationship does not yet have a
history. Framing theory assumes that decision making is forward-
looking in the sense that actors mental images of a relationship shape
their initial behavior and aspirations. Mental images, in turn, depend
on the social context of a relationship (see Lindenberg et al., this vol-
ume). This highlights an important theoretical difference between
framing and reinforcement learning: While assumptions about the ini-
tial perceptions of the relationship are endogenous in framing theory,
reinforcement learning theory treats initial aspirations and behavior as
exogenously given and independent of the particular situation. For our
analysis of the three abstract social dilemma games, however, the game
structures as such do not provide information about the social context
of the interaction. Accordingly, for a framing analysis, we need to use
assumptions that are exogenous to the theory. Such assumptions are
drawn from experimental data on social dilemma games.
Experimental data about social dilemma games seem to be most
consistent with the assumption that subjects frame the exchange situa-
tion initially in terms of weak solidarity (cf. Davis and Holt, 1993). Two
highly robust results from the literature support this interpretation.
First, across a wide range of social dilemma games, subjects exhibited
in experiments have a large proportion of cooperative choices in the
first iterations of repeated games, an observation that is at odds with
the notion that subjects are exclusively gain oriented. At the same time,
cooperation rates steadfastly declined over time in the experiments
(Andreoni, 1988), a clear indication that the solidarity motive at best
tempers but does not dominate gain considerations.
Given initial weak solidarity, we find three stylized facts implied
by framing that can be compared with learning predictions. First, fram-
ing theory suggests that cooperation rates will be lowest in PD, highest
in Stag Hunt, and between these extremes in Chicken. The payoff
inequalities of PD, Chicken, and Stag Hunt differ in two dimensions
that are salient for the framing explanation: the temptation to engage in
opportunism and the importance of loss avoidance. The greater the
temptation to engage in opportunism, that is, the larger the gains that an
actor may attain when he or she unilaterally deviates from reciprocal
solidarity, the more salient the motive of gain relative to the normative
frame that stabilizes mutual cooperation. The temptation to unilaterally
defect from mutual cooperation is lowest in Stag Hunt, where players
prefer mutual cooperation to cheating, and is similar in Chicken and
PD, where both players prefer exploitation of the partner to mutual
cooperation. Loss avoidance works in the opposite direction. The threat
of loss to a player owing to deterioration of the relationship may actu-
ally strengthen solidary behavior. Such losses are highest in Chicken
(where mutual defection is the least preferred outcome), and they are
higher in Stag Hunt than in PD (because the difference between mutual
cooperation and mutual defection tends to be larger in Stag Hunt).
Taken together, from a framing perspective, conditions for reciprocal
solidarity are least favorable in PD (high temptation, low loss from
opportunism), and they are most favorable in Stag Hunt (low tempta-
tion, medium loss), with the Chicken game between these extremes.
The second stylized fact implied by framing theory is the gradual
decline of cooperation rates over time in games with a high temptation
to defect (PD and Chicken). Lindenberg (1998) argues that ongoing
exposure to such temptation may gradually weaken actors normative
frames such that, at some point, the relationship may turn sour and
degrade into mutual defection. He also points out that consistent and
repeated relational signals of cooperative intentions by both parties
may prevent the decline. In the simple social dilemma games that we
analyzed, however, the only interaction between players was in their
decision to cooperate or defect. Hence, the only relational signal an
actor can give after occasional unilateral cheating is subsequent uncon-
ditional cooperation. Clearly, the same temptation that leads an actor
to cheat in the first place may also prevent the actor from giving this
costly signal. Accordingly, framing theory suggests that exchange rela-
tions have a tendency to eventually degrade into mutual defection,
more so in games with higher temptation to defect (PD, Chicken) and
less so in Stag Hunt.
Clearly our list of stylized facts derived from framing is far from
exhaustive and may be extended in future research. For the predictions
we derive here, we explored whether similar conditions and dynamics
of reciprocal solidarity would be obtained from reinforcement learning.
Framing Predictions and a Computational Model of

Learning
We use a set of learning assumptions that make reciprocal solidarity

based on stochastic collusion possible but not trivial. We assume that at
the outset of the games players will randomize between cooperation and
defection, reflecting the assumption that no stimuli have yet been expe-
rienced that favor choices in one direction or the other. Furthermore, we
set the rate of behavioral change following stimuli relatively high,
approaching a win-stay, lose-change heuristic, in which choices are
always repeated when rewarded and always changed to the alternative
(C or D) when punished. To formalize the three games, we use payoffs
ordered from the set [4, 3, 1, 0] for each of the three social dilemma pay-
off inequalities. We assume an aspiration level of A = 2 that corresponds
to the payoff expected when behavioral propensities are uninformed by
prior experience and all players randomize such that all four payoffs are
equiprobable. With this aspiration level, mutual cooperation is the
unique outcome in all three games that simultaneously satisfy both play-
ers. There is no guarantee, however, that mutual cooperation will arise,
since players will also be punished for cooperation should the partner
defect, and they will be rewarded for defection should the partner coop-
erate (Flache and Macy, 2002; Macy and Flache, 2002).
Figure 3.2 shows single replications of the learning dynamics that
we obtained in all three social dilemma games using these baseline
assumptions. The figure charts the change in the probability of coopera-
tion (PC) for one of two players with statistically identical probabilities.
1.00
1.00 1.00
0.75 0.75 0.75
0.50 0.50 0.50
0.25 0.25 0.25
0.00 0.00 0.00

1 20 40 60 80 100 1 20 40 60 80 100 1 20 40 60 80 100
Prisoners Dilemma Chicken Stag Hunt

(T>R>A>P>S ) (T>R>A>S>P ) (R>T>A>P>S )
FIGURE 3.2. Stochastic Collusion in Three Social Dilemma Games(p = [4,3,1,0],

A = 2, initial probability of cooperation = 50%, high learning rate)
Figure 3.2 shows that dissatisficing learning players initially wander

about in an unstable equilibrium with a low probability of cooperation,
but eventually escape the social trap by random walk (or what we call
stochastic collusion). The figure also reveals differences between the
games. Mutual cooperation stabilizes most readily in Stag Hunt and least
readily in Prisoners Dilemma. To test the robustness of this difference,
we performed 1,000 replications of the experiment and measured the
proportion of runs that stabilized on mutual cooperation within 250 iter-
ations. The results confirmed the differences between the games. These
differences reflect subtle but important interactions between aspiration
levels and the type of social dilemmathe relative importance of fear
(the problem in Stag Hunt) and greed (the problem in Chicken).
The findings also show that satisficing is equally important, at
least in the Prisoners Dilemma and in the Chicken game. In these
games, appreciation that the payoff for mutual cooperation is good
enough motivates players to stay the course despite the temptation to
cheat (given T > R). Otherwise, mutual cooperation would not be self-
reinforcing. In Stag Hunt, satisficing is less needed in the long run,
because there is no temptation to cheat (R > T). Despite the absence of
greed, however, the findings reveal that, even in Stag Hunt, fear may
inhibit stochastic collusion if high aspirations limit satisficing.
With respect to framing theory, the results shown in Figure 3.2
demonstrate that our simple reinforcement learning model generates
the same qualitative differences between games as are predicted by the
first stylized fact we derived from framing theory. Interestingly, the
underlying mechanisms also seem very similar. In learning, it is the
proper balance between the punishment for defection and the reward
for cooperation that drives the emergent reciprocity in exchange rela-
tions. In framing, reciprocity thrives on the proper balance between
resistance to the temptation to cheat and the motivation to avoid losses
caused by mutual sanctioning.
However, when we turn to the second stylized fact derived from
framinggradual decline of cooperationwe find a clear difference
between the predictions. As Figure 3.2 shows, reinforcement learning
implies a robust tendency of exchange relationships to recover from
occasional violations of the reciprocity norm, even when these viola-
tions are quite frequent, as, for example, between iterations 20 and 60
of the PD experiment. Framing, on the other hand, suggests that after
too many violations of normative expectations, relations decay into
mutual defection without the possibility to recover (cf. Lindenberg,
1998). The latter pattern seems more consistent with experimental
results from social dilemma games (Andreoni, 1988) than the consis-
tent recovery predicted by learning models.
To further test this difference between the theories, we added to
the learning model an additional learning principle that may explain,
from a learning perspective, why reciprocal solidarity can become

unstable. This learning principle, called habituation (Sokolov, 1963),
assumes a decline in the tendency to respond to stimuli that have
become familiar through repeated exposure. Technically, we opera-
tionalize habituation as the tendency to adapt aspiration levels to expe-
rienced payoffs. Habituation can lead to desensitization to a recurrent
stimulus, whether reward or punishment, and to increased sensitivity
to change in the stimulus. Thus, habituation to reward decreases sen-
sitivity to further reward but increases sensitivity to punishment. We
model habituation as the tendency of aspirations gradually to float
toward the average payoff experienced in recent interactions. In addi-
tion, we assume the same start conditions for the experiment as before.
Figure 3.3 shows the results.
Figure 3.3 shows the destabilizing effects of habituation on the
learning dynamics. All three graphs show that cooperative reciprocity
eventually obtains, as in the baseline experiment shown in Figure 3.2.
However, unlike the earlier experiment, we now see that cooperation
soon destabilizes and deteriorates. Consistent with the differences
between games that we found in the first experiment, cooperative peri-
ods seem to be shortest in PD and cooperation seems to be more stable
in Chicken and Stag Hunt. This pattern was confirmed using statistical
tests. The dynamics for Chicken also show that in this game the strong
punishment for mutual defection serves to suppress habituation in
favor of the social costs of failure to exchange. As Figure 3.3 shows, the
Chicken dynamics reveal no periods of stable mutual defection, unlike
in Stag Hunt or PD, where habituation may make players temporarily
immune to the low payoffs associated with the PD outcome.
The dynamics of habituation in the learning model resemble the
pattern suggested by framing theory, but only to a point. Both models
predict that cooperative reciprocity eventually degrades into mutual
defection. Moreover, consistent with the second stylized fact we
derived from framing theory, this decline seems to be more frequent in
1.00
1.00 1.00
0.80 0.75 0.80
0.60 0.60
0.50
0.40 0.40
0.25
0.20 0.20
0.00 0.00
1 100 200 300 400 500 1 100 200 300 400 500 0.001 100 200 300 400 500
Prisoners Dilemma Chicken Stag Hunt
(T>R>A>P>S) (T>R>A>S>P) (R>T>A>P>S)
FIGURE 3.3. Change in PC Over 500 Iterations With Floating Aspirations (p =

[4,3,1,0], initial A = 2.0, high learning rate, initial cooperation rate PC, 1 = 0.5)
PD (but not in the Chicken game) than in the game of Stag Hunt. A clear
difference, however, is that, according to framing theory, this decline is
irreversible after some point. Learning theory predicts that, after the
decline, habituation will lead to increased sensitivity of the players to
the rewards associated with mutual cooperation. As a consequence,
learning actors have the ability to recover reciprocity even after long
periods of exchange failures and even without the possibility to
exchange relational signals other than cooperation or defection.
Discussion and Conclusion
Both framing theory and learning theory have three important

properties that render them attractive as explanations of reciprocity in
exchange relations. First, they do not trivialize the problem of oppor-
tunism. Second, they take into account individual discretion to devi-
ate from normative obligations or genetic programs. Third, they avoid
heroic assumptions about individual cognitive capacities and perfect
information.
In order to compare the two approaches, we derived from framing
theory stylized predictions about the dynamics of reciprocity in
repeated 2 2 games and compared these to the implications of a com-
putational model of stochastic learning in identical games. We con-
clude from the results that a simple learning model can explain two
key observations about solidarity in ongoing exchanges that are con-
sistent with framing predictions:
stable ongoing reciprocity despite occasional mishaps and mod-
erate rewards for opportunistic behavior;
deterioration of reciprocity relationships as a consequence of
strong rewards for opportunism or habituation to the rewards for
mutual cooperation.
Our analysis also revealed testable differences between the learn-
ing model and the framing approach in their predictions about recov-
ery of reciprocity from collapse of mutual cooperation. Although
framing suggests that norm violations eventually lead to irreversible
collapse, learning theory implies that recovery is possible if the learn-
ing rate is sufficiently high. With a low learning rate, however, the
learning model also predicts difficulty recovering from the collapse of
mutual cooperation. Laboratory experiments are needed to test the rel-
ative explanatory power of the two theories as the rates of learning and
habituation are manipulated to generate discrepant predictions.
Although we have not explored all possible implications of
the two theories, we tentatively conclude that learning theory may
provide a more parsimonious explanation of the dynamics of ongo-
ing reciprocity, based on elementary principles that remain largely
implicit in framing theory. Conversely, framing theory addresses

explicitly how actors perceptions of the exchange situation may
shape their initial aspirations and behavioral propensities, a crucial
element for relational dynamics that is left exogenous in rein-
forcement learning. Clearly, each theory may benefit from a more
explicit elaboration of those elements that are underspecified in its
counterpart.
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CHAPTER 4
Perceptions of Prosociality and

Solidarity in Self and Others
Detlef Fetchenhauer and David Dunning
One of the most robust findings in social psychology is that people

perceive themselves to exhibit more solidarity and prosociality than
their peersthat, when the time comes, they will act in more gener-
ous, altruistic, ethical, and kind ways than will others. In accordance
with the wide definition of these terms in Chapter 1 of this book, we
will use the terms solidarity and prosociality interchangeably here.
People believe they are more likely than others to donate blood
(Goethals, 1986), or to give up their seat in a crowded bus to a preg-
nant woman (Goethals, Messick, and Allison, 1991). In a Prisoners
Dilemma game, people believe they are much more likely than
their peers to cooperate (Epley and Dunning, 2000; Goethals, 1986).
When asked to recount how they have treated others fairly in the
past, people cite many more actions than when asked to describe
how others have acted similarly (Messick, Bloom, Boldizar, and
Samuelson, 1985).
There is a problem, however, with these assessments, as it is
impossible for the typical subject to be more prosocial than the typical
subject (except in extremely skewed distributions). Given this logical
impossibility, these self-perceptions reveal a systematic bias, which
has been called the better than average effect or the uniqueness
bias (as people perceive themselves to be unique in their high level of
morality). The better than average effect is not restricted to the per-
ception of prosociality. For example, people tend to think of them-
selves as being more intelligent, attractive, idealistic, disciplined, and
sophisticated than others (Alicke, 1985; Dunning, Meyerowitz, and
Holzberg, 1989; Hoorens, 1994). Nevertheless, the better than average
effect is especially strong with regard to issues of morality and ethics.
People may be willing to concede that others are more intelligent, but
they are highly reluctant to accept that others are more prosocial than
they are (e.g., Allison, Messick, and Goethals, 1989; Van Lange and
Sedikides, 1998).
61
62 D. Fetchenhauer and D. Dunning
A Motivational Explanation for the Uniqueness Bias
Why do people perceive themselves to be more prosocial than

others? Most social psychologists who have tried to answer this ques-
tion rest their explanations on the assumption that people have a
strong need or desire to perceive themselves as ethical and fair
(Dunning, 2001; Kunda, 1990). As a consequence, people cognitively
arrange their perceptions to ensure that they can claim to be unfail-
ingly moral and altruistic, whereas others are more suspect. Moral
standards are rarely absolute, and thus such arrangements are easily
made in the realm of prosocial behavior.
One possible way to arrange and ensure self-perceptions of moral-
ity is to take care in defining which actions are moral and which are
not (Dunning et al., 1989). For example, when a store clerk gives back
too much change, is the ethical action to point out the error (and thus
to be honest) or to say nothing (because, after all, each of us is ulti-
mately responsible for our own actions)? Each individual is free to
define morality in a way that places his or her own actions in the best
possible light, emphasizing his or her own habits as central to moral-
ity and defining actions not taken as less central. Essential to a moti-
vational account, this tendency to emphasize positive self-attributes
such as morality is strengthened after peoples positive views of them-
selves are called into question through a failure experience. However,
after a success experience, people show relatively little tendency to
define social traits in self-serving ways (Dunning, Leuenberger, and
Sherman, 1995).
A person can alter his or her standard of behavior that counts as
moral or altruistic. For example, when stopped in the street to con-
tribute to Doctors Without Borders, it is clear that the prosocial action
is to donate money. But how much money does one have to give in
order to be considered generous: One dollar, two, five, fifty? People
tend to adopt standards that allow them to claim that they are gener-
ous, sometimes exclusively so. For example, a person who gives a dol-
lar can claim that 50 cents counts as generous, whereas a person who
gives $50 can claim that no one is generous until he or she has given
$45 (Dunning and Cohen, 1992). Once again, critical to a motivational
account, people adopt more self-serving standards after a failure expe-
rience that calls their self-esteem into question than they do after a suc-
cess experience (Beauregard and Dunning, 1998).
Self-perceptions of moral superiority can also be influenced by
how abstractly moral behaviors are interpreted and encoded. For exam-
ple, if a person helps another up a flight of stairs, is that behavior
encoded as being kind (an abstract encoding) or simply as helping a per-
son climb the stairs (a concrete encoding) (Maass, Ceccarelli, and
Rudin, 1996)? People tend to encode their own prosocial behaviors
4: Perceptions of Prosociality and Solidarity 63
abstractly, indicating that these behaviors reflect personal traits and

character, but describe their antisocial behaviors concretely, thus failing
to make any inference about the deeper meaning of these actions. For
others, however, people are more likely to encode prosocial behaviors
concretely and antisocial behaviors abstractly. For example, I may sim-
ply cut in line in front of others, but you are being rude (Taris, 1999). If
our own moral actions are encoded in abstract ways that comment pos-
itively on our character, whereas our questionable actions remain nar-
rowly defined behaviors, it is clear how perceptionsparticularly
unrealistic onesof moral superiority may arise.
More recent evidence suggests that similar psychological mecha-
nisms underlie the belief that we are more prosocial than our peers.
Ybarra and Stephan (1996) have shown that people tend to remember
other peoples behavior in a misanthropic manner. They are more
likely to recall negative information about the behavior of others if that
behavior is attributed to internal causes (i.e., the character of the other
person) than if it is attributed to external causes (i.e., situational cir-
cumstances). In addition, people are better able to recall positive infor-
mation about the behavior of others if that behavior was supposed to be
attributed to external causes than if it was supposed to be attributed to
internal causes. Ybarra (1999) summarized the findings of this research
as follows: People preferentially recall behaviors that cast the target in
the most negative light, that is, negative behaviors for which the target
is blamed and positive behaviors for which the target is not given
credit (p. 261). In follow-up work, Ybarra (1999) showed directly that
this effect of misanthropic person memory is at least partly due to
peoples motivation to enhance their moral self-image. When partici-
pants self-esteem was bolstered by giving them positive feedback about
their skills in an analogical reasoning task, the misanthropic person
memory effect disappeared. It seems that people have a need to perceive
others as morally bad to enhance their own self-esteem, and that this
bias in others perception is no longer apparent if people are given other
opportunities to strengthen their own self-esteem.
People may also boost their moral self-esteem in other ways. For
example, Epley and Dunning (2000) demonstrated in a number of stud-
ies that participants systematically overestimated their own future
prosociality in a given situation but were remarkably good in predict-
ing the prosociality of others. In a number of studies, they asked the
participants about how they intended to behave in situations involving
altruistic or ethical behavior, as well as how fellow participants would
behave in the same situations. At a later point of time, the participants
actual behavior was tested in these situations, to see how often people
chose the prosocial (solidary) or antisocial (unsolidary) behavioral
alternative. For example, in Study 1, they asked the participants
whether they would support the American Cancer Society by buying
a daffodil on a certain weekend five weeks ahead, when such daffodils

would be sold on the campus of Cornell University. Three days after
daffodil weekend, the participants were asked whether they had actu-
ally bought a daffodil. It turned out that the participants had been
much too optimistic about their future prosocial behavior. A total of
83% had stated their intention to buy at least one flower, but only 43%
indicated actually having done so three days after the weekend. With
regard to their fellow students, however, the participants reactions
were quite accurate. On average, participants guessed that 56% of all
the other students would actually buy a daffodila value that was not
very different from the actual value of 43%. Epley and Dunning (2000)
replicated this general pattern of findings across a number of experi-
mental paradigms.
A Cultural Explanation for the Uniqueness Bias
Although the major explanations for the distorted perception of

others solidarity have focused on cognitive and motivational
processes, Miller (1999) has argued in favor of a cultural explanation.
According to Miller, in Western industrialized countries people are
socialized to assume that the selfishness of neoclassical economics is a
reasonable guide to behavior both on a descriptive and a prescriptive
level: People learn to assume that most others are selfish and that one
should be selfish as well. This explanation suggests that a different
mechanism is responsible for the better than average effect than is
argued by Epley and Dunning (2000). Whereas Epley and Dunning
reasoned that people overestimate their own morality but are rather
accurate in estimating others morality, Millers theoretical argument
implies that people underestimate others morality.
Miller and Ratner (1998) have supported this argument with a series
of studies. In these studies, participants were asked to express their atti-
tudes or behavioral intentions toward social issues, such as the alcohol
policy on the university campus, subsidizing medical research, or restric-
tions on smoking. With regard to each issue, Miller and Ratner identified
two different groups who had divergent vested interests. For example, in
one of their studies, they explained to the participants that the National
Health Service was conducting research on a disease that causes severe
gastrointestinal symptoms. In one version of the experiment, the partici-
pants were informed that this disease is only apparent in men, whereas
in the other version participants were informed that this disease is only
apparent in women. The participants were then asked to write a short
essay indicating their attitude toward cutting the budget for research on
this disease for the sake of a nationwide campaign to increase the use of
seatbelts by car drivers. The participants were told that as a result of
cutting the budget for research on this disease by 75%, a medicine to heal
it would only be available within 6 or 7 years. If the subsidies were not
decreased, however, such a medicine would be available in 2 years. The
participants were asked whether they were for or against a cut in the
research budget and whether they would be willing to hand in their stated
attitudes for use in a campaign to prevent cuts in the research budget. In
line with Millers (1999) theoretical argument, the participants attitudes
were not significantly influenced by their own gender (i.e., their own
vested interest in the matter). However, the respondents thought that the
other participants in the study would be influenced strongly by their own
interest in the issue. That is, in their preferences, respondents showed no
tendency toward selfishness (i.e., stating that they favored the research
only when it would benefit their own gender). However, most presumed
that such selfishness would pervade the preferences of others.
A Functional Approach to the Perception

of Others Solidarity
A different perspective on the estimation of others prosociality

focuses on the functions of such judgments. Such a perspective aims at
determining how peoples behavior is guided by the predictions they
make about others, particularly those they interact with. Suppose you,
the reader, were to participate in an experiment where you have to
divide money between yourself and another person. You do not know
who this other person is and will never get to know him or herall
communications with this other person take place solely via the exper-
imenter. One person (Person A) gets $7.50 from the experimenter. She
has two options. She can either keep the $7.50 for herself, in which
case the other person (Person B) gets nothing, or she can give the $7.50
to Person B. In this case, the experimenter adds another $22.50 so that
Person B gets $30 in total. With this $30, Person B has two options. He
or she can either keep $30 and give nothing to Person A, or he or she
can keep $15 and give $15 to Person A. You and the other person are
randomly assigned to the positions of Persons A and B in this situation.
If you were in the position of Person A, would you give your $7.50 to
Person B or would you keep it for yourself? If you were in the position
of Person B and had to divide $30 between yourself and Person A,
would you keep the $30 for yourself or would you give half of it to
Person A? When this experiment was conducted with a group of
American and Dutch undergraduates, how do you think they
behavedhow many of those in the position of Person B do you think
kept the $30 for themselves? Before you continue reading this chapter,
we would like you to write down your answers to these questions on a
piece of paper. We will come back to this issue below.
In the behavioral economics literature, the experimental paradigm

outlined above is called a trust game (Snijders and Keren, 2001). If
Person A trusts Person B, and if Person B shares the $30 evenly, it is
rational (i.e., money maximizing) for Person A to give the money to
Person B (as $15 is more than $7.50). However, if Person B keeps all the
money for him- or herself, Person A ends up with nothing and would
have made a better choice if he or she had kept the money.
At first glance the trust game may appear artificial. However, it
grasps a very ordinary situation: It is common for a person to have the
choice of interacting with another person in a way that might be to his
or her benefit, and to the benefit of the other person. However, choos-
ing to interact carries some risks. The person must expose him- or her-
self to potential losses if the other person does not act in a solidary
way, that is, if the other person fails to be fair, honest, and trustworthy
in his or her treatment of the first person. For example, a business part-
nership can be very profitable, assuming ones partners are as compe-
tent and trustworthy as they portray themselves to be. Collaboration
with another person (on a book, for example, or an invention, or even
a baby) can be very rewarding if the other person acts in a prosocial
and cooperative way. However, to the extent that the other person is
dishonest or selfish, entering into a situation of mutual interdepend-
ence can be quite costly, whether the cost is in financial, social, or psy-
chological terms. Thus, a valid perception of others solidarity and
trustworthiness is essential in many areas of life.
There are various ways in which individuals may assess the trust-
worthiness of others. First, in many situations, we have an ongoing
relationship with an interaction partner whom we may or may not trust
(e.g., a person has been working for a certain employer for a long time).
In such cases, we use the experiences that we have had with this per-
son as a cue for his or her future behavior. In doing so, we use not only
our past experiences with that person, but also our common future
with that person as a cue to his or her trustworthiness (i.e., the longer
we expect our relationship to last in the future, the more willing we are
to trust a person). Second, if we have not interacted with a person
before, we try to find some external information about the person or
organization. For example, employers regularly phone the former
employers of applicants to get some information about their reliability.
Third, when we do not even have this kind of information, we may
ground our judgment on our first impressions of the person. For exam-
ple, many buyer-seller interactions rest on the buyers perception that
he or she is able to judge intuitively the trustworthiness of the seller.
Such intuitions are especially important if the seller is not able to give
any credible and enforceable guarantees for his or her product. A study
by Frank, Gilovich, and Regan (1993) shows that peoples intuitions
and first impressions of others may not be so bad after all. They gave
their participants 30 minutes to become acquainted with each other.

Afterward, the subjects were separated and had to play a Prisoners
Dilemma game with each other. Besides making their own decisions,
they were asked to guess how their interaction partners would behave
in the same situation. Frank et al. showed that, although their predic-
tions were far from perfect, the subjects were able to predict their fel-
low participants behavior significantly better than if the predictions
had been based on chance.
However, what should one do if there is no information at all about
an interaction partner? In such situations, decisions are especially dif-
ficult when it is not in the interaction partners own best interests to
cooperate. For example, in the trust game, any purely self-interested
Person B will simply take all the money given to her and walk away. In
such an interaction under conditions of total anonymity, Person B does
not profit in any way from splitting the money evenly between him- or
herself and Person A. To translate this thought into the terms of the
framing theory outlined in Chapters 1 and 2 of this book, it is only rea-
sonable for Person A to give her money to Person B if she assumes that
Person B is in a normative frame, but not in a gain (or hedonic) frame.
If Person B uses a normative frame, it is highly probable that she will
split the money evenly, because the rules of distributive justice and the
rules of reciprocity will tell her to do so. According to Lindenbergs
framing theory (see Lindenberg, this volume), the perceived likelihood
with which Person A expects Person B to use a normative frame
depends on Person As mental model of the social relation. People dif-
fer substantially in their own behavior as well as in their predictions of
others behavior if they perceive the situation of a trust game mainly as
cooperation or mainly as competition.
When a person does not have any specific information about an
interaction partner, it can be argued that the person takes his or her own
putative behavior in the position of the interaction partner as a guide to
how the other person will behave. Technically speaking, it can be
expected that people reveal a strong consensus effect when asked to
predict the trustworthiness of others (Ross, Green, and House, 1977).
A number of studies have shown that this is the case. For example, in
Fetchenhauer and Dunning (2005), the subjects were asked to indicate
their behavior as Person B in a trust game, and were also asked to estimate
the percentage of their fellow participants who would act in the same way
in the situation of Person B. Both the subjects who decided to keep all the
money for themselves and the subjects who decided to split the money
evenly between themselves and Person A thought that a majority of the
other participants would make the same choice as they did. In addition,
there was a strong correlation between subjects behavior as Person A and
as Person B. Subjects who were trustworthy themselves were much more
trustful than subjects who were not trustworthy (i.e., who kept all the
money when they were in the position of Person B). In a number of stud-
ies, Fetchenhauer and Buunk (2003) showed that subjects reveal such
consensus effects not only in trust games, but also in a variety of other
game-theoretical paradigms.
What can such a functional approach tell us about the uniqueness
bias and the better than average effect? At first glance, one might argue
that people should try to estimate others solidarity as accurately as
possible and that, therefore, no systematic bias should occur. However,
from an evolutionary perspective, the ultimate goal of social percep-
tion is not accuracy but adaptiveness (Krebs and Denton, 1997). That
is, predictions are beneficial not when they are most accurate but
rather when they lead to the most beneficial behavior. A wrong pre-
diction that leads to adaptive behavior is much better than an accurate
prediction that leads to potentially harmful consequences.
This idea was recently elaborated by Haselton and Buss (2000;
Haselton, Nettle, and Andrews, 2005) in their error management theory
(EMT). According to this theory, in many situations, people can make
two different kinds of mistakes. They can either perceive an attribute
that does not exist, or they can ignore an attribute that is present. Using
the example of males perceptions of womens sexual interest, Haselton
and Buss showed that these two mistakes often differ in their harmful-
ness. If, for instance, a male overestimates a females sexual interest in
him this might lead to a rejection of his offer, a consequence that does
not appear to be very costly in terms of evolutionary currency.
However, if a man underestimates a womens sexual interest, this
might lead to a missed chance of sexual intercourse and, thus, to a
missed chance of reproduction, a consequence that is quite negative
from an evolutionary point of view. Following this line of reasoning,
Haselton and Buss argued that throughout the course of human evolu-
tion, males have developed a systematic tendency to overestimate
womens sexual intentions, an effect that has actually been identified
in a number of studies (e.g., Abbey, 1982, 1987).
Transferring EMT to the issue of estimating others solidarity, one
could argue as follows: If people have to judge others as trustworthy or
not, they can make two different kinds of mistakes. On the one hand,
they can distrust a person who can be trusted. On the other hand, they
can trust a person whose intentions are harmful (i.e., who should be
distrusted). Both mistakes differ in their harmfulness. The most
extreme negative consequence of distrusting a person who can be
trusted is a missed chance for cooperation, but one lives to cooperate
another day. However, the most extreme consequence of trusting a
person who is not trustworthy is a massive loss of ones own resources
or possibly even the loss of ones life. Therefore, it seems plausible
that throughout the course of evolution, humans evolved a tendency
to underestimate others level of prosociality because the negative
consequences of such a mistake are less severe than the consequences

of overestimating others morality.
To test these predictions, the first author used a number of differ-
ent game-theoretical paradigms in which people have to divide money
between themselves and another person. In a variety of different
samples (student samples versus a sample of the general population
traveling by train in the Netherlands), subjects had to indicate their
own decisions and estimate the decisions of their fellow participants
in the same situation. The participants consistently tended to underes-
timate the morality of the other participants (note that in these studies,
the participants did not have to estimate or predict their own decisions
as they made their decisions for real). Similar results were obtained as
when using the trust game discussed above (Fetchenhauer and
Dunning, 2005). For example, a sample of 45 psychology undergradu-
ates at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) played this trust
game. Each was given 7.50 euros (about U.S.$9) for participating in
another experiment and was then given the choice of either keeping
the 7.50 euros or giving the money to another person, who would be in
the position of Person B. The participants were told that, in this case,
Person B would have 30 euros in total that she was to divide between
herself and Person A (giving either 15 euros or nothing to Person A).
The participants were informed that a chance mechanism would be
used to put them either in the position of Person A or in the position
of Person B. They then had to indicate how they would behave as
Person A and as Person B.
Most participants acted in prosocial and unselfish ways. In the
position of Person B, 84% of all the participants chose to give half of
their money to Person A, whereas only 16% indicated that they would
keep all the money for themselves. However, this high level of proso-
cial behavior was not anticipated by their peers. On average, partici-
pants in the position of Person A thought that 43% of people in the
position of Person B would choose the unfair option and keep all the
money, leaving Person A with nothing. The reader can reflect on his or
her own estimate of the percentage of Persons B who would choose to
split the $30.
In sum, it may be said that, in their estimations of others behavior,
people reveal both a strong consensus effect (i.e., they think that others
act in approximately the same way as themselves) and a tendency to
perceive themselves as more prosocial than others. These two biases
may be elements of a simple heuristic that people use when estimating
others prosociality: they use their own behavior in a given situation as
a starting point and subtract a certain value to derive an estimation of
the others behavior: Estimated degree of others prosociality = own
level of prosociality minus X. This heuristic can be called the I am
more prosocial than average heuristic. It should be emphasized that no
external information is needed to use this heuristic. The only value that
has to be known is ones own behavior. Thus, the I am more prosocial
than average heuristic is a good example of a fast and frugal heuris-
tic that can be used with a minimum amount of information and
computation (Gigerenzer and Goldstein, 1996; Todd and Gigerenzer,
2000). The use of other heuristics that can be used as easily as the
I am more prosocial than average heuristic would imply presuming
that all other people are generally good (which could be called a phi-
lanthropy heuristic) or generally bad (which could be called a misan-
thropy heuristic). However, if people always used a philanthropy
heuristic, they could easily be exploited by others. On the other hand, if
people constantly applied a misanthropy heuristic, they would often forgo
the chance to cooperate with others in situations whereon averageit
pays to trust ones interaction partners.
Kramer (1998) has pointed out that many people tend to engage in
paranoid cognitions (i.e., are overly suspicious about the trustworthiness
of others). According to Kramer, the more people perceive themselves as
being distinct from members of a reference group (i.e., perceive them-
selves as outsiders), the more they regard themselves as under evaluative
scrutiny by others, and the less certain they are about their social stand-
ing within their group, the stronger this paranoia is. Put differently, the
higher a persons level of vulnerability, the more paranoid (i.e., skeptical)
about others he or she is. From an evolutionary perspective, such behav-
ior makes sense because under conditions of high vulnerability people
are well advised to watch their social environment carefully. From such
a perspective, it is understandable that the better than average effect is
stronger with regard to aspects of prosociality than with regard to aspects
of cognitive skills (e.g., intelligence). Indeed, from an evolutionary point
of view, there is no use in underestimating others intelligence, whereas,
as outlined above, underestimating others trustworthiness helps people
to avoid making costly mistakes.
Summary and Outlook
We reviewed three different perspectives on how people estimate

the solidarity and prosociality of others and why most people think
they are more prosocial than others. According to the motivational per-
spective, the perception of others prosociality is mainly driven by the
desire to bolster or to protect ones moral self-esteem. Perceiving one-
self to be holier than thou is one way to achieve such a goal (Epley
and Dunning, 2000). According to the cultural explanation offered by
Miller (1999), people in Western societies are socialized to regard self-
ishness as a cultural norm and, therefore, tend to underestimate others
solidarity. According to the evolutionary explanation, the perception
of others prosociality mainly has the function of helping us to make

good and wise decisions. One heuristic that serves such a function is
the I am more prosocial than average heuristic, which implies a sys-
tematic bias in underestimating others prosociality.
In addition to their theoretical differences, the studies that we dis-
cussed above seem to have contradictory results. The findings of
research by Epling and Dunning (2000) suggest that people are sur-
prisingly accurate in predicting the behavior of others but systemati-
cally overestimate their own prosociality, while in the research by
Fetchenhauer and Dunning (2005), people seemed to underestimate
systematically the trustworthiness of others. These seemingly contra-
dictory results may be due to one decisive methodological difference:
the timing of the questions put to participants. In the studies by
Fetchenhauer and Dunning, participants were asked about their own
behavior and the behavior of their fellow participants at the same time.
In contrast, participants in the Epley and Dunning (2000) studies were
asked how they and others would behave in a certain situation in the
future. At a later point of time, behavioral measures were taken from
a different sample of participants.
We would argue that the Epley and Dunning (2000) studies reveal
the influence of two different biases that may have canceled each other
out. On the one hand, the participants perceived themselves to be more
ethical than others (decreasing their estimates of others solidarity). On
the other hand, they were too optimistic about their own future soli-
darity. As ones own behavior and ones estimations of others behavior
are closely linked, this effect increased the participants estimates of
others solidarity. This counterbalancing effect of two different biases
can be illustrated with the following example. Suppose a sample of
social scientists were asked how many articles they were going to pub-
lish next year and how many articles their colleagues were going to
publish. Assume that, on average, the scientists participating in this
study expect to publish three articles whereas they expect the average
other scientist to publish only two (thus allowing the typical scientist
to think he or she is more productive than the average scientist). If it
turned out that the actual number of articles published was indeed
about two per year, would this indicate that scientists are really able to
judge their colleagues productivity accurately? Such a result may be
due to two countervailing biases working at the same time: a tendency
to be too optimistic about ones own scientific output (a self-produc-
tivity bias) and a perception of oneself as better than average (an Im
more productive than average bias). In a similar vein, it seems rea-
sonable to assume that the participants of the Epley and Dunning stud-
ies were subject to two biases at the same time: being too optimistic
about their own future solidarity and perceiving themselves to be
morally better than others.
The question remains which motivational or cognitive forces drive

people to perceive themselves to be holier than thou. We argue that
all three explanations outlined above follow a sound reasoning and
rest on substantial empirical evidence. Future researchers could
address more specifically the validity of these different explanations
by examining if the bias is attenuated under the conditions specified
by each explanation. For example, if Millers argument is valid, the
uniqueness bias should disappear (or should at least be smaller) in
non-Western countries. Indirect support for this assumption comes
from studies by Heine, Lehman, Markus, and Kitayama (1999), who
showed that Japanese people do reveal a lower need for self-enhance-
ment than Americans. To our knowledge, however, no studies have
been conducted in which cross-cultural differences in the degree to
which people perceive themselves to be more prosocial than average
were specifically tested. If such differences could be demonstrated, the
cultural explanation by Miller would gain empirical support, whereas
the functional explanation would lose such support.
To give another example of possible future research, researchers
might experimentally vary subjects moral self-esteem and measure
whether these conditions influence the degree to which the subjects
perceive themselves to be morally superior to others. According to a
motivational line of reasoning, the better than average effect should
decline if subjects self-esteem has been boosted and increase when it
has been threatened, whereas according to an evolutionary explana-
tion, peoples estimations of others prosociality should be independ-
ent of the experimental manipulation of subjects self-esteem.
Until such studies are conducted, it is difficult to tell which theo-
retical perspective can really explain why people are systematically
biased in their perceptions of others prosociality. However, that most
people think they are more ethical than others is a very robust finding
of research in the past three decades. Social scientists should be aware
that they personally may be prone to the same biases when they are
formulating their theories about human solidarity. This may be espe-
cially true for rational choice theorists or economists, who sometimes
assume that all people are basically selfish all the time.
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PART II
Personality and Socialization

CHAPTER 5
Personality and Solidary Behavior

Karen van der Zee and Marco Perugini
Why is it that some children in the classroom are always willing to

help a classmate who has difficulties with math or to bring homework
to a child who is ill? Why is it that some individuals cannot resist the
temptation to take paper, pencils, or floppy disks home from the office,
or to make private phone calls at work, whereas others never do? Why
is it that some colleagues are always striving to maximize their own
outcomes, whereas others mostly try to gain benefits for others?
In this chapter, we aim to shed light upon personality determi-
nants of solidary behavior. In general, personality is a pattern of rela-
tively stable traits, characteristics of the individual that give some
consistency to that persons behavior (e.g., Feist and Feist, 1998). This
pattern of traits is different for each individual. Prosocial dispositions
refer to specific tendencies and abilities individuals have to suppress
their own antisocial behavior, or to strengthen their own solidary
behavior. As the examples show, they refer to the ability to suppress
aggression in the face of conflict, to empathize and identify with
others, and to express affection. Such dispositions can be viewed as
relatively stable latent characteristics of individuals. We aimed to inte-
grate a personality approach with a framing perspective. According to
framing theory (see Lindenberg, this volume), dominant goals drive
cognitive processes in which certain categories, beliefs, and attitudes
become more accessible and others less accessible (i.e., they are
pushed into the cognitive background), sensitivity increases for certain
cues and decreases for other cues, and certain behavioral alternatives
become more salient whereas others becomes less salient. As we will
argue below, personality influences the ease with which a particular
frame is mobilized in a given situation, and traits are also likely to play
an important role in determining different behavioral patterns within
a frame, especially by influencing sensitivity to certain cues. For exam-
ple, personality traits may make a person more sensitive to reward or
to punishment, leading to different kinds of behavior within the same
frame. Personality is also likely to have an influence on the mental
models that guide behavior within a frame; we will deal explicitly with
77
78 K. van der Zee and M. Perugini
this aspect below. A combination of personality theory and framing

theory shows that quite different personality dimensions can promote
solidary behavior, depending on the specific features of the interaction.
A view of personality dimensions as influencing the basic cognitive
processes that define or frame an action situation has been elaborated
for dimensions such as aggression (Crick and Dodge, 1994), coopera-
tion, competition, and individualism (McClintock and Liebrand, 1988),
reciprocity (Gallucci and Perugini, 2003), and anxiety (Eysenck, 1992),
and also seems to hold for other personality dimensions. Take, for
instance, the case of aggression. Crick and Dodge (1994) developed a
social-information-processing model, assuming that children high in
aggression encode and interpret both internal and external cues differ-
ently from children low in aggression. They are less capable of recog-
nizing social stimuli and rely strongly on their own prejudices rather
than on observable characteristics of the situation. Moreover, they are
more likely to attribute hostile intentions to others. Such influences of
personality on cognitive processes are likely to combine with their
influences on dominant goals, leading to the three master frames (hedo-
nic, gain, and normative frames) suggested by Lindenberg (this volume).
For example, extroversion has been linked to a tendency to seek pleas-
ure (hedonic frame). Thus, extroverted persons are more likely to frame
situations in terms of opportunities to gain pleasure. On the highway,
they are thus more likely to disregard cues that signal slow driving
because of danger, and more likely to focus on cues that promote fast
driving, such as an empty road or having a fast car. A perspective that
relies on dominant goals (and master frames) that are linked to main
personality traits may help us to understand why people act as they do,
and is more parsimonious than focusing on personality influences on
specific goals in specific situations (Roberts and Robin, 2000).
We focused mainly on personality influences on framing and on
mental models of social relationships that are relevant for solidary
behavior. Although the process view of personality adopted here has
not dominated the literature of personality relevant to solidary behav-
ior, and although there are few examples of empirical testing of these
cognitive processes, we interpreted some of the empirical results
accordingly. First, we will briefly present the Big Five model of per-
sonality in order to introduce the basic structure of the personality
dimensions used in much of the literature reviewed in this chapter.
The Big Five
The past 20 years have seen important developments in the field of

personality psychology. A general consensus has gradually emerged on
a taxonomy of five basic personality factors, the so-called Big Five
5: Personality and Solidary Behavior 79
(Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1993): (1) extroversion, (2) agreeableness,

(3) conscientiousness, (4) emotional stability, and (5) intellect/autonomy
(Goldberg, 1993), also referred to as openness to experience (Costa and
McCrae, 1992). Table 5.1 presents a description of each dimension, as
well as more specific personality dimensions that can be related directly
to the Big Five dimensions (facets). The five factors have been confirmed
in several studies carried out in dozens of countries (Saucier, Hampson,
and Goldberg, 2000). The individual relative rankings in scores on the
five factors have also been found to be remarkably stable in adulthood
(McCrae et al., 2000). The consensus reached on this basic structure has
caused a flourishing of research within the field and has facilitated the
accumulation of results in a systematic body of knowledge. In fact,
the Big Five can be thought of as the best-working hypothesis of a cross-
culturally valid personality structure at a broader level of abstraction.
Most specific and narrower personality dimensions can be understood
within the Big Five framework (Goldberg, 1999). In addition, in recent
TABLE 5.1. Description of the Big Five.

Examples of facets
(Costa and McCrae, 1992;
Description (Costa Goldberg, 1999; Johnson
Factor and McCrae, 1985) and Ostendorf, 1993)
1. Extroversion Preference for company, Assertiveness, activity,

sensation and excitement seeking,
stimulation, sociability, positive
assertiveness, emotions,
activity, optimism, gregariousness,
cheerfulness leadership
2. Agreeableness Altruism, sympathy, Trust, altruism,
warmth, trustfulness, compliance, modesty,
helpfulness, tender-mindedness,
forgiveness, sincerity, sympathy, empathy
willingness
to help others
3. Conscientiousness Perseverance, Self-efficacy, deliberation,
conciseness, goal- dutifulness,
directness, being well- competence,
organized, reliability achievement striving,
orderliness, rule abiding
4. Neuroticism Anxiety, nervousness, Angry hostility,
anger, sadness, impulsiveness, anxiety,
hostility depression,
self-consciousness,
vulnerability,
imperturbability
5. Openness to experience Curiosity, broad interest, Values, ideas, fantasy,
creativity, originality, creativity, actions,
imagination feelings, reflection
psycholexical studies in several languages, a sixth and separate honesty

factor in addition to the Big Five has been discovered that seems partic-
ularly relevant to solidary behavior (Ashton et al., 2004). This factor has
been given names such as integrity, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and
values (Ashton and Lee, 2001). Although in our general approach we
focused on the Big Five, we also considered both the sixth factor and
additional specific dimensions where it was deemed necessary.
Personality and Cognitive Frames
From childhood, human beings are socialized with behavioral

rules. We learn that we have to stop for a red traffic light, that we have
to respect other peoples belongings, and that as a guest in another per-
sons house we cannot simply walk to the refrigerator and take food.
For many people, such norms become internalized and sticking to the
rules does not involve suppressing undesirable tendencies all the time.
These people have developed internal self-reinforcing (e.g., moral)
principles that guide their behavior and that give them a positive sense
of self. Others, however, tend to be more strongly guided by hedonic or
gain frames, and control mechanisms keep them within the limits of
what is regarded as acceptable behavior. Below, we will provide more
insight into the background of patterns of solidary behavior by linking
personality to the three master frames that seem to guide solidary
behavior. It is assumed that whether individuals follow norms in a nor-
mative frame (that is, because in that situation they are driven by the
goal to behave appropriately), whether they follow norms in a hedonic
frame (that is, for fear of direct sanctions that would make them feel
bad), or whether they follow norms in a gain frame (because they are
driven to exploit others for their own advantage) depends upon their
personalities.
A normative frame is characterized by a strong desire to act appro-
priately. In group psychology, a distinction is traditionally made
between internalization and mere compliance (Allen, 1965) or self-
control, with the latter being an outcome mainly of normative influ-
ences (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955). Particularly conscientiousness has
been associated with the salience of a normative frame, displayed by
an internalized tendency to comply with rules and moral standards.
Among highly conscientious individuals, compliance is driven by an
intrinsic need to achieve and to reach their purposes. In other words,
their prosocial behavior is primarily driven by the task they want to
accomplish. Facets such as dutifulness (Costa and McCrae, 1992)
and rule abiding (Johnson and Ostendorf, 1993) appear especially
central in this respect. John and Srivastava (1999) define conscien-
tiousness in terms of behaviors such as thinking before acting and
delay of gratification. In terms of framing, this may be interpreted as

hedonic or gain-oriented goals being pushed into the background (thus
an increase in delay of gratification). In this regard, conscientiousness
has been linked to the temperamental dimension of effortful control
(Rothbart, Ahadi, and Evans, 2000), which plays a major role in the
effective socialization of children (Kochanska, Murray, and Coy, 1997;
Rothbart, Ahadi, and Hershey, 1994). Psychobiological models link
effortful control to the anterior attention network that involves areas of
the midprefrontal cortex (Posner and Raichle, 1994; Posner and
Rothbart, 1998). The network is active during conflict situations in
which a dominant response must be inhibited to perform a subdomi-
nant response. Children who are able to delay gratification resort to
strategies such as attention deployment, whereby attention is allocated
away from the tempting stimulus (Rodriguez, Mischel, and Shoda,
1989). The opposite pole of conscientiousness is associated with a lack
of control (doing things that are out of bounds, playing with fire). For
example, Heaven (1996) found a significant negative relation between
the conscientiousness facet of self-discipline and vandalism/theft.
In a similar vein, Verplanken and Herabadi (2001) report a negative
relationship between conscientiousness and impulse buying.
When acting as a control system, conscientiousness seems to sup-
press antisocial tendencies that are linked to other traits. Neuroticism
is associated with an enhanced sensitivity to reinforcing events, which
causes people high in neuroticism to react strongly to several kinds of
events. Whether this sensitivity results in controlled (and thus also
conforming) or uncontrolled behavior depends on the position of indi-
viduals high in neuroticism on the introversion-extroversion contin-
uum. In this sense, these personality traits allow a more detailed
analysis of behavioral patterns within a hedonic frame. A hedonic
frame is indicated by the goal to feel better or to improve the way one
feels. Extroversion is related to sensitivity to reward or pleasure.
Increasing degrees of extroversion represent increasing sensitivity to
reward. A high sensitivity to cues that signal reward makes it hard
to withstand temptation. Not surprisingly, uncontrolled risk-taking
behaviors (gambling, adultery, reckless driving) are strongly related
to extroversion. A study by Verplanken and Herabadi (2001) revealed
a positive relation between extroversion and impulse buying.
Neuroticism has been associated with uncontrolled emotional
outbursts and with violence. The neurotic-extroverted person is highly
impulsive and inclined to engage in uncontrolled behavior and
disobey rules. Consider, for example, reckless driving in a fast car.
Impulsiveness, activity, and emotionality are important dimensions
here (e.g., Buss and Plomin, 1975), and antisocial behavior seems to be
associated with these dimensions. At the other end of the introversion-
extroversion continuum, neurotic-introverted (anxious) individuals
are sensitive to signals of punishment. Their main goal is to prevent

pain or loss. Conscious failure to declare sources of personal income
on their tax forms, for example, leaves anxious individuals worried to
death about the kinds of checks the Internal Revenue Service could
possibly perform and about the prospects of being caught. The thought
of the concomitant distress is already enough for them to refrain from
taking the risk. Neurotic-introverts in general display more control in
their behavior. People low in conscientiousness and high in neuroti-
cism and introversion are thus likely to comply when detection of
deviance is likely (rule-compliance through regulation of feelings) or
when there is (potentially punishing) interpersonal competition
(Graziano, Feldesman, and Rahe, 1985; Norman and Watson, 1976). By
contrast, people high in conscientiousness and low in neuroticism are
likely to follow rules because, for them, the desire to act appropriately
is easily evoked (a normative frame) and they are not very sensitive to
the presence or absence of sanctions.
Conscientiousness refers mainly to self-control, and it may support
a normative frame by weakening the power of hedonic goals. However,
when conscientiousness is accompanied by low agreeableness, a person
is more likely to emphasize selfish needs and wants, and, therefore,
more likely to be in a gain frame (which is governed by the dominant
goal to improve ones resources). The self-control allows the extensive
use of calculativeness and cunning. A clear example is the narcissistic
personality, which is driven by the desire to exploit others rather than
help them. This type is characterized by an overblown sense of self-
importance, requiring constant attention, making individuals more
likely to exploit others. He or she expects others to do special not-to-be-
reciprocated favors for them. The exploitation of others is one of the
signature characteristics of the opposite pole of concern for others (low
agreeableness), and it has also been suggested that this can be regarded
as the negative pole of honesty. Machiavellianism can be described as a
dispositional tendency to manipulate and exploit others, to be oppor-
tunistic and rational, and to pursue self-interest (Christie and Geis,
1968, 1970). Studies within the paradigm of social dilemma games have
shown that whereas high Machs tend to be competitive and oppor-
tunistically exploit others, low Machs are broadly more cooperative and
are more likely to pursue fairness norms (e.g., Wilson, Near, and Miller,
1996). There are situations, however, in which even people in a gain
frame exhibit solidary behavior. If there is a sufficient number of
repeated interactions, a fairly high value put on future events, and cer-
tain incentives, then even people who calculate only their own interest
will cooperate (Komorita, Parks, and Hulbert, 1992; Kreps, Milgrom,
Roberts, and Wilson, 1982).
The prominent place of emotions and self-control linked to the
distinction between a hedonic frame, on the one hand, and normative
and gain frames, on the other hand, is also compatible with Metcalfe
and Michels (1999) notion of willpower and delay of gratification in
terms of the interaction between a hot emotional system (akin to a
hedonic frame) and a cool cognitive system (characteristic of a norma-
tive and a gain frame). The emotionally driven hot system can also
be recognized in the literature on temperament systems (e.g., Buss and
Plomin, 1975). Self-regulatory skills and strategies and some situa-
tional factors are argued to shift the balance toward the cool system,
allowing for easier suppression of behaviors that are cognitively unde-
sirable (inappropriate, or inefficient) even though they are emotionally
gratifying (i.e., desirable in a hedonic frame).
Personality and Mental Models of Social Relationships
Suppose someone is late for a movie, and while rushing to the cin-
ema the individual sees an elderly lady fall in the street? What would
be the persons first inclination: To try to catch the film on time or help
the lady? In the previous section, we dealt with situations in which sol-
idary behavior referred not to direct social interactions, but rather to
acts for the benefit of general society or groups within society. Driving
too fast, dumping garbage, and failing to pay taxes, for example, all
affect the well-being of other people, but they do not involve direct
social interactions. In interpersonal situations, of course, there are
internalized norms of how to act in interaction with other persons, and
there are temptations as well as control needs. It is tempting to keep on
running to avoid missing part of the film, but this is clearly not what
one ought to do. Conscientiousness presumably plays an important
role here, because it makes it easier to suppress the temptation to give
in to immediate gratification. In addition to that, however, specific
traits are linked to the goals that people strive for in their relationships
with others and these goals are likely to affect the mental model that is
mobilized along with a particular frame.
A strong orientation toward the welfare of others is likely to
change the way people see their relations to others. Once a person is in
a normative frame, he or she will aim to act appropriately. But there are
many different ways in which one may act appropriately. Take the
example given at the start of this section. The cinema-goer may help by
checking that the woman is all right, and, if necessary, by calling an
ambulance. Or the person could comfort the elderly lady and use a
jacket to keep her warm. For such a person, interactions become an
opportunity to care for the other and for his or her welfare (Clark, Mills,
and Powell, 1986), to take the others perspective (Batson, 1990), and
to contribute to the common good (Van Lange, 1999). In terms of the
Big Five, a glance at Table 5.1 shows agreeableness to be the most
important trait underlying such concern for others. Agreeableness con-

trasts a prosocial and communal orientation toward others with antag-
onism (John and Srivastava, 1999). This factor contains trait terms such
as empathy, attachment, altruism, tender-mindedness, trust, morality,
altruism, cooperation, understanding, and sympathy (e.g., Costa and
McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1999; Hofstee, De Raad, and Goldberg, 1992).
Empirical evidence from studies on social dilemmas shows that agree-
ableness is associated with indicators of altruism (e.g., Ashton,
Paunonen, Helmes, and Jackson, 1998). Agreeable persons are likely to
help, being motivated to maintain positive relations with others. This
motivation has been linked to a willingness to suppress ones personal
interest for the good of ones social group (Buss, 1991). In that sense,
such people are highly sensitive to the behavior of others (Koole, Jager,
Van den Berg, Vlek, and Hofstee, 2001). Researchers have recently
found a significant positive association between agreeableness and the
value of benevolence, a negative association with the value of power
(Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, and Knafo, 2002), a positive association with
the goals of personal growth and social needs, and a negative associa-
tion with hedonistic goals (Roberts and Robin, 2000).
Regulating mechanisms also seem to buffer or enhance the effects
of the negative pole of agreeableness on behavior. Just as the combina-
tion of extroversion with neuroticism leads to emotional outbursts, the
co-occurrence of low concern for others and lack of emotional regula-
tion are key factors in the transformation of emotional reactions into
violent and aggressive behaviors (Caprara, Perugini, and Barbaranelli,
1994). Finally, it is important to note that these effects are more likely
to hold for extroverted-neurotics than for introverted-neurotics,
because the latter are more likely to suppress such antisocial tenden-
cies. The position of extroverted-neurotics on the dimension of agree-
ableness determines whether behavior will be exploitative (low
agreeableness) or helping (high agreeableness). In addition, it is
assumed that conscientiousness buffers the antisocial tendencies asso-
ciated with low agreeableness.
A more specific dimension linked to helping behavior is social
responsibility. The norm of social responsibility prescribes that indi-
viduals should help other people who are dependent on them
(Berkowitz and Daniels, 1964). Thus, people high in the social respon-
sibility dimension emphasize different aspects in their mental model
of appropriate behavior toward others. They have been found to be
more likely to intervene in traffic accidents on behalf of the victims
(Bierhoff, Klein, and Kramp, 1991) and to exhibit cooperative behavior
in public goods experiments (De Cremer and Van Lange, 2001). To our
knowledge, the relation between the dimension of social responsibility
and the Big Five has not been examined, although it is likely that it is
associated with agreeableness and conscientiousness.
There are two important things to note with respect to the link
between a high concern for others and altruistic behavior. First, soli-
darity norms often require a willingness to contribute to the common
good (see Lindenberg, this volume; Van Lange, 1999). However, a strong
concern for others may suppress the contribution to the common good
in favor of a contribution to an interpersonal relation. This has been
shown by Batson, Klein, Highberger, and Shaw (1995). They found that
participants who had increased concern for others as a consequence of
an empathy manipulation were more likely to benefit a fictitious
participant for whom they felt empathy even when this implied making
an allocation choice that decreased the collective welfare of all other
participants. When there is no such contrast between relationship
and collective good, people high in agreeableness have been found to be
extra sensitive to the behavior of others and to the degree to which
collective resources are threatened (see Koole et al., 2001).
Second, as was argued above, whereas it is likely that a consider-
able part of altruistic behavior is driven by a need for positive rela-
tionships and a desire to help, some forms of altruistic actions rely on
self-control. For example, evolutionary biologists define altruism
entirely in terms of concepts such as survival, fitness, and reproduc-
tion, with no reference to the underlying motivational states of the
agent. Behavior is altruistic when it increases the fitness of others at a
cost to the actor, thereby decreasing the actors fitness (Sober and Sloan
Wilson, 1998). Rachlin (2002) has defined altruism from a radical
behaviorist perspective as having a negative balance between costs and
benefits, as being a subset of self-controlled actions, and as being iden-
tifiable only in contexts of repeated interactions. This behavioristic
definition does not distinguish between material and psychological
costs and benefits, and it considers altruism mainly as resisting the
temptation to behave selfishly (cf. Perugini, 2002).
From a personality perspective, the combination of introversion
and neuroticism may also result in helping behavior that is triggered by
the need to avoid punishment. Interestingly, it has been argued that
introverts may be inclined to be cooperative not for altruistic reasons,
but because they are motivated to avoid the arousal associated with
competitive situations (Graziano et al., 1985; Norman and Watson,
1976). They seem to be more sensitive to the arousal and threat of
punishment that accompany interpersonal competition than are indi-
viduals high in extroversion (Graziano et al., 1985; Norman and
Watson, 1976; see also Eysenck, 1967; Gray, 1972). Similarly, some key
mechanisms underlying altruism that have been stressed in the psy-
chological literature are emotions such as anticipated guilt and shame
(cf. Batson, 1998; Elster, 1999; Haidt, 2002). The above-mentioned role
of conscientiousness as a regulatory mechanism may also play an
important role here.
Social Value Orientations and Positive and

Negative Reciprocity
Much research into solidary behavior has been focused on experi-

mental paradigms related to game theory and social dilemmas. This
research is also significant regarding the influence of personality on
mental models. The personality dimensions that were examined in
these contexts were more specific than the Big Five and only partly
reducible to them. Hence, we will temporarily depart from the Big Five
framework to devote attention to these more specific personality dimen-
sions, and we will specify the conceptual framework underlying them.
One line of research deals with social value orientations or prefer-
ences for particular patterns of distributions of outcomes for the self and
others (Messick and McClintock, 1968; Van Lange, Otten, De Bruin, and
Joireman, 1997). This research links aspects of framing (mainly gain
and normative frames), mental models of relationships, and personality
within one paradigm.
A distinction has been made between individuals with (1) a pro-
social value orientation (i.e., enhancing joint outcomes and enhancing
equality in outcomes); (2) an individualistic orientation (i.e., enhanc-
ing outcomes for the self with little regard for others outcomes); and
(3) a competitive orientation (i.e., enhancing relative advantage over
others). The latter two are often combined and referred to as proselfs
(Van Lange and Liebrand, 1991). The underlying goals of prosocials
and proselfs are social and hedonic, respectively, and this leads to sev-
eral other differences. Prosocials and proselfs construe social dilemmas
differently: Prosocials tend to construe social dilemmas as moral issues;
proselfs in terms of power. Prosocials associate cooperation with intel-
ligence; proselfs with lack of intelligence. Prosocials frame social dilem-
mas as occasions for cooperative exchanges and hence have a high
interest in joint outcomes (collective rationality), whereas proselfs
frame such dilemmas as competitive exchanges and, therefore, have no
interest in collective outcomes (individual rationality). Prosocials tend
to expect other people to cooperate, whereas proselfs expect others to
care for themselves only. Prosocials tend to react to others choices, but
only moderately; proselfs tend to disregard others behavior unless it is
convenient for them to do otherwise. In general, prosocials are, there-
fore, much more likely to cooperate than are proselfs (e.g., De Cremer
and Van Lange, 2001). However, proselfs will cooperate if confronted
with opponents who consistently reward cooperation, provided there
are a certain number of repeated interactions (e.g., Komorita et al.,
1992), and prosocials will not cooperate if confronted with opponents
who consistently try to exploit them (Van Lange, 1999). In short,
whether cooperation occurs or not in a specific context depends on a
host of other structural factors, as we have argued above.
Personality seems to affect not only basic tendencies to cooperate,

but also how people respond to other peoples behavior, with impor-
tant consequences for cooperation. A recurrent finding in the experi-
mental literature on social dilemmas is that individuals who cooperate
are more likely to do so if the other is also cooperative (Van Lange,
1999) or is expected to cooperate (Wilke and Braspenning, 1989). This
finding can be explained in terms of reciprocity or behavioral assimi-
lation. It has been found, however, that individuals vary in terms of
how much they are willing to adopt conditional cooperation (Van
Lange, 1999) or to reciprocate previous or expected cooperation
(Gallucci and Perugini, 2000). In other words, it appears that there are
individual differences in willingness to behave in ways that are condi-
tional upon others behavior. This general mechanism and the individ-
ual differences in abiding by it have been expressed recently by
Perugini and Gallucci in a formal model of reciprocity that includes
individual differences as a main component (e.g., Gallucci and
Perugini, 2000; Perugini and Gallucci, 2001). Two main behavioral
components have been identified: positive reciprocity and negative
reciprocity. Reciprocators are sensitive to relational situations and,
consequently, they perceive such situations as opportunities to engage
in interpersonal exchanges. They are highly reactive to other peoples
behavior. Unlike prosocials and proselfs, reciprocators take into
account particularly the intentions guiding a persons behavior, and
react by giving fewer rewards to those who intentionally behave
rudely, regardless of the type of relationship characterizing the inter-
action (Perugini and Gallucci, 2001). Some main differences between
positive and negative reciprocators concern expectations, preferences
for reward versus punishment, and interest in collective outcomes.
Positive reciprocators tend to expect cooperation from others, whereas
negative reciprocators tend to expect noncooperation. The dimension
of positive reciprocity has been found to predict cooperative behavior
even when there are no material incentives for this (Gallucci and
Perugini, 2003, Study 2). Likewise, a careful analysis of the history of
interactions clarified that cooperative behavior among people high in
positive reciprocity cannot be attributed to prosocial or altruistic
motives (Gallucci and Perugini, 2003, Study 1). Conversely, individual
differences in negative reciprocity can predict uncooperative behavior
when the history of the interactions is such that the agent has been
faced with uncooperative behavior of the other, even when interacting
with a potential friend (Perugini and Gallucci, 2001). Negative recip-
rocators have been shown to be more reactive to exchanges in which
they can punish the other, whereas positive reciprocators are more
reactive to exchanges allowing only for rewards. Negative reciprocators
appear to be interested only in getting even in terms of the inter-
personal exchange, whereas positive reciprocators are additionally
concerned about the joint outcomes (Perugini, Gallucci, Presaghi, and

Ercolani, 2002). Whether cooperation occurs or not again depends on
many factors, but in general cooperation can be expected when the
other(s) in the interaction behaves cooperatively, and noncooperation
can be expected when the other(s) does not cooperate. This holds for
both positive and negative reciprocators, although the former are more
likely to cooperate and the latter are more likely not to cooperate. The
main mechanism behind these two dimensions is a preference to
reward (positive reciprocators) or to punish (negative reciprocators)
others, which is usually but not always, associated with cooperation
and noncooperation, respectively. Positive and negative reciprocity are
associated primarily with the positive and negative poles of agreeable-
ness, respectively, although the correlations are only moderate.
Conclusion
We have reviewed different forms of solidary behaviors and their

associations with basic and specific personality dimensions. We have
highlighted as relevant to solidary behavior four of the Big Five (extro-
version, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability)
and the sixth factor (honesty), and specific personality dimensions
(Machiavellanism, social responsibility, social value orientations,
positive and negative reciprocity). We assumed that the link between
personality and solidary behavior is at least partly mediated by the
three master frames that are distinguished in this volume.
Conscientiousness and honesty particularly seem to promote the
salience of a normative frame. Individuals high in these traits are char-
acterized by highly internalized norms inclining them toward solidar-
ity, and they tend to use control mechanisms that reduce antisolidary
tendencies linked to situational temptations or other traits. We have
discussed how the interplay between extroversion and neuroticism
may form the cornerstone of hedonic motives, determining to what
extent individuals are driven by the need to seek pleasure or, by
contrast, to avoid pain. We argued that particularly agreeableness
promotes the salience of a gain frame, that is, an emphasis on selfish
needs and wants. This trait seems to play a major role in determining
mental models of relationships as it is associated with a high concern
for others welfare. We aimed to show that solidary behavior can occur
in each major frame and thus can be encouraged by very different per-
sonality dimensions. We have primarily emphasized the impact of
personality on frames, mental models, and solidarity. It is important to
note, however, that framing is not merely a matter of personality.
Contextual factors play an important role, too. Personality traits influ-
ence framing, but dependent upon features of the situation, a person
who is inclined to be in a, say, hedonic frame can, at times, of course

also be in a normative or gain frame. Traits are also likely to play an
important role in determining different behavioral patterns within a
frame, especially by influencing sensitivity to certain cues. For exam-
ple, personality traits may make a person more sensitive to reward or
to punishment, leading to different kinds of behavior within the same
frame. In this way, aspects of personality allow finer predictions of
solidary behavior even within the same frame. Linking personality and
framing theories seems to be a useful way to advance our knowledge of
solidary behavior. In this chapter, we have taken a first step in this
direction.
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CHAPTER 6
The Development of Dr. Jekyll and

Mr. Hyde: Prosocial and Antisocial
Behavior in Adolescence
Ren Veenstra
This chapter is about the development of prosocial and antisocial

behavior in children and adolescents. Prosocial behavior can be defined
as voluntary behavior that is aimed at fulfilling another persons need
for support (Bar-Tal, 1984; Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998). It includes spon-
taneous acts of comforting (physically or verbally expressing sympathy
or reassurance), sharing (giving materials or work space that one is
using or giving a turn to another person), and helping (physically
assisting or offering physical assistance).
Antisocial behavior can be defined as acts that inflict physical or
mental harm or property loss or damage on others. It is behavior that is
intended to lower the well-being of other persons, which may or may
not constitute the breaking of criminal laws (Coie and Dodge, 1998;
Loeber and Schmaling, 1985; Rutter, Giller, and Hagell, 1998).
Research on the development of prosocial behavior and research
on the development of antisocial behavior have been rather independ-
ent of each other. Whereas prosocial behavior has been studied mainly
by social-developmental psychologists, antisocial behavior has been
studied mainly by criminologists and developmental psychopatholo-
gists. Perhaps because of the greater salience of the consequences of
aggression, delinquency, and criminality, scientists have devoted much
more attention to antisocial behavior than to prosocial behavior. Many
large-scale, prospective, longitudinal studies of general population
samples have been carried out to untangle the roots and consequences
of antisocial behavior across the life span. Well-known examples are
studies in Christchurch (Fergusson, Horwood, and Nagin, 2000),
Dunedin (Silva and Stanton, 1996), and Stockholm (Wikstrm, 1987).
Whereas the development of antisocial and criminal behavior has
long been the subject of investigation, interest in the development of
93
94 Ren Veenstra
prosocial behavior only started in the 1970s. Eisenberg and Fabes (1998)
argue that both, relevant theory and the conceptual integration of exist-
ing empirical findings are in need for further development (p. 702).
The differing interest in antisocial and prosocial behavior is mir-
rored in the number of articles and books that have been published on
these issues. At the end of 2003, prosocial behavior was a keyword in
1,600 records of PsycINFO, whereas antisocial behavior was a keyword
in 3,850 records. Based on these numbers, Bierhoff (2002) concluded
that social scientists have invested much more time and effort in the
study of antisocial behavior than in the study of prosocial behavior.
Personality Factors Related to Prosocial

and Antisocial Behavior
A number of personality dispositions (in terms of the general

framework of this book, characteristics of the person) have been shown
to influence the development of antisocial or prosocial behavior. For
example, hyperactivity and inattention have a rather robust association
with antisocial behavior, mainly as a result of poor social functioning
in general (Rutter et al., 1998). Antisocial behavior accompanied by
hyperactivity and attention deficit has its onset in early or middle
childhood and a high likelihood of persistence into adulthood. It has a
strong genetic component and a strong association with cognitive
impairment, social malfunction, and poor peer relationships (Feehan,
McGee, and Williams, 1993; Moffitt, 1990).
Numerous studies have shown that delinquents differ from non-
delinquents in temperament (Caspi, 1998). For example, Caspi et al.
(1994) showed that high impulsiveness as well as negative emotional-
ity (meaning a ready tendency to be angry, anxious, or irritable) are
associated with delinquency. The absence of self-control (Gottfredson
and Hirschi, 1990), or effortful control (Rothbart and Putnam, 2002),
also plays a major role in the development of antisocial behavior.
Children with low self-control are less likely to consider the possible
consequences of their actions, especially consequences that are likely
to be long-delayed. High-intensity pleasure or sensation seeking is also
a temperamental risk factor for antisocial behavior.
It has long been known that low intelligence, especially poor ver-
bal and planning skills, and poor school attainment have an influence
on antisocial behavior. However, the finding of a relationship between
poor cognitive function and antisocial behavior leaves the question
unanswered why such a relationship exists. It has been suggested that
there is interplay between cognitive impairments and psychosocial
risk factors. Moffitt (1993) argues that cognitively impaired children
evoke negative behaviors in other people and are more vulnerable to
6: Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior in Adolescence 95
risks such as coercive parenting and ineffective discipline. This in turn

sets up a spiraling cycle of risk factors and a high likelihood of life-
course persistent antisocial behavior. Crick and Dodge (1994) suggest
that antisocial children may be less skilled in social intelligence and
hence less likely to behave in appropriate ways. According to these
authors, the effect of biased cognitive processing on antisocial behav-
ior is the result of a tendency to wrongly perceive negative information
in others behavior, to misinterpret social interactions, and to focus on
aggressive behavior of others. Farrington (1997) argues that children
with low intelligence may be more likely to offend because they tend
to fail in school, which in turn leads to truancy, a lack of educational
qualifications, low-status jobs, and periods of unemployment, all of
which make it harder to achieve goals legally.
Numerous scientists have hypothesized that cognitive and social
skills and temperamental characteristics are associated with prosocial
behavior, because cognitive abilities may underlie the ability to discern
others needs or distress and the capacity to respond adequately to others
needs. Eisenberg and Fabes (1998) argued that measures of intelligence or
social cognition and prosocial behavior should at least be modestly cor-
related. Although empirical results have been somewhat mixed, in most
studies a positive relation between cognitive skills and prosocial behav-
ior was found. Furthermore, prosocial children tend to be sociable, well
regulated, low in impulsiveness, and not shy or anxious (Eisenberg and
Fabes, 1998). They are simultaneously able to communicate and resolve
their own needs, feel guilt and remorse about wrongdoing, exercise self-
control when tempted to do wrong, and feel compassion for others
(Hoffman, 1970; Mischel, Shoda, and Rodriguez, 1989).
There is accumulating evidence that determinants of antisocial
behavior such as impulsiveness and hyperactivity have a genetic com-
ponent (Rutter et al., 1998). Genes may produce an effect by increasing
vulnerability to life experiences and stress or by indirect routes such as
influencing behaviors that in turn lead to changes in the individuals
environment and set up a spiraling cycle of risk factors. Biological fac-
tors, such as low autonomic reactivity and disturbed serotonergic func-
tioning, also affect antisocial behavior (Raine, 1993).
Research has also shown that male children and juveniles are much
more often antisocial and deviant than are female children and juve-
niles (Moffitt, Caspi, Rutter, and Silva, 2001). Prosocial behavior is more
prominent among females (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1998). Sex differences
in prosocial and antisocial behavior deserve special attention, because
earlier research has shown that girls and boys differ not only quantita-
tively but also qualitatively in social behavior. For example, boys like to
spend time playing with groups of others, whereas girls are said to
engage in reciprocal conversations. Girls rely more on their best friends,
and report more intimacy and affection in their friendships than do
96 Ren Veenstra
boys, whose friendships are broader and looser. Adolescent boys report
more often than girls that they have leaders in their peer groups (Gavin
and Furman, 1989). However, boys are not always more aggressive than
girls. Although boys outperform girls in physical aggression, girls out-
perform boys in relational (i.e., nonverbal) aggression (Crick, 1996).
Family Characteristics and the Development of Prosocial

A number of family characteristics are related to the development of

prosocial and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. For exam-
ple, teenage parenting, large family size, and broken homes are robust
predictors of antisocial behavior (Rutter et al., 1998). Presumably, these
factors influence childrens behavior via family discord and ineffective
parenting (Rutter et al., 1998). Similarly, poverty and social disadvantage
indicate increased risks of antisocial behavior, but the effects seem to be
indirect and to be mediated by parental depression and family conflict.
Parenting is a central and critical psychosocial risk factor. Coercive
or hostile parenting, abuse and neglect, ineffective parenting, and poor
supervision or monitoring are all associated with (life-course persistent)
antisocial behavior (Patterson, 1982). These effects may potentially be
mediated by attachment processes (implying damage to social develop-
ment or social bonding with parents and peers) or by learning processes
(i.e., children might learn that antisocial behavior pays). Farrington
(1997) argues that children who are exposed to poor parenting practices
may be more likely to offend because they do not build up internal inhi-
bitions against socially disapproved behavior. Eisenberg and Fabes
(1998) conclude that the development of prosocial behavior is enhanced
by exposure to parental warmth (which fosters a positive identity and
sense of self as well as attachment), adult guidance, and childrens par-
ticipation in prosocial activities. However, numerous factors believed to
contribute to prosocial development have seldom been examined.
In sum, a number of personality dispositions and family charac-
teristics that affect antisocial behavior have the opposite effect on
prosocial behavior. There are also some differences in the determinants
of prosocial and antisocial behavior.
Adolescence-Limited Versus Life-Course Persistent

Antisocial Behavior
As has been emphasized by Moffitt (1993), when discussing the

determinants of antisocial behavior, it is necessary to distinguish
between adolescence-limited and life-course persistent antisocial
behavior of juveniles. She argues that the antisocial behavior of the

vast majority of juvenile delinquents is limited to their teenage years.
For them, the onset of antisocial behavior occurs when they enter ado-
lescence. Problem conduct usually ceases during young adulthood.
Moffitt (1993) reasons that the delinquent activities of adolescence-
limited antisocials stem from factors endemic to the social context of
juveniles. According to Moffitt, such behavior is an adaptive response
to modern teens social context, and not the product of a cumulative
history of pathological maldevelopment. For these juveniles, an emerg-
ing appreciation of adult privileges is met with the awareness that
those privileges are still withheld from them. Adolescence-limited
antisocial youths often commit crimes that symbolize adult privileges
(being powerful, having dates) and that demonstrate freedom from
parental control. Many of these delinquent acts are committed with the
collaboration of peers, such as vandalism, public order offenses, drug
and alcohol offenses, running away, and theft. The most important risk
factor for adolescence-limited antisocial behavior is peer delinquency,
as peer relationships increase in their importance during adolescence.
When these juveniles get access to adult privileges, they readily desist
from law-breaking, using the prosocial skills they mastered before they
entered puberty. Juveniles on the adolescence-limited path show more
potential than juveniles on the life-course persistent path for future
desistance from crime (less likely to drop out of school, closer to their
families). Nagin, Farrington, and Moffitt (1995) showed that, at age 18,
the adolescence-limited group was indistinguishable from the life-
course persistent group in terms of attachment to work and family,
but by age 32, they had established much better work records and rela-
tionships with their spouses than had the life-course persistent group.
At that age, they were indistinguishable from the nondelinquent
group. However, the adolescence-limited antisocials continued to
drink heavily and use drugs, and get into fights. According to Nagin
et al. (1995), individuals are deterred from deviant behavior by the
threat that their accumulated investments in social relations and in
their education will be lost if their involvement in deviance is discov-
ered. In their opinion, adolescence-limited antisocial youths restrict
their deviance to the forms of behavior that are least likely to jeopard-
ize their jobs and marriages. They seem to avoid committing crimes
with a comparatively high risk of conviction or that might harm
familial relationships. Instead, they seem to restrict their deviance to
behaviors less likely to result in official sanction or to disrupt intimate
attachments, such as theft, heavy drinking, and barroom brawling.
The life-course persistent antisocial youths are a small group of
offenders whose antisocial behavior is long-standing. As children,
these youths behaved antisocially, as adolescents they are delinquent,
and as adults they will be criminal. According to Moffitt (1993),
98 Ren Veenstra
life-course persistent antisocial behavior begins early in childhood

because subtle neuropsychological dysfunctions disrupt the normal
development of language, memory, and self-control. These early tem-
peramental and cognitive restrictions in turn increase vulnerability to
criminogenic aspects in the childs social environment, such as rejec-
tion by peers and school failure. The result is that these youths miss
out on opportunities to acquire and practice prosocial alternatives, and
are less likely than their adolescence-limited counterparts to stop their
antisocial activities. This behavior of the life-course persistent group is
self-defeating and they have few opportunities to reach a high status in
society. However, only in a small number of people, mainly males, is
antisocial behavior life-course persistent (Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson,
Silva, and Stanton, 1996).
Studies of the Relationship Between Prosocial

The empirical evidence on determinants of prosocial and antiso-

cial behavior in children and adolescents is summarized above. The
evidence cited with regard to determinants of antisocial behavior
mostly stemmed from studies other than those that provided evidence
on determinants of prosocial behavior. The reason for this is that most
researchers concentrated on either antisocial or prosocial behavior,
and both kinds of behavior were rarely investigated in the same study.
As a result, in PsycINFO, there are only 100 records that contain
both prosocial and antisocial behavior as keywords. Thus, as Fabes,
Carlo, Kupanoff, and Laible (1999) emphasize, more studies are
needed in which prosocial and antisocial development are examined
concurrently to account more adequately for social development.
To examine one set of behaviors without examining the other set
presents a skewed and limited description of the complexity of
adolescents (p. 13).
Such studies are of utmost importance as it is far from clear
whether prosocial and antisocial behavior are two sides of the same
coin. Although some overlap exists between the predictors of pro-
social and antisocial behavior, the relationship between these
behavioral tendencies is far from clear. Even if these tendencies are
substantially (negatively) correlated with each other, it appears plau-
sible that some children and adolescents may score either high or low
on both dimensions. Referring to the title of this chapter, it seems
plausible that at least some adolescents are like Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde: helpful and prosocial in some situations and selfish
and antisocial in others. Therefore, I will summarize below some of
the few studies in which both dimensions were investigated in the
same sample.
1. The study by Rodkin et al. (2000), who investigated elemen-

tary (fourth- to sixth-grade) school boys. Prosocial and antiso-
cial configurations were identified using teacher ratings (using
cluster analysis on seven factors: popularity, physical compe-
tence, affiliation, academic competence, aggressiveness, shy-
ness, and internalizing problem behavior) and compared with
peer and self-assessments and social centrality measures.
2. The studies by Hawley, who conducted research into prosocial
and coercive control strategies in early childhood (Hawley,
2003b), late childhood (Hawley, Little, and Pasupathi, 2002),
and early adolescence (Hawley, 2003a). She used self-, peer,
and teacher reports to measure prosocial and coercive strate-
gies of control. The above-mentioned studies can be regarded
as among the few that dealt with both prosocial and antisocial
behavior during adolescence.
3. The study by Krueger, Hicks, and McGue (2001), who inves-
tigated monozygotic and dizygotic pairs of adult twins to
determine whether prosocial and antisocial characteristics
can be attributed to the same or to different sources (genes
and kinds of environment).
4. Some sociometric studies of popularity of pupils also con-
tribute to this question. They dealt with whether popular
children can be both prosocial and antisocial.
5. The study by Pakaslahti and Keltikangas-Jrvinen (2001), who
investigated the behavioral differences between four types of
preferred (prosocial) and aggressive (antisocial) adolescents.
They collected self- and peer-report data from Finnish boys and
girls, aged 14.
Rodkin et al. (2000) found six clusters of boys: model (prosocial),

tough (prosocial and antisocial), passive (low-social), bright antisocial
(antisocial), troubled (antisocial), and low-academic boys. The first
subtype (26.8% of all the boys) were the model boys who had mainly
prosocial characteristics. Teachers viewed these boys as popular, phys-
ically and academically competent, friendly, and neither shy nor inter-
nalizing nor aggressive. Peers nominated model boys as cool, athletic,
leaders, cooperative, and studious, and rarely nominated them as shy
or antisocial. Model boys saw themselves as nonaggressive and aca-
demically competent.
The second subtype (13.1% of all the boys) were the tough boys
who combined, in a sense, prosocial and antisocial characteristics.
Tough boys were viewed by their teachers as popular, extremely
aggressive, physically competent, and average to below average in
friendliness, academic competence, shyness, and internalizing behav-
ior. Peers perceived tough boys as cool, athletic, and antisocial. Tough
boys saw themselves as popular, aggressive, and physically competent.
100 Ren Veenstra
The third subtype (26.3% of all the boys) were the passive boys,
who lacked both prosocial and antisocial characteristics. Based on
teacher and self-reports, this group of boys can be viewed as low in
aggressiveness and high in shyness. Peers did not nominate them as
cool, athletic, popular, or aggressive.
The fourth (9.7% of all the boys) and the fifth subtypes (11.9% of
all the boys) were the bright antisocial boys and the troubled boys,
respectively, who both had mainly antisocial characteristics. Teachers
viewed both subtypes as unpopular, physically incompetent, unfriendly,
internalizing, and aggressive. Peers rarely nominated these boys as cool,
athletic, leaders, or cooperative. The self-perceptions of these two sub-
types were also similar. The main difference between these two
antisocial subtypes was that bright antisocial boys scored moderately
high in academic competence, whereas troubled boys scored much
lower in academic competence.
The sixth subtype (12.2% of all the boys) consisted of the low-aca-
demic boys, who were mainly an average group. Teachers viewed them
as above average in friendliness and below average in academic com-
petence. They had average scores for all other characteristics. Peers
rarely nominated them as cooperative or studious. Low-academic boys
saw themselves neither as academically competent nor as having inter-
nalizing problems.
The findings of Rodkin et al. (2000) suggest that antisocial boys
can be among the most popular and the socially best-connected chil-
dren in elementary classrooms. Both model and tough boys were cen-
tral members of prominent classroom cliques. They conclude:
When antisocial behavior was conjoined with high levels of athleticism
and/or physical attractiveness, or when antisocial behavior was not in
the presence of high levels of shyness or extremely low levels of friend-
liness, academic competence, or internalizing behavior, antisocial boys
were popular. Otherwise, antisocial boys were unpopular. (p. 22)
Based on evolutionary theory and the literature on child develop-

ment, Hawley distinguished two strategies of control: prosocial strate-
gies (that foster interpersonal relationships) and coercive strategies
(that do not foster interpersonal relationships). At first, it seemed that
prosocial strategies were consistently associated with positive charac-
teristics, whereas coercive strategies were associated with negative
characteristics. According to Hawley, however, a more complex pattern
emerged when a typological approach was adopted. She distinguished
five types of control strategies: prosocial (high in prosocial control and
average or low in coercive control), coercive (average or low in proso-
cial control and high in coercive control), bi-strategic (high in both
control strategies), typical (low in both control strategies), and non-
controlling (low in one control strategy or average in both strategies).
For all age groups, Hawley found that a prosocial control strategy
was related to positive social characteristics and a high level of well-
being of the participants. Children using this strategy reported that
social relationships were important for them and that they were intrin-
sically motivated to pursue them. They effectively met their needs in
ways that won the affection of their peers. Early adolescents using a
prosocial control strategy were perceived as popular, agreeable, con-
scientiousness, high in attention to social cues, and low in aggression,
hostility, and tendency to cheat. In all three studies, there were more
females than males in this group of participants.
Coercive (antisocial) controllers were the least preferred group
(especially in the study of preschoolers). Rather than pursuing rela-
tionships for enjoyment, they reported pursuing them for status and to
fulfill external expectations. They indicated more loneliness, sadness,
and anxiety than did all other groups. Curiously, coercive controllers
felt as connected to the peer group as did the average group (similar to
the average type). In the study of adolescents, they scored above aver-
age in the tendency to cheat, aggression, and hostility. They were rated
about average in perceived popularity. In late childhood (Hawley et al.,
2002) and early adolescence (Hawley, 2003a), more males than females
adopted a coercive control strategy.
Participants applying a bi-strategic control strategy (i.e., combining
prosocial and antisocial elements) described themselves as having the
highest need for recognition and the highest level of influence. In all
three studies by Hawley they reported being more agreeable, conscien-
tious, and socially perceptive than average. At the same time, they
reported being as aggressive and hostile as antisocial children. They
saw themselves in the same positive light as the prosocial children, but
in the same negative light as the antisocial children. They were intrin-
sically and extrinsically motivated to pursue friendships at the same
time. They were perceived as popular at all ages. With regard to the bi-
strategic control strategy, no gender differences were identified.
Noncontroller (nonsocial) participants reported the lowest levels
of influence and the lowest need for recognition. In all three studies by
Hawley these children were ineffective communicators and low in sen-
sitivity to social cues, and tended to be anxious, withdrawn, and sub-
missive. There were no gender differences with regard to the
noncontroller subtype.
A twin study on male adults born in Minnesota with an average age
of 33 years (170 monozygotic pairs, 105 dizygotic pairs, and 121 individ-
uals whose twin did not participate) (Krueger, Hicks, and McGue, 2001)
indicated that altruism (a facet of prosociality) and antisocial behavior
were independent and that they had distinct etiologies. Altruism was
linked primarily to familial (shared) environments, nonfamilial (unique)
environments, and personality traits reflecting positive emotionality.
102 Ren Veenstra
Antisocial behavior was linked primarily to genes, nonfamilial (unique)

environments, and personality traits reflecting negative emotionality and
a lack of constraints. Krueger et al. (2001) argued:
If the sources of desirable and undesirable behaviors are distinct, strate-
gies designed to diminish undesirable behavior need not result in the
promotion of desirable behavior, and vice versa. Moreover, researchers
tendency to focus on undesirable behavior appears to result in an incom-
plete picture of human functioning; desirable and undesirable qualities
can coexist in the same persons. (p. 401)
The sociometric literature can also be described in terms of proso-

cial and antisocial behavior. Newcomb, Bukowski, and Pattee (1993)
reviewed the literature on sociometric status. Based on peer informa-
tion on social preference (likeability) and social impact (salience), a
distinction is usually made between popular (711% of all the chil-
dren), controversial (37%), neglected (915%), rejected (1113%),
and average youths (6065%). The behavioral repertoire of the popular
(prosocial) group can be said to consist primarily of socially skilled
behaviors that lead to positive social outcomes. Their behavior facili-
tates and enhances rather than undermines the goals of their peers.
Their low level of disruptive aggressive behavior coupled with their
high levels of positive traits, actions, and problem-solving skills make
them ideal prospective friends. The rejected (antisocial) group is at risk
of social adjustment difficulties (Crick, 1996). They are likely to be
more aggressive and withdrawn and less sociable and cognitively
skilled. Their less favorable social reputation may also lead to isolation
and ostracism. LaFontana and Cillessen (2002) suggested that they
often behave aggressively because of the frustration that comes with
being victimized. Their aggressive behavior is hostile and reactive. The
rejected (antisocial) group is the polar opposite of the popular (proso-
cial) group. The neglected (low-social) group displays little social
interaction and few positive social actions and positive social traits.
Their future prospects are better than those of the antisocial group, but
remain very limited. Their social isolation at a young age creates a high
risk of path-dependency toward less successful lives as adults
(Farrington, Gallagher, Morley, St. Ledger, and West, 1988). The con-
troversial (prosocial and antisocial) group is likely to be overly engaged
with their peers and viewed as both more aggressive and more sociable
as a result.
Pakaslahti and Keltikangas-Jrvinen (2001) provided evidence for
a group of adolescents that combine and a group of adolescents that
lack both prosocial and antisocial behavior. They distinguished four
groups of adolescents: preferred nonaggressive (prosocial), preferred
aggressive (prosocial and antisocial), nonpreferred nonaggressive
(low-social), and nonpreferred aggressive (antisocial). The group of
preferred aggressive adolescents scored high in leadership, whereas

the group of nonpreferred nonaggressive adolescents scored low in
leadership. The nonpreferred nonaggressive adolescents scored high in
friendliness, but, according to the authors, friendliness was not an
effective way to increase ones social status among peers. They con-
cluded that, in contrast to the preferred aggressive group, the friendly
nonpreferred nonaggressive group was invisible to their peers.
Pakaslahti, Karjalainen, and Keltikangas-Jrvinen (2002) pointed out
that preferred aggressive adolescents were socially very active and
used by far the most prosocial problem-solving strategies.
In sum, all of the above studies provide evidence that some ado-
lescents are prosocial and antisocial at the same time, or are neither
prosocial nor antisocial. As Table 6.1 shows, this result was independ-
ent of the different samples and the different measures that were used
in the studies.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde From a Framing Perspective
It seems that adolescents are not always either prosocial or antiso-

cial, but that some combine both attributes. In the following I aim to
reinterpret these findings from the perspective of the framing theory as
it was outlined in Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume.
TABLE 6.1. Combinations of Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior.

Degree of Prosocial Behavior:
Low Intermediate High
R: passive R: model
P: nonpreferred P: preferred
Low
nonaggressive nonaggressive
Degree of antisocial behavior
H: noncontroller H: prosocial
S: neglected S: popular
Intermediate
H: typical
S: average
R: bright antisocial R: tough

or troubled
High
P: nonpreferred P: preferred
aggressive aggressive
H: coercive H: bi-strategic
S: rejected S: controversial
Source: R: Rodkin et al. (2000); P: Pakaslahti and Keltikangas-Jrvinen (2001); H: Hawley et al.
(2002); S: Sociometric literature.
104 Ren Veenstra
According to this theoretical perspective, a person can approach a

situation applying one of three different basic frames: (1) a hedonic
frame, (2) a gain frame, and (3) a normative frame. Being in a hedo-
nic frame implies the danger of harming the long-term well-being of
both oneself and others. Children and adolescents in a hedonic frame
can be characterized by Gottfredson and Hirschis (1990) description of
low self-control:
The offender appears to have little control over his or her desires. When
such desires conflict with long-term interests, those lacking self-control
opt for the desires of the moment, whereas those with greater self-control
are governed by the restraints imposed by the consequences of acts dis-
pleasing to family, friends and the law. (p. xv)
One can argue that those adolescents who consistently behave in

an antisocial manner tend to structure their social environments by
permanently using a hedonic frame. This tendency has its origin in
individual deficiencies that assume influence when difficult children
interact with difficult home environments. Beginning in childhood,
individual deficiencies accumulate increasing momentum, cutting off
opportunities to practice prosocial behavior. As time passes, recovery
is precluded by maladaptive individual dispositions and narrowing
life options. Thus, the strongest predictors of persistent antisocial
behavior are measures of individual and family characteristics (Moffitt,
1993). Often, these adolescents do not possess ordinary means to reach
social status and a high level of subjective well-being (Ormel, 2002).
Poor cognitive and social skills and temperamental deviancies such as
high impulsiveness and novelty seeking make it difficult for them to
invest in normal resources. Moreover, they have an unclear under-
standing of relational expectations. As a consequence, they often fail in
social relations and are mainly perceived as unfriendly. It is exactly
this group of juveniles that Moffitt (1993) describes as life-course
persistent antisocial.
On the contrary, children and adolescents that can be characterized
as prosocials (i.e., those who score high in prosocial and low in anti-
social behavior) tend to structure their social environments and their
own lives using a normative frame. They have the skills to ignore inci-
dental temptations and they also tend to forgive each other if things go
wrong once in a while. As a consequence, these juveniles have good
relationships with friends and family. In the long run, their prosociality
pays off for them as it is a means to achieve a high level of subjective
well-being.
As the studies cited above show, however, being consistently
prosocial and refraining from antisocial behavior may not always lead
to a high social status. An alternative way to reach that goal is to be
prosocial at some times, but to be antisocial at other times. According

to Hawley (2003a), this group is overall well adapted and highly effec-
tive. Hawley argues that the Machiavellian approach of this group
entails the balancing of getting along and getting ahead. These
adolescents admit that they are aggressive, claim to be hostile, and
confess that they cheat in school. Peers cast them in a similar light,
but also see them as effective, socially central, and reasonably well
liked. Teachers do not see them as more aggressive than average.
According to Hawley, it is possible that such bi-strategic juveniles are
skilled at hiding their aggression from authority figures. They have
been found to be well in tune with others goals and perspectives, and
appear to operate well within social norms without, perhaps, actually
doing so. With regard to the classification of Moffitt, these juveniles
tend to be adolescence-limited antisocials. During their adolescence,
they start to engage in delinquent acts but are able to refrain from such
activities if the costs of such behavior increase (e.g., if they risk losing
their jobs or families). The focus on control allows for the possibility
that the bi-strategic children are strategic also in both their prosocial
and antisocial control efforts. This casts a different light on what
might be meant by the co-occurrence of prosocial and antisocial
behavior.
A recent study by Boxer, Tisak, and Goldstein (2004) suggests that
prosocial actions by youths can stem from motivations other than sim-
ply being nice: An adolescent who appears to be good and proso-
cial in his or her orientation to others may in fact hold beliefs that
disregard the welfare of others (p. 99). A similar point is made by
LaFontana and Cillessen (2002). Such instrumental or proactive pro-
social behavior may at times even turn into indirect or relational forms
of aggression such as gossip and social exclusion (Crick and Grotpeter,
1995). Thus, in terms of Lindenbergs theory (see Lindenberg, this
volume; Lindenberg et al., this volume), such juveniles can be charac-
terized as habitually applying a gain frame when dealing with their
social environment. They follow the social norms of fairness and
justice if it is in their best interest to do so, but they refrain from
solidarity if it does not pay off for them.
In sum, our aim was to show that prosocial and antisocial behav-
ior in children and adolescents are not simply two sides of the same
coin. Few researchers have investigated prosocial and antisocial
behavior within the same sample; however, the empirical evidence
shows that although the two dimensions are substantially negatively
correlated with each other, this negative correlation is far from perfect.
Thus, some people resemble the metaphor of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
they are prosocial in some situations, but behave selfishly and brutally
in others.
106 Ren Veenstra
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PART III
Social Context: Networks and

Social Exchange
CHAPTER 7
The Ultimate Betrayal? Infidelity and

Solidarity in Close Relationships
Bram P. Buunk and Pieternel Dijkstra
There are probably few situations in which giving in to temptation may

have such an impact on ones personal life as when one engages in a
sexual relationship with a person other than ones spouse. Nevertheless,
such temptation may occur at least once for most married individuals,
especially when passion has left ones marriage. When the marital rela-
tionship has gone sour, attention from another person may feel very
rewarding and may lead to the temptation to be unfaithful (e.g., Atkins,
Baucom, and Jacobson, 2001). Although some individuals may always
be open to sex outside marriage, many married people may simply deny
or ignore the possibility of extradyadic sex as they consider fidelity a
matter of course. In general, becoming sexually involved outside ones
marriage runs counter to the basic notion of marriage and is usually per-
ceived as an ultimate breach of trust that gravely endangers the emo-
tional integrity of the marriage. Indeed, as illustrated by terms such as
adultery, cheating, infidelity, and unfaithfulness, extramarital
sexual involvement is generally considered a serious betrayal of ones
spouse. While an accidental one-night stand might be forgivable, few
people if anyone can overcome the violation of trust that results from
the discovery that ones partner has for a long time been involved in an
affair. Perhaps more than any other type of relationship, marital rela-
tionships are in general typically characterized by expectations of
strong solidarity: there is an emphasis on equality, the relationship is
supposed to have primacy over individual interests, and there is an
expectation of sacrifice for the group in case of need (see Lindenberg,
this volume). Furthermore, there exists a particular mental model of the
marital relationship that is different from that of other relationships,
and that specifies fidelity as a crucial form of prosocial behavior. The
mental model of a marital relationship implies specific rules (e.g.,
Spouses will not do anything that may hurt the other), expectations
about the other and from the other (e.g., We expect each other to be
faithful and honest), normative expectations (e.g., We are married and
111
112 B.P. Buunk and P. Dijkstra
ought to behave according to the norm of fidelity), and co-orientation

(e.g., We will both be faithful).
In this chapter, we describe how the attitudes and norms regarding
extradyadic sex and the jealousy resulting from the infidelity of ones
partner reflect that this behavior is perceived as a serious breach of
trust and as an undermining of the relationship, and we suggest that
this may in part be explained from an evolutionary perspective. We
examine from a social exchange perspective the relational dynamics
associated with the negative emotional responses (in particular jeal-
ousy) to the fact that ones partner engages in extradyadic sex, and we
argue that, to a considerable extent, these responses reflect that adul-
tery by ones partner is experienced as a complete lack of solidarity. We
also argue, however, that under some circumstances it is not the behav-
ior as such, but rather the violation of agreed upon norms that leads to
a negative emotional response. Finally, we analyze some of the factors
that may induce people to refrain from or to engage in extradyadic sex.
We link these analyses to the model of solidarity and prosocial behav-
ior outlined by Lindenberg (this volume).
Attitudes and Norms Regarding Infidelity
With the exception of isolated subcultures in certain historical

periods, few cultures have viewed extradyadic sex positively (e.g.,
Ford and Beach, 1952). Although attitudes in some countries became
somewhat more relaxed during the sexual revolution of the 1970s, in
the past decades, attitudes in Western society have moved toward less
freedom for extramarital sex (Thornton and Young-DeMarco, 2001). As
a consequence, by the late 1990s, about 70% (Christopher and
Sprecher, 2000) to 90% of American men and women (Thornton
and Young-DeMarco, 2001) said they believed that extramarital sex
was always or almost always wrong. In the Netherlands in 1997, about
78% considered extradyadic sex wrong (Sociaal en Cultureel
Planbureau, 1998). In addition, extradyadic relationships that do not
have an explicit sexual content such as having dinner in a secluded
place, dancing, or spending a few days in a secluded cabin are widely
condemned, as there is a possibility that they may develop into a
sexual relationship (e.g., Weis and Felton, 1987). The potential threat
of adultery to the primary relationship is illustrated by the fact that
infidelity is a major cause of divorce cross-culturally (Betzig, 1989).
Nevertheless, even in current society, there is variety in the degree of
disapproval. Attitudes toward extramarital relationships are stricter in
certain ethnic and religious groups than in other groups (Buunk and
Dijkstra, 2000), and not everyone always views extradyadic sex as a
lack of prosocial behavior. Only very small minorities have a positive
7: Infidelity and Solidarity in Close Relationships 113
attitude toward extramarital sexual relationships, but there are many

individuals who find such behavior understandable under certain cir-
cumstances, for instance, when a person is physically or mentally
abused in the marital relationship.
The strong solidarity that is expected in marital relationships to
refrain from infidelity may be understood from an evolutionary per-
spective. Unlike other primates such as chimpanzees and bonobos,
humans engage in pair bonding, a pattern that probably coevolved with
the helplessness of humans at birth and for years afterward. However,
humans have been called qualified monogamists (Zeifman and Hazan,
1997) because they are, despite their inclination to form monogamous
pair bonds, also inclined to seek extradyadic sexual relationships as
this may have reproductive benefits for men as well as women.
Therefore, the stability of the pair bond and thus ones own reproduc-
tive success may be threatened by infidelity of the spouse, which
explains why people tend to develop and reinforce norms where
extradyadic sex is met with disapproval. Although investing in a long-
term relationship has reproductive benefits for both genders, for
females such investment is virtually a necessity to produce offspring
who will survive to reproduce. In contrast, men have the potential to
invest minimallyonly one act of sexual intercourse is sufficient. As a
consequence, through the course of evolution, men evolved a stronger
tendency than women to be open to casual extradyadic sex (short-
term mating), more or less independent of the state of their marital
relationship, and men can afford to be less selective in choosing part-
ners for such casual encounters than females (Buss, 1994; Symons,
1979). Nevertheless, several specific hypotheses have recently been
forwarded about the potential benefits women might have derived
from engaging in extramarital sex in our ancestral past, such as the
resource hypothesis (e.g., acquiring immediate access to resources), the
genetic hypothesis (e.g., benefiting from genetically diverse offspring),
the mate-switching hypothesis (e.g., replacing the primary mate with a
better mate), the good genes hypothesis (e.g., being impregnated by
a mate with better genes than the primary partner), and the mate-
manipulation hypothesis (e.g., deterring a partner from committing
future acts of infidelity). Most strongly supported have been the mate-
switching, resource-acquisition (Greiling and Buss, 2000), and the
good genes hypotheses (Scheib, 2001).
Related to the fact that extradyadic sex may have different repro-
ductive benefits for men than for women, jealousy has in part a differ-
ent meaning for men than for women. In the course of evolution, males
have confronted a problem not encountered by females: the problem of
uncertainty with regard to the paternity of their offspring. When their
partner is sexually unfaithful, men may, unknowingly, invest heavily
in another mans offspring without passing on his own genes. Because
investing in genetically unrelated offspring involves substantial repro-

ductive cost to the male, evolutionary psychologists have suggested
that mens jealousy is elicited primarily by signs of a partners sexual
infidelity (Daly, Wilson, and Weghorst, 1982; Okami and Shackelford,
2001; Symons, 1979). Females, on the other hand, do not suffer from
uncertainty concerning the maternity of their offspring. They risk,
however, the loss of a males resources if he directs his resources to
alternative partners (Trivers, 1972). Because males can minimize their
investments while having sex with females, in particular signs of an
emotional bond may be reliable indicators to a woman of the risk of
having to share her partners resources with another woman, or of los-
ing her partnerand thus his resourcesto another woman. Therefore,
jealousy in women is aroused basically by signs of a partners emo-
tional unfaithfulness (Baker, 1996; Buss, Larsen, Westen, and
Semmelroth, 1992). Although support for this is not unequivocal, there
is considerable evidence from a variety of societies for such sex differ-
ences, suggesting that in this respect the preferred form of solidarity is
somewhat different for men than for women: men particularly value
sexual fidelity, and women particularly value emotional fidelity (e.g.,
Buss et al., 1999; Buunk, Angleitner, Oubaid, and Buss, 1996; Buunk
and Dijkstra, 2003; Cann, Mangum, and Wells, 2001; Pietrzak, Laird,
Stevens, and Thompson, 2002).
An Exchange Theoretical Analysis of Jealousy
The evolutionary perspective primarily explains why people gen-

erally perceive extradyadic sex as a serious threat, and how men and
women differ in this respect. In contrast, a social exchange perspective
may contribute to an understanding of how infidelity and jealousy are
related to processes in the marital relationship (see Sprecher, 1998).
According to social exchange theory, to obtain rewards, individuals
have to provide rewards themselves and to make sure that the costs to
the other of providing rewards are not too high. Individuals feel
uncomfortable not only in situations in which the other is indebted to
them, but also in situations in which they are indebted to the other
(e.g., Burgess and Huston, 1979; Buunk and Schaufeli, 1999; Walster,
Walster, and Berscheid, 1978). In the early stages of a relationship,
partners may produce rewards for the other without expecting imme-
diate returns in order to show their altruistic interest in the other (Mills
and Clark, 1982), but may simultaneously monitor the degree of an
overall fair exchange rather closely, and attend to the possibility of
receiving better outcomes elsewhere. In the course of the relationship,
however, a narrow focus on a fair exchange usually disappears as the
partners become interdependent, and as the positive experiences of
one may vicariously become rewards for the other (I am happy

because he/she is happy) (e.g., Kelley and Thibaut, 1978; Rusbult and
Buunk, 1993). In a close relationship, a joint production of outcomes
usually occurs: in their intimate interaction, individuals produce
unique outcomes for themselves and their partners that are specific to
the relationship, and that cannot be substituted by other outcomes.
Joint production enhances the likelihood that people will enter a nor-
mative frame (see Lindenberg, this volume).
From a social exchange perspective, a person may perceive a part-
ners infidelity as contributing to the costs of their relationship, even
though the unfaithful partner may seek extradyadic sex to restore his
or her own perception of fairness in the relationship (Buunk, 1991).
However, probably one of the major reasons why extradyadic sex by
ones partner evokes such strong emotional reactions is that it represents
a transformation from the person considering the couples joint out-
comes to the person making decisions on the basis of appraisals that are
based on individualistic outcomes. The partners extradyadic sexual
behavior may function as a negative relational signal, and may lead to a
complete reframing of the relationship from a solidary to an opportunis-
tic relationship (see Lindenberg, this volume). Furthermore, in intimate
relationships, the value of various rewards is raised by the fact that the
partner provides these rewards only to us. By virtue of the fact that
the partner shows romantic interest in another person, some of these
rewards are lost, and when the partner provides rewards to a third per-
son that are similar to those he or she provides to oneself, these rewards
may lose much of their meaning. In addition, the partners behavior may
make it more difficult to experience jointly produced outcomes as the
partner now spends time with another person. Finally, the attraction to
the rival may be interpreted as meaning that, in some ways, the current
relationship is unsatisfactory for the partner, and that another person is
considered more attractive than oneself. This may induce the perception
that the partner is not very motivated to put energy into the primary rela-
tionship, and might even end this relationship. In line with these analy-
ses, research by Buunk (1991) showed that perceptions in response to
the partners extramarital behavior included no longer being the only one
for the partner, receiving less love and attention than before, being
excluded from the activities of the partner, and feeling that the partner
enjoyed certain things more with the other (rivalry, cf. Dijkstra and
Buunk, 1998).
According to social exchange theory, the most satisfying situation
probably exists when partners agree on their degree of extradyadic
involvement. This is the case when a certain degree of involvement
(whether occasionally dancing with another person at a party or having
friends of the opposite sex) is desired by both partners, and when both
feel comfortable with accepting that level of extradyadic involvement of
the other. It seems likely that such a situation is generally perceived as

fairest, and aiming at such fairness is, as noted by Lindenberg (this vol-
ume), one form of prosocial behavior. The mental image of a marital
relationship is characterized by equality, and a couple is likely to want
to prevent the status differences that would arise when one partner is
more involved in extradyadic relationships than the other. Indeed, the
level of extradyadic involvement individuals accept from their partner
seems to correspond quite closely with the level they claim for them-
selves (e.g., only having nonsexual friendships, flirting, having one-
night stands, e.g., Buunk, 1982). Buunk (1995) even found that those
who had been involved in extradyadic sex indicated that they would
respond with fewer feelings of betrayal and anger if their partner were
to do the same as opposed to individuals who had always been faithful.
In the course of a relationship, partners become more dependent on
each other: individuals develop the ability to control and influence each
others outcomes. Dependency is directly determined by the Comparison
Level for Alternatives (CLalt): the lowest level of outcomes a person
will accept in light of perceived alternative opportunities. Thus, the lower
the CLalt, the lower the perceived chance of obtaining a partner as attrac-
tive as the current partner and the less attractive the option of living
without the partner is perceived to be (Rusbult and Buunk, 1993; Thibaut
and Kelley, 1959). Individuals who are more dependent experience more
frequent and more intense jealousy. Indeed, as such individuals perceive
few alternatives as attractive as the current relationship, they may easily
adopt a loss frame when their partner is interested in someone else.
Hansen (1985), for instance, found that, regardless of the actual quality
of their marriage, individuals who viewed themselves as having few
alternatives to their present marriages were more likely to experience
jealousy. Violent jealousy of males has also been linked to depend-
ency (e.g., Holtzworth-Munroe, Stuart, and Hutchinson, 1997). A study
by Buunk (1995) showed that those high in emotional dependency
responded with more feelings of anger and disappointment to the possi-
bility of their partner engaging in extradyadic sex.
To ensure a satisfying exchange of benefits and joint production of
valued outcomes, norms and rules develop in a relationship that are
accepted by both partners and that both feel obligated to adhere to.
Norms guarantee predictability, eliminate unsatisfactory behaviors from
the relationship, guard against the abuse of power, enhance the cohesion
of the relationship, reduce uncertainty, and often increase the outcomes
attained by both partners (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959, pp. 130147).
Peplau (1983) has noted that norms in relationships can arise in two
major ways. As the dependency between partners increases, norms may
be developed during a relationship (Lets both not flirt with others),
but, from the beginning of the relationship, norms may also be adapted
as self-evident from the larger social environment (Everyone agrees that
extramarital relationships are wrong no matter what). A person in a

social context where norms dictate that adultery is wrong may feel justi-
fied in blaming the partner for his or her moral transgression, and may
thus have a strong instrument at his or her disposal to obtain compliance
from the potentially or actually adulterous partner. The person may
induce feelings of guilt by emphasizing the betrayal and the lack of sol-
idarity that extradyadic sexual involvement implies. In a study by Buunk
(1991), it was found that the major response to infidelity of the spouse
was anger-disappointment, including feeling angry, betrayed, humili-
ated, cheated, and unjustly treated. This response correlated highly with
normative disapproval (measured by items such as extramarital sex is
always wrong and extramarital relationships cannot be excused).
These findings illustrate quite clearly that a sense of norms and values
being violated may be an important aspect of jealousy (see also Drigotas
and Barta, 2001).
Although the norm that includes radical disapproval of extradyadic
sex is widely accepted, under some conditions, couples may develop spe-
cific ground rules stating that under certain circumstances extradyadic
relationships are allowed. The primary function of such rules is to pro-
tecting the primary relationship from the possible negative consequences
of extradyadic sexual relationships. Extradyadic sex that occurs under the
circumstances specified by the groundrules is not perceived as reflecting
a lack of solidarity. Only when such rules are broken is the partners
behavior interpreted as a lack of solidarity. Various ground rules were
identified by Buunk (1980); these included marriage primacy (e.g.,
You always put your own marriage first, You are completely honest
with your spouse), restricted intensity (e.g., There is only a casual
contact), visibility (e.g., Your spouse knows the outside partner) and
invisibility (e.g., Your spouse is not too aware of it), and mate
exchange. Over time, adherence to such groundrules appeared to lead to
a reduction of jealousy (Buunk, 1987). These findings seem to suggest that
there are couples who, under certain conditions, may be able to modify
the perception of extradyadic sex as reflecting a lack of solidarity.
Engaging in Extradyadic Sex Versus Resisting Temptation
Given the potential reproductive benefits of extradyadic sex and

the strong motivational factors underlying this behavior, solidarity in
the sense of being consistently faithful may sometimes be difficult. For
instance, when a person perceives his or her relationship to be unfair
from an exchange point of view, he or she may feel entitled to obtain
the extra rewards from a supplementary relationship and engage in
extradyadic relationships in an attempt to restore perceptions of fair-
ness (see also Hatfield, Traupmann, and Walster, 1978; Hatfield, Utne,
and Traupmann, 1979; Prins, Buunk, and Van Yperen, 1993; Sprecher,
1998). A major manifestation of high solidarity with the primary rela-
tionship would be a person making active attempts to avoid getting
involved in extradyadic relationships and to resist temptation.
Following Lindenbergs five kinds of prosocial behavior, two forms of
prosocial behavior are particularly relevant in the present context: fair-
ness, that is, individuals refrain from behavior that they would not
accept in their partner, and trustworthiness, abstaining from breach
temptations (i.e., refraining from hurting the other by forsaking a
potentially exciting extradyadic affair). Interestingly, while there is a
quite extensive literature on the determinants of extradyadic sex, few
researchers have examined the factors that may affect the decision not
to become involved in sex outside ones primary relationship. Of
course, all the factors that are related to extradyadic willingness and
desires are in the opposite way related to refraining from it. It is, how-
ever, important to make a distinction between extradyadic sexual
desires, which probably a majority of people experience at times, and
extradyadic willingness (i.e., the willingness to engage in extradyadic
sex if the opportunity were to present itself). There may be a large
discrepancy between these phenomena, as most people may feel that
turning their desires into reality may undermine and endanger what
they consider to be the most important relationship in their lives.
Commitment is an important factor affecting the willingness to
become involved in extradyadic sex. According to Rusbult (1983),
commitment is the subjective representation of dependency, experi-
enced as a feeling of psychological attachment to the partner, accom-
panied by the desire to maintain the relationship. A high degree of
commitment may, in terms of Lindenbergs model (this volume), be
associated with a normative frame in which hedonic goals are pushed
to the background, and the desire to act in line with the norms pre-
vailing in the relationship and in the wider societal context becomes
salient. There is evidence that extradyadic sex may be particularly
likely to occur in relationships characterized by low dependency or
low commitment, and, vice versa, that those who remain faithful
exhibit higher levels of dependency and commitment. Drigotas,
Safstrom, and Gentilia (1999) even found the level of commitment to
the relationship to predict infidelity over a 2-month period. In an
interesting experiment, Johnson and Rusbult (1989) showed that those
with low commitment perceived attractive others of the opposite sex
realistically as more attractive than nonattractive others, whereas
those high in commitment evaluated the attractiveness of attractive
others as similar to that of unattractive others; put differently, those
high in commitment tended to derogate from attractive potential part-
nersexactly as a person with a normative frame would do. A study
by Buunk and Bakker (1997) demonstrated that commitment to the
steady partner was an important determinant of the willingness to

refrain from extradyadic sexual relationships. Moreover, the results
showed that the more individuals felt committed to the steady partner,
the more they were inclined to use condoms in extradyadic sexual
contacts, and the more they tended to take into account the interests
of their primary partner if they practiced unsafe extradyadic sex. That
is, those highly committed to their partner expressed a relatively
strong willingness to inform the steady partner about unsafe
extradyadic sex, and to protect the steady partner against the possible
risk of HIV infection after unsafe extradyadic sex, by always using
condoms, or by taking an HIV-antibody test. This was also true for
those with actual experience with extradyadic sex. It is interesting to
note that individuals who are inclined to engage in a form of behavior
that is generally considered to exhibit an extreme lack of solidarity
still demonstrate, in terms of Lindenbergs model (this volume), con-
siderateness (i.e., the readiness to avoid harming the partner and to
take his or her interests into account where the consequences of their
behavior are concerned).
Fidelity and infidelity are dependent not only on dependence and
commitment in the relationship, but also on dispositional factors. Such
factors may affect the way in which the relationship is framed, and may
thus influence whether individuals remain faithful (see also Van der
Zee and Perugini, this volume). There is, for example, evidence that
individuals who remain faithful to their partners are relatively often
characterized by higher levels of well-being and emotional stability, and
that, vice versa, those who seek out extradyadic sex may suffer from var-
ious mental health problems. For example, dating infidelity has been
found to be related to a lower self-esteem (Sheppard, Nelson, and
Andreoli-Mathie, 1995), and Apt and Hurlbert (1994) found that women
with a histrionic personality disorder (characterized by helplessness
and dependency, sensitivity to criticism, identity disturbances, marked
mood swings, and impulsivity) were relatively more likely to enter an
affair. In a study among couples in their first year of marriage, Buss and
Schackelford (1997) found that, in general, the personality characteris-
tics of the wife were better predictors of her susceptibility to infidelity
as perceived by herself and her husband. Such susceptibility was found
more among women low in conscientiousness, low in emotional stabil-
ity, and high in narcissism. In part, the personality characteristics exam-
ined in these studies may reflect insecure attachment styles (Buunk,
1997). Bogaert and Sadava (2002) found that individuals, especially
women, who scored high on an anxious attachment index not only had
more lifetime partners but were also more unfaithful. In addition,
Hazan, Zeifman, and Middleton (1994) found that anxious, ambiva-
lently attached individuals more often engaged in one-night stands, and
Miller and Fishkin (1997) found that avoiding and anxiously attached
men (but not women) sought many more partners over a 30-year period
than did securely attached men. It seems that such personality charac-
teristics support, in the terms of Lindenbergs model (this volume), a
hedonic rather than a normative frame.
In addition to dispositional factors, the situation plays an important
role in fostering or preventing extradyadic sex. Even emotionally stable
individuals with strong moral objections against infidelity may in cer-
tain situations give in to the temptation of infidelity. In terms of
Lindenbergs model, in such a situation, there may be a strong framing
effect, in which a hedonic frame becomes very salient because the
supports of the (a priori weaker) normative frame are weakened. As
a result, the attractiveness of the third person and various excuses are
pushed into the foreground, and the potential detrimental effects on the
marital relationship are pushed into the background. The overriding
goal in such a situation may be to satisfy ones desires for excitement,
romance, and passion. In some cases, individuals may perceive a temp-
tation as having no choice (e.g., when they are away from home and
have already spent much time with a person of the opposite sex). Given
factors such as the potential risk to their primary relationship, feelings
of guilt and anxiety, and fears of pregnancy and venereal disease,
becoming involved in extramarital relationships often implies a deci-
sion-making process in which the costs and benefits are identified and
compared with the expected values of alternative decisions. Framing
processes may influence which aspects are primarily considered. It
seems that a hedonic frame is more salient in the decision-making
process among men, while a normative frame is more salient in the
decision-making process among women. For example, Meyering and
Epling-McWerther (1986) found that, in such a decision-making
process, men were affected more by the perceived payoffs, including
variation, and women more by the costs, including the probability of
strong guilt feelings and the marriage being negatively affected. This dif-
ference is confirmed by the finding of Atwater (1979) that women usu-
ally only gradually developed an openness to engaging in an affair, and
that a number of factors fostered such openness, including invitations
from men, and factors that reduced the guilt feelings, such as having
a friend who had an affair, and talking with friends about the pros and
cons of having an affair. Such factors gradually legitimized the involve-
ment in an affair (see also Spanier and Margolis, 1983). The actual
occurrence of infidelity, of course, depends on opportunity. A social
environment with relatively favorable norms regarding extradyadic
sex constitutes such an opportunity. Buunk and Bakker (1995) showed
that, in addition to positive attitudes and having been involved in
extradyadic sex in the past, descriptive norms (the perception that
relatively many of ones friends had been, or would get, involved in
extradyadic sex) and injunctive norms (the perception that ones friends
do not disapprove of extradyadic sex) were independent predictors of

the willingness to engage in extradyadic sex.
Conclusion
Given the importance of human pair bonding for the survival of

offspring, it is not difficult to understand why refraining from extradyadic
sex is generally viewed as important and why this behavior is perceived
as a serious breach of trust and as detrimental to the relationship. Because
of their different reproductive interests, it seems that for men the sexual
aspect of infidelity, while for women the emotional aspect of infidelity, is
particularly upsetting. Although an evolutionary perspective explains the
overall importance of jealousy, a social exchange perspective and
Lindenbergs model shed light on how jealousy is related to the relational
dynamics, including the way the relationship is framed, the loss of unique
and jointly produced outcomes, the disturbance of a fair exchange, the
threat of losing the partner due to high dependency, and the violation of
central norms. The partners extradyadic sexual behavior may function as
a negative relational signal and may lead to a reframing of the relationship
as an opportunistic relationship instead of a solidary relationship. Under
some circumstances, however, extradyadic sex may not be a threat when
it conforms to relationship norms specifying the conditions under which
it is allowed. The strong emotional responses to adultery of the spouse
seem to be an evolutionarily determined response to the omnipresent
temptation to give in to extradyadic sex. Indeed, the temptation to engage
in extradyadic sex, the strong norms according to which extradyadic sex
is disapproved of, and the tendency to respond with jealousy to such
behavior by ones partner seem to be interrelated and universal human
phenomena that are all part of our human evolutionary heritage. From this
perspective, it is no surprise that extradyadic sexual relationships often
seem to entail a combination of high costs and rewards. Nevertheless,
there is considerable variation across individuals, relationships, and situ-
ations in the likelihood of becoming involved in extradyadic sex. As with
other forms of forsaking solidary and prosocial responses, situational pres-
sures such as a favorable normative climate also play an important role in
this context. Furthermore, the tendency to engage in extradyadic sex is
less likely to occur in relationships characterized by dependency and
commitment that seem to induce a normative frame, and is more likely to
occur in individuals characterized by impulsiveness and mood swings
that might induce a hedonic frame. The findings presented in the present
chapter illustrate that not only the partners of those who give in to the
temptation to engage in an affair, but also society at large, as well as adul-
terous individuals themselves (although probably to a lesser extent), all
tend to view such behavior as a serious breach of solidarity.
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CHAPTER 8
Understanding the Joint Effects of

Interdependence and Diversity on
Solidarity in Work Teams
Gerben van der Vegt and Andreas Flache
In recent decades, modern work organizations have increasingly faced

two trends that seem to be of crucial importance for the solidarity and
performance of work teams. First, as a result of downsizing, reengi-
neering, and increased information load, the degree and intensity of
interdependence among organizational members has increased sub-
stantially (Hackman, 1990). The reason for this is that many employees
who previously worked individually have been reorganized into work
groups or teams (e.g., Sundstrom, De Meuse, and Futrell, 1990).
Second, organizations, and consequently the work teams within them,
have become more diverse owing to the changing demographics of the
workforce (Bowers, Pharmer, and Salas, 2000; Webber and Donahue,
2001; Williams and OReilly, 1998). More people of different ethnical
backgrounds, gender, age, skills, and abilities have entered organiza-
tions and are required to work together effectively in work groups or
teams.
These tendencies toward more interdependence and diversity
make solidarity within work teams more necessary for team perform-
ance, and simultaneously put this solidarity under pressure. While sev-
eral authors have highlighted the importance of solidarity among
interdependent members in work teams (e.g., Northcraft, Polzer, Neale,
and Kramer, 1995), research suggests that the interpersonal differences
among team members may negatively affect their solidary behavior
(Webber and Donahue, 2001). Accordingly, organization researchers
pay increasing attention to the effects and underlying mechanisms that
relate interdependence and diversity to solidarity. The aim of our
review of this literature is to show that the framing approach proposed
in this book (Lindenberg, this volume; Lindenberg, Fetchenhauer,
Flache, and Buunk, this volume) is a powerful tool to integrate and
explain the complex empirical findings generated by these recent
research efforts.
125
126 G. van der Vegt and A. Flache
In the first two sections of this chapter, we will review organiza-

tional research that investigated how interdependence and dissimilar-
ity affect solidarity in organizational work teams. In the third section,
we will discuss the findings of some recent studies in which the joint
impact of interdependence and diversity on solidarity was examined.
In each of the sections, we connect the findings from research to the
books general framework. We will end with suggestions for future
research.
For the purpose of this review, we defined solidarity in the work-
place broadly as behaviors such as helping colleagues and showing
loyalty to the organization. Thus, we were mainly concerned with
employees behavior toward the work organization and their col-
leagues. In the literature on organizational behavior, solidarity is often
defined in terms of behavior, but covered by attitudinal measures such
as team commitment, cohesion, and feelings of belongingness. For that
reason, we will also report the results of studies in which solidarity
was measured in terms of attitudes rather than behavior.
These attitudes and behaviors associated with solidarity are gen-
erally assumed to be important for the viability of work teams (Tyler
and Blader, 2001). They lubricate the social machinery of the group
and provide the flexibility needed to work through many unforeseen
contingencies. Although common, the occurrence of these behaviors
within groups cannot be assumed. Competing forces, such as personal
interests, the tendency to free-ride, and even the inclination to retal-
iate against the group may impede them (Tyler and Blader, 2001).
Interdependence and Solidarity
Members of work groups necessarily find themselves in situations

characterized by some form or type of interdependence (Sundstrom
et al., 1990). They depend on each other not only for the successful
completion of their jobs but also for the achievement of goals and
desired outcomes. In general, interdependence can be divided into
interdependence around work inputs and interdependence around
work outcomes (Wageman, 2001). A number of authors refer to these
basic forms of interdependence as task interdependence and outcome
interdependence (Johnson and Johnson, 1989; Saavedra, Earley, and
Van Dyne, 1993; Shea and Guzzo, 1987; Wageman, 1995, 2001). Task
interdependence is a structural feature of the instrumental relations
that exist between team members. It is shaped by the jobs that the
members must perform within their teams. Team members are task
interdependent when they must share materials, information, or
expertise in order to achieve the desired output or performance.
Outcome interdependence is generally defined as the degree to which
8: Effects of Interdependence and Diversity 127
shared significant consequences of work are contingent on collective

performance of the tasks (Wageman, 2001). This definition includes
reward interdependencies or tangible outcomes that accrue to the
group as a whole (such as group bonus payments), as well as goal and
feedback interdependence, which refers to the specification and meas-
urement of collective output. Team members are outcome interde-
pendent when they receive rewards for collective performance (Shea
and Guzzo, 1987), are presented with group goals (e.g., Deutsch, 1973;
Thomas, 1957), or receive group feedback about goal attainment (e.g.,
Campion, Medsker, and Higgs, 1993; Saavedra et al., 1993).
Task and outcome interdependence have both been cited as impor-
tant influences on the degree of helping (Hayes, 1976; Shaw, 1973) and
cooperation in teams (Pearce and Gregersen, 1991). With increasing
levels of task interdependence, the interactive nature of the work itself
enhances the degree of responsibility felt for other team members out-
comes (Kiggundu, 1983; Pearce and Gregersen, 1991), and encourages
an open flow of communication (Thompson, 1967). Higher levels of
task interdependence are also known to increase recognition of the
need for coordination of effort and the need to help solve problems that
arise (Anderson and Williams, 1996). Finally, the possibility of pun-
ishing or rewarding the behaviors of interdependent others has been
shown to motivate task interdependent team members to subjugate
personal interests for collective interests (Mudrack, 1989; Murnighan
and Conlon, 1991).
With regard to outcome interdependence, hundreds of studies
originating from Deutschs (1949) interdependence theory have shown
the positive effects of group goals and group rewards on the creation of
caring and committed relationships, and collaborative behavior (for a
review, see Johnson and Johnson, 1989). In addition, a substantial body
of research dealing with goal setting has shown group goals to stimu-
late cooperation, especially when paired with collective performance
feedback (for a review, see OLeary-Kelly, Martocchio, and Frink,
1994). These studies showed collective goals, feedback, and rewards to
focus the attention of group members on collective rather than indi-
vidual success.
In much past research, task and outcome interdependence were
seen as substitutes for one another in their effect on solidarity. That is,
increasing either task or outcome interdependence was expected to
produce greater solidarity (Wageman, 2001). Some researchers have
argued that the two interact to influence solidarity-related outcomes.
Saavedra et al. (1993), for example, conducted an experiment in which
the members of 118 three-person groups worked on a performance-
appraisal task under different levels of task interdependence and
received either group or individual goals and group or individual feed-
back. Their results showed tasks, goals, and feedback to interactively
affect perceived intragroup cooperation. Combinations of congruent

low-low or high-high task and outcome interdependence were found to
be superior to incongruent low-high or high-low combinations of task
and outcome interdependence. This finding is in line with the findings
of earlier studies of the effects of individualistic and collective reward
systems under conditions of low and high task interdependence
(Miller and Hamblin, 1963; Rosenbaum et al., 1980). In addition,
Wageman (1995) examined both the main and the interactive effects of
task and outcome interdependence in a field setting. The effects of the
existing task design and a manipulated reward system on group func-
tioning were examined. Group, hybrid, and individual reward systems
were created in a large corporation for 152 teams of technicians with
group, hybrid, or individual tasks. The teams were found to perform
best when their tasks and outcomes were either purely group or purely
individual, thereby supporting the congruence hypothesis. The hybrid
groups were found to perform quite poorly, have low-quality interac-
tion processes, and be characterized by low member motivation
and satisfaction. Van der Vegt, Emans, and Van de Vliert (2000, 2001)
examined the main and interactive effects of task and outcome inter-
dependence on team commitment. In line with previous research, out-
come interdependence was operationalized as a group-level variable,
reflecting the extent to which team members received group goals and
group feedback, whereas task interdependence was operationalized as
an individual-level variable, reflecting the extent to which individual
team members needed other team members to complete their jobs. In
line with previous research, the results of their study revealed that
individual-level task interdependence was positively related to indi-
vidual team commitment. They found no direct positive effect of out-
come interdependence on team commitment. However, cross-level
interactions showed that the positive relations between task inter-
dependence and team commitment were stronger in high-outcome
interdependent teams than in low-outcome interdependent teams.
A proper match between high individual task interdependence and
high group-level outcome interdependence was found to produce more
team commitment than low-high and high-low mismatches.
We argue that this pattern of effects is consistent with the theoreti-
cal perspective laid out in Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume. The central
point in our argument is that high outcome interdependence, in partic-
ular group feedback about goal attainment (e.g., Campion et al., 1993;
Saavedra et al., 1993), shapes the way actors frame the situation. While
group feedback does not increase the extent of task interdependence, it
increases the strength of actors solidarity frame, that is, the salience
of the motive to act appropriately in terms of group obligations (cf.
Lindenberg 1998). Under low task interdependence, a normative frame
triggered by group feedback may actually have detrimental effects on
team commitment, but under high task interdependence, it may greatly

foster team commitment. When task interdependence is low and out-
come interdependence is high, actors may frame the situation only ini-
tially in terms of solidarity with their peers. The problem is that the lack
of tangible task interdependence causes strong temptation occasionally
to free-ride in group efforts or invest in private rather than group suc-
cess. This generates mismatches between perceived norms and actual
behavior, with the consequence that conflicts between group members
weaken the motive of peer solidarity. In that case, the resulting level of
team commitment would be even worse under high outcome depend-
ence than with low outcome interdependence. This is because, under
low outcome interdependence, actors frame the situation from the out-
set in terms of gain and at least no conflicts arise about the legitimacy
of gain-oriented individualistic behavior.
With high task interdependence, not only does outcome interde-
pendence strengthen normative frames initially, but the ensuing team
process may stabilize such frames persistently. The greater the task
interdependence, the greater the damage that lack of solidary behavior
can do to team interests. Accordingly, when task interdependence is
high and high outcome interdependence has strengthened team mem-
bers normative frames in the first place, then it is likely that the temp-
tation to behave opportunistically is more than counterbalanced by the
strongly negative evaluation of this behavior in the light of the salient
goal to comply with team obligations. As a consequence, team members
would show a higher level of commitment in this high-high congruent
match than in a situation where task interdependence is high but out-
come interdependence is low. In the latter case, some level of team com-
mitment may still arise owing to instrumental cooperation between
team members based on calculated reciprocity. Task interdependence
creates the possibility and the need for this instrumental cooperation.
Accordingly, it is consistent with a framing point of view that task inter-
dependence fosters team commitment even when group members frame
the situation in terms of gain (low outcome interdependence). However,
outcome interdependence increases this positive effect, because with
the stabilizing effect of a prominent solidarity motive, cooperation is
much less precarious and less likely to suffer from occasional mishaps
or the temptation to free-ride on colleagues efforts.
Group Diversity and Solidarity
Employees of modern organizations work not only under different

interdependence conditions, but also with other individuals who may
differ from themselves. As a result of the changing demographics of the
labor force, teams are becoming more diverse on a large number of
demographic attributes (Williams and OReilly, 1998; Webber and

Donahue, 2001; cf. Van der Zee, this volume). Moreover, work teams
are increasingly assembled from individuals varying in knowledge,
skills, abilities, and attitudes (Bowers et al., 2000). This work-group
diversity has been shown to have detrimental effects on elements of
solidarity.
The majority of studies in which such negative effects were exam-
ined were predicated upon self-categorization theory (Williams and
OReilly, 1998). Self-categorization theory and research (Hogg and
Abrams, 1988; Turner, 1987) posits that individuals use salient charac-
teristics to define themselves and others as members of social cate-
gories (i.e., categorization). When people compare themselves with
other team members on the basis of these characteristics, cognitions
about their relative similarity to or dissimilarity from the other team
members are invoked. Others are perceived either as members of the
same category as oneself or as members of a category different from
oneself. One of the consequences of this categorization process is the
accentuation of the positive features of members who belong to the
same category and of the negative features of dissimilar others. The aim
of this differentiation is to reduce uncertainty and to maintain percep-
tions of superiority over dissimilar others in order to create the desired
positive social identity. When dissimilarity is salient, feeling dissimi-
lar from other team members leads to the experience of social distance
and leaves a person vulnerable to stigmatization and potential rejection
(Brewer, 1991). A typical example is a woman working together with
10 male colleagues.
Individual team members who are more dissimilar from the other
team members are less likely to identify with the team as a collective
entity. Consistent with this categorization perspective, diversity in
such attributes as age, gender, and race has been shown to have detri-
mental effects. In general, research has shown that demographic dif-
ferences among group members result in increased communication
problems, conflict, and turnover (e.g., Jehn, Northcraft, and Neale,
1999), and in decreased interpersonal attraction and cohesion (for
reviews, see Milliken and Martins, 1996; Williams and OReilly, 1998).
These negative effects of perceived dissimilarity are consistent with
categorization theory, and can also be explained by Lindenbergs fram-
ing theory (see Lindenberg, 1998; Lindenberg, this volume). Within a
framing perspective, it is a major threat to the stability of solidarity
motives when group members differ in their perceptions of what kinds
of behavior are appropriate and in line with group norms. Even when
all group members frame the situation in terms of normative obliga-
tions, in a demographically dissimilar group this may lead some actors
to behave in a way that reflects solidarity from their own point of view,
but that others may consider a sign of opportunistic motivation. For
example, when time pressure is high, members of Western cultures may

see it as a clear indication of lack of commitment to the task when they
see colleagues from, for example, Islamic cultures taking time to chat
and socialize at work. Conversely, these colleagues may feel that it is a
sign of a lack of concern for the group when some of their co-workers
entirely abstain from socializing and focus exclusively on their work.
For both sides, such perceived negative relational signals may result in
a weakening of their solidarity frames, putting team commitment and
cooperation with colleagues under pressure.
Joint Effects of Interdependence and Group

Diversity on Solidarity
Numerous studies have documented the effects of either interde-

pendence or diversity on several aspects of solidarity, but it is only
recently that the joint effects of interdependence and diversity in orga-
nizational work groups came under investigation. Van der Vegt and his
colleagues conducted two field studies (Van der Vegt and Van de Vliert,
2005; Van der Vegt, Van de Vliert, and Oosterhof, 2003) to investigate
the substantive and joint effects of task interdependence, outcome inter-
dependence, and group diversity on several elements of solidarity,
including team identification, helping, and loyalty. In the first study
(Van der Vegt and Van de Vliert, 2005), support was found for an
interaction between dissimilarity and task interdependence. The joint
effects of task interdependence and perceived dissimilarity on individ-
ual team members helping behavior (the extent to which a person
voluntarily helps other team members in need) were investigated. Data
were gathered during a management simulation in which 20 teams of
business-school students worked under conditions of high outcome
interdependence. This high level of outcome interdependence was
fixed and the effect of this variable on solidarity could, therefore, not be
investigated. Data were collected twice, with a one-week interval. Team
members filled in questionnaires measuring task interdependence
and perceived dissimilarity in knowledge, skills and abilities, and self-
reported helping behavior. They also rated the helping behavior of the
other team members. Consistent with the interdependence literature,
task interdependence was found to be positively related to both self-
reported and peer-rated helping behavior. Moreover, although perceived
dissimilarity appeared not to be directly related to helping behavior, a
significant interaction between task interdependence and perceived
dissimilarity was found. Perceived dissimilarity was negatively related
only to the self-reported and peer-rated helping behavior of team mem-
bers who experienced low levels of task interdependence. Under con-
ditions of high task interdependence, perceived dissimilarity was
positively related to the self-reported and peer-rated helping behavior.

The cooperative contact resulting from increased task interdependence
reduced the potentially negative categorization effects of perceived dis-
similarity and resulted in individuated impressions of dissimilar others
(Gaertner, Mann, Dovidio, Murrel, and Pomare, 1990; Pettigrew, 1998).
Moreover, cross-lagged panel analyses revealed that the direction of
causality was from dissimilarity and task interdependence to helping
behavior, rather than vice versa.
In the second study (Van der Vegt et al., 2003), the generalizability of
the results from the management simulation study to real-life organiza-
tional work groups was tested. The effect of outcome interdependence
and the possible mediating effect of a persons team identification were
also examined. Data were gathered from 129 individuals distributed
across 20 multidisciplinary teams in a telecommunications company.
Solidary behavior was operationalized as helping behavior and loyal
behavior (allegiance to the work group as a whole by transcending the
parochial interests of individuals [Van Dyne, Graham, and Dienesch,
1994]). Based on the demographic group diversity literature (e.g.,
Milliken and Martins, 1996; Tsui and Gutek, 1999; Williams and OReilly,
1998), it was hypothesized that higher levels of demographic dissimilar-
ity would elicit categorization processes, and would thereby lead to
decreased team identification and decreased helping and loyal behavior.
Although no uniform relationship was found between demographic
dissimilarity and team identification, helping, and loyal behavior, the
findings revealed that the effects of dissimilarity again strongly depended
on the degree and type of intrateam interdependence. As expected, the
negative effects of demographic dissimilarity were found to occur only
under incongruent low-high or high-low combinations of task and out-
come interdependence, and not under congruent low-low or high-high
combinations of task and outcome interdependence (see Figure 8.1).
The data showed that only when individual team members are
interdependent in such a way that the behavior of other team members
1a: Task Interdependence Low 1b: Task Interdependence High

0.5 0.5
0.4
Helping Behavior
0.4
Helping Behavior
0.3 0.3
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0.1 0.1
0.2 0.2
0.3 OI Low 0.3 OI Low
0.4 OI High 0.4 OI High
0.5 0.5
Low High Low High
Demographic Dissimilarity Demographic Dissimilarity
FIGURE 8.1. Effects of demographic dissimilarity on helping under conditions

of congruent and incongruent task and outcome interdependence (OI)
is likely to create uncertainty about their behavior (because of lower

levels of cooperation or effort) do higher levels of dissimilarity make it
more likely that they view themselves as different from the others, and
make them less inclined to help or show loyalty toward other members
(cf. Brickson, 2000). Moreover, the results of the two studies demon-
strated that demographic dissimilarity is not necessarily undesirable in
work teams. Under favorable conditions, the potentially negative out-
comes of dissimilarity can be dampened, and the potential positive
consequences can be stimulated. In particular, these results showed
that the effects of diversity are highly context-dependent (Turner,
Oakes, Haslam, and McGarthy, 1994; Williams and OReilly, 1998) and
empirically supported the notion that interdependence and group
diversity may jointly affect solidarity in organizational work teams
(e.g., Milliken and Martins, 1996; Williams and OReilly, 1998).
From a framing perspective, the joint effects of interdependence
and dissimilarity shown in Figure 8.1 can to a large extent be explained
with an integration of the mechanisms that we elaborated separately
for the effects of dependence and similarity. We argued above that
under conditions of incongruent task and outcome interdependence,
group members will sooner or later come to frame the relationship with
their colleagues primarily in terms of gain. Demographic dissimilarity
may even amplify the negative effects of incongruence on the strength
of normative frames. When task interdependence is low and outcome
interdependence is high, then the initial strength of solidarity frames
may gradually decline as a result of friction between team members
caused by the temptation to behave opportunistically. Framing theory
implies that demographic dissimilarity may even amplify these nega-
tive effects of temptation on solidary behavior. The reason for this is
that even behavior of a team member that is intended as a reflection of
solidarity may be perceived as opportunistic by dissimilar colleagues
who hold divergent ideas about appropriate norms of conduct. In the
same vein, demographic dissimilarity may also put normative frames
under pressure when outcome interdependence is low but task inter-
dependence is high. In this case, team members tend to frame the situ-
ation in terms of gain. Then, instrumental reciprocity between team
members hinges critically on the extent to which solidarity motives,
such as equity or fairness, are strong enough in the background to tem-
per at least myopic opportunism that threatens to disrupt exchanges.
However, demographic dissimilarity puts even the normative frame in
the background under pressure, because signals concerning the quality
of the interpersonal relationship between the different actors involved
may be perceived in different ways by the exchange partners. For
example, among members of modern liberal cultures it is considered
appropriate that a group member who receives professional advice
from a more experienced colleague may some time later advise this
colleague on another matter. For team members from more traditional

cultures, this intended reciprocation may appear disrespectful toward
the more experienced group member and to be a violation of group
obligations. Such mismatches may further weaken solidarity frames
and thus reduce the capacity of solidarity motives to temper oppor-
tunism in exchanges between dissimilar group members.
Although framing theory suggests that dissimilarity may amplify
negative effects of incongruence, the perspective is also consistent
with the finding that dissimilarity fosters helping behavior when task
and outcome dependence are both high and congruent. Solidarity
frames can be expected to be particularly strong when both forms of
dependence are high. In that situation, the dominant goal of members
is compliance with group obligations directed at team performance.
When actors interpret the situation in such a way, demographic dis-
similarities may foster helping behavior in two ways. Dissimilarity
generates potential productivity gains from exchanging diverse
knowledge and opinions, and it creates potential demand for help
exchange between group members with complementary expertise.
While dissimilarity may likewise make communication more difficult
and misunderstandings more likely, group members are strongly moti-
vated to overcome these obstacles for the sake of the group interest
when the solidarity frame prevails in their perception of the situation.
Figure 8.1 also shows a positive effect of dissimilarity when both
forms of interdependence are low. An explanation for this could be
that dissimilarity mainly increases the need for help exchange
between dissimilar colleagues with complementary skills or expertise.
Such exchanges can be established and stabilized purely through
instrumental reciprocity. At the same time, dissimilarity should also
make it more difficult for moderate solidarity motives to temper
opportunistic temptation in instrumental exchanges. It seems that both
effects more or less cancel out in the aggregate, generating the slightly
positive effect of dissimilarity even when both forms of dependence
are low.
Conclusions and Directions for Future Research
We reviewed a selected number of studies focusing on the effects

of interdependence and dissimilarity on solidarity in organizational
work teams. We connected the findings from these studies to the books
general framework and suggested that the mechanisms underlying both
interdependence and group composition effects can be interpreted
using the theoretical framework put forward in this book (see
Lindenberg, this volume; Lindenberg et al., this volume). We believe
that our effort helped to integrate previous theoretical perspectives on
the effects of interdependence and group diversity, including social
justice (Deutsch, 1973), similarity attraction (Byrne, 1971), and social

categorization theories (Tsui, Egan, and OReilly, 1992).
Although framing theory may explain the effects of interdepend-
ence and dissimilarity in work teams, to date the cognitive processes
underlying the theory have not explicitly been tested. This remains an
important challenge for future research. The framing perspective high-
lights the need to investigate the cognitive processes of team members
as determinants of how actors view and interpret their situations, and
the conditions and variables that influence these perceptions.
However, in social interdependence research it is already widely
acknowledged that it is the perception of the situation by team mem-
bers, rather than the objective situation, that elicits interdependence-
based patterns of behavior. As Deutsch argued in 1949, An individual
is not cooperative even though objectively he stands in a cooperative
relation to others, when he does not perceive this relationship
(pp. 137138). By contrast, most group diversity researchers continue
to focus on the consequences of such objective demographic differ-
ences as tenure, age, and occupational background (for reviews, see
Milliken and Martins, 1996; Tsui and Gutek, 1999; Williams and
OReilly, 1998). Although in these studies demographic cues were
assumed to affect a number of outcome variables through their impact
on perceived dissimilarity (Northcraft et al., 1995), little research has
explicitly focused on the psychological experience of dissimilarity and
diversity in work groups. From the perspectives of both cognitive psy-
chology and framing theory, future diversity research should examine
how team and organizational structures influence information pro-
cessing, and the consequent occurrence of the behaviors and attitudes
that constitute solidarity in modern organizations. Consideration of
such cognitive processes may provide an improved understanding
of interdependence and diversity effects that will ultimately allow prac-
titioners to maximize the positive and minimize the negative effects of
interdependence and dissimilarity in groups in the workplace.
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PART IV
Institutional Content
CHAPTER 9
Employees Organizational Solidarity

within Modern Organizations:
A Framing Perspective on the Effects
of Social Embeddedness
Karin Sanders, Andreas Flache, Gerben van der Vegt,
and Evert van de Vliert
Within modern organizations, hierarchical control by means of author-

ity chains is often replaced by more horizontal organizational struc-
tures (Taplin, 1995). The basis for this development is the shift toward
use of more flexible production technology by firms in reaction to less
predictable markets, intensified global competition, and the micro-
electronic revolution. One of the characteristics of modern organiza-
tions is that employees bear a much larger responsibility for attaining
production goals than in the classical hierarchical firm. Within modern
organizations, employees often work in teams or groups where they are
themselves responsible for the coordination and organization of their
work, such as in management teams, project groups, or self-managing
teams (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Goodman, 1986). Such teams may be
responsible for a department within a hospital or for the saving of a
ship and its cargo, or be a special unit of the police.
In modern teams, employees enjoy considerable autonomy and
employers expect team members to show teamwork, voluntary partici-
pation, willingness to cooperate, and mutual informal control in order
to keep the organization running (Appelbaum and Batt, 1994; Handy,
1995). Put differently, the employer needs solidary behavior from the
employees. Accordingly, employees vertical or organizational solidar-
ity (i.e., the solidarity of the employees with their organization) is
viewed as one of the most important success factors within modern
organizations (Wickens, 1995). Indeed, research has shown that orga-
nizational solidarity is positively related to, for example, employees
performance (Sanders, Snijders, and Stokman, 1998), and negatively
related to short-term absenteeism (Sanders, 2004; Sanders and
Hoekstra, 1998; Sanders and Nauta, 2004).
141
142 K. Sanders, A. Flache, G. van der Vegt, and E. van de Vliert
In this chapter, we explore to what extent a framing perspective

based on Lindenbergs framing theory (Lindenberg, this volume) can
explain and identify determinants of employees organizational solidar-
ity both at the level of organizational rules (formal and informal) and at
the level of employees social relationships. Compared to previous
research on solidarity within organizations, our focus on organizational
solidarity is relatively new. Traditional research involved mainly the
investigation of solidarity between employees in a conflict with the man-
agement or in the enforcement of local work group norms (Blau, 1955;
Homans, 1974; Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939; Seashore, 1954). We
address instead employees solidary behavior in the employer-employee
relationship, because in research into modern work organizations this
aspect of solidarity at the workplace is seen as a key precondition for
organizational performance. In a broader perspective, organizational sol-
idarity can be seen as an element of the relationship between employee
and employer, which involves in particular solidary behavior of the
management or organization toward the employee. We do not address
determinants of managements solidary behavior toward employees, but
focus on effects of management behavior on employees organizational
solidarity. For the sake of brevity, we refer to employees organiza-
tional solidarity also as organizational solidarity or solidary behavior.
Researchers in organizational and work psychology use many differ-
ent labels to refer to organizational solidarity, such as organizational citi-
zenship behavior (Organ, 1997; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, and
Bachrach, 2000), willingness to cooperate (Katz, 1964), and extra-role or
contextual performance (Motowidlo, Borman, and Schmitt, 1997;
Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994; Organ, 1997; Organ and Lingl, 1995;
Van Dyne, 1994; Van Dyne, Graham, and Richard, 1995). Probably the
most frequently studied form of solidary behavior is organizational
citizenship behavior (OCB) (Organ, 1997). This concerns employee
behavior that has an overall positive effect on the functioning of the
organization and that cannot be enforced by the employment contract.
Adopting a more sociological perspective, but consistent with previous
research, we conceive of solidary behavior as behavior that occurs if
employees within organizations contribute to the success of the team or
organization, are prepared to help others in need, resist the temptation to
let other members do most of the work, share responsibilities, and are pre-
pared to apologize for mistakes (Lindenberg, 1998; see also Lindenberg,
Fetchenhauer, Flache, and Buunk, this volume). Examples of solidary
behavior of the employee toward the employer are willingness to work
overtime, to help colleagues with their jobs for the organization, and to
engage in work efforts that go beyond obligations specified in the labor
contract (Becker, 1993). A particularly important form of organizational
solidarity is investment in firm-specific human capital by the employee.
For example, an employees willingness to learn a computer program that
9: Solidarity within Modern Organizations 143
is used solely within his or her organization can greatly benefit the com-
pany but has no immediate return for the employee.
Most of the literature on organizational solidarity has focused on
effects of individual characteristics, such as personality traits, of solidary
behavior (Podsakoff et al., 2000; for a recent overview of research on per-
sonality and solidarity, cf. Van der Zee and Perugini, this volume). Other
authors have argued, however, that social context variables, such as
embeddedness in the social environment, are important predictors
(Hodson, 1997; Koster, Sanders, and Van Emmerik, 2003; Raub and
Weesie, 1990, 2000; Van Emmerik, Lambooij, and Sanders, 2002; Van
Emmerik and Sanders, 2004).
In general, social context variables can be described in terms of three
forms of embeddedness of employees within organizations: embedded-
ness in an institutional context, network embeddedness, and temporal
embeddedness (Raub and Weesie, 1990, 2000). Institutional embedded-
ness refers to the formal and informal rules of an organization, such as
career rules, performance systems, and the informal organizational rules.
Individuals network embeddedness refers to the network of social rela-
tions between employees, for example, friendships or status hierarchies.
Temporal embeddedness, finally, is the duration and expected future
duration of employment relationships (Axelrod, 1984; Raub and Weesie,
2000). Clearly, the three forms of embeddedness are related to each other.
For instance, tenure or career systems are part of the institutional con-
text, but also influence the temporal embeddedness of employees
behaviors. Also, the social networks of employees within an organiza-
tion may influence temporal embeddedness by shaping employees
intentions to stay or leave (and vice versa).
The focus of our study is on how embeddedness affects the solidary
behavior of employees with regard to their organization. We look at a
range of available empirical studies and examine to what extent their
results are consistent with the framing perspective on solidarity pro-
posed in this book (cf. Lindenberg, 1998 and this volume; Lindenberg
et al., this volume). Furthermore, we aim to determine whether rela-
tional framing provides better explanations or generates new fruitful
research problems in comparison with competing approaches to orga-
nizational embeddedness. We pay particular attention to agency theory
(Alchian and Demsetz, 1972; Petersen, 1993) as a prominent competing
approach that excludes the cognitive and emotional mechanisms of
framing.
Below, we give a brief outline of the core assumptions of both the-
ories. The effects of institutional embeddedness on solidary behavior
within an organization will then be discussed and attention will be
paid to the relationships between employees solidary behavior and
network and temporal embeddedness. In the last section, we will sum-
marize and present some ideas for future research.
Agency Theory and Framing Theory
In its most orthodox form, agency theory may be characterized

by three core assumptions derived from neoclassical economics
(cf. Petersen, 1993). First, the theory views members of organizations as
rational agents who anticipate and calculate even complicated conse-
quences of their actions. Second, agency theory assumes that actors have
exclusively egoistic motives and, third, it assumes that they are solely
interested in tangible material rewards such as maximization of payment
and minimization of the effort that is needed to attain rewards. Clearly,
within this perspective, it is difficult to address solidary behavior and
social relationships at the workplace. Accordingly, contributions to
agency theory include the assumption that actors may also strive for
social incentives, such as prestige or status at the workplace (Flache
2002; Kandel and Lazear, 1992; Petersen, 1992; Spagnolo, 1999). Even
within this recent line of work, however, authors retain the assumptions
of egoistic preferences and largely rationally calculated action.
By contrast, framing theory assumes that individuals interpret and
evaluate behavior differently depending on how they view the relation-
ships to which this behavior pertains (Lindenberg, this volume;
Mhlau, 2000; Wittek, Van Duijn, and Snijders, 2003). It is argued that
cognitive selection processes define or frame the decision-making
situations that occur within relationships. Unlike agency theory, fram-
ing theory implies that people may not under all circumstances ration-
ally pursue personal material and social well-being. Instead, it is argued
that the subjective framing of the situation may trigger mutual expecta-
tions and obligations that temper or even overrule narrow self-interest
(Lindenberg, 1998 and this volume; Lindenberg et al., this volume).
Applications of framing theory to organizations mainly distin-
guish two frames: a gain frame and a normative frame (Lindenberg,
1998; Mhlau, 2000; Wittek et al., 2003). As a core motivation, the gain
frame corresponds to rational egoism, the behavioral assumption of
agency theory. Lindenberg (this volume) argues that there is also a so-
called hedonic frame in which people are mainly motivated by short-
term primary desires, such as getting food or having fun. We feel,
however, that purely hedonic motives rarely play a prominent role
within work organizations.
Framing theory argues that gain is virtually always the dominant
motive in work organizations (e.g., Mhlau, 2000). However, gain maxi-
mization may be more or less restrained by normative concerns. In terms
of framing theory, actors behavior may be seen as weakly solidary when
a normative frame in the background is sufficiently strong to temper
egoistic motives. In a pure normative frame, individuals primary goal
is to act appropriately. For example, in a friendship relation, individuals
do not focus on gains from exchange but on obligations appropriate to
friendship such as providing help in times of need. By contrast, in weak

solidarity relations, pursuit of gain is considered legitimate by both par-
ties, but at the same time actors are willing to comply with norms of fair-
ness, reciprocity, or equity. Accordingly, to explain solidarity in work
organizations from a framing theoretical perspective, we assume that the
relative strength of the gain and normative frames of an employee are
shaped by the situational context: more precisely, by the institutional,
network, and temporal embeddedness of the employee.
Institutional Embeddedness
Relationships in organizations are institutionally embedded. That

is, they are influenced by institutions, which provide the formal and
informal rules that govern the interactions between employers and
employees (North, 1990), also called governance structures.
Formal Governance Structures
The formal content of an organizations governance structures is

evident in the organizations human resource policies. Elements of for-
mal governance structures are remuneration policies and monitoring
and control systems. An example of modern formal governance is the
project career, a career system used widely by Dutch banks (see, for
instance, Sanders, Van Emmerik, and Raub, 2002). In a project career,
employees have a permanent contract but they are placed in successive
short-term projects in order to increase their flexibility and experience
and thus their value for the employer.
Characteristics of governance structures in most modern organiza-
tions as compared to traditional firms are lower job security, a larger
contingent workforce, the use of more performance-related pay and
promotion systems, and the replacement of predictable career paths
with more uncertain and competitive promotion systems. These char-
acteristics not only increase incentives for competition between
employees but also make promotion and pay rises more uncertain and
less transparent.
It has been shown that differentiated and unpredictable reward
systems may negatively affect employees sense of fairness with respect
to the employers behavior (Van Emmerik, Hermkens, and Sanders,
1998). Denison and Mishra (1995) and Tyler (2001) found that a certain
degree of predictability of resources and rewards is essential for mean-
ing and satisfaction in work and thus for the establishment of trust
between workers and management (Fox, 1974; Granovetter, 1985). The
perception that the employer is fair, in turn, has a strong and robust
effect on employees solidary behavior with regard to the firm

(Sanders, Schyns, Koster, and Rotteveel, 2003). Mhlau (2000, chap.
15) discusses and compares competing hypotheses that agency theory
and framing theory generate for this relationship. From an agency per-
spective, performance-related payment should impose stronger incen-
tives to perform well and outcompete colleagues. Accordingly, it
should increase employees willingness to invest effort in the firm at
the expense of cooperation with peers. In accordance with this view,
one would expect that in firms with more career differentiation there
is also more employee solidarity toward the employer, but less solidary
behavior between employees. Mhlau contrasts this reasoning with
framing theory. From that point of view, most workers perceive high
career differentiation as a violation of the implicit solidarity expecta-
tion that every employee should get a fair share. In addition, the
more differentiated career systems are, the more often employees might
perceive promotion decisions as unfair, which may weaken their
solidarity and strengthen their gain frame in the relationship with the
employer. As a consequence, in firms with higher career differentia-
tion, disappointed employees may tend to support each other against
employer practices that are seen as unfair.
Mhlau (2000) shows that data from Japanese firms clearly support
the expectation derived from relational framing and refute the predic-
tions of agency theory. His analysis focused on organizational commit-
ment, a concept that is closely related to intended solidary behavior
toward the organization. Mhlau found that career differentiation has a
clear negative effect on organizational commitment, but not on the per-
ceived quality of co-worker relationships, despite increased pressure on
employees to compete. We may tentatively conclude from this evidence
that pay and promotion systems characterized by more uncertainty
and less predictability (and following from this an increased focus on
competition) put employees in a gain frame vis--vis the employer: indi-
vidual goals and interests are in the foreground, and the goals and inter-
ests of the team and the organization are in the background. It can be
expected that the more employers and managers within organizations
make use of performance-related pay and promotions systems, the less
solidary behavior employees will exhibit toward the organization. This
expectation is consistent with research that showed negative effects of
monetary rewards on intrinsic motivation (Frey, 1997).
Informal Governance Structures
Informal governance structures complement the formal rules of an

organization. For instance, employers often make use of social net-
works and informal social control to develop and maintain cooperative
relations with and between their employees (Flap, Bulder, and Vlker,
1998). Informal governance structures may, in turn, affect both the net-
work and the temporal embeddedness of employees.
Van Emmerik et al. (2002) argued that important elements of the
informal governance structure are the prestige, pride, and self-esteem
that employees can derive from working for a specific organization or
at a specific position within an organization. In their work, prestige was
defined in terms of the perceptions of individuals standing in the hier-
archy of a group based on criteria such as honor or deference. In this
perspective, employees with high prestige judgments perceive them-
selves as important, meaningful, and worthwhile within their organiza-
tion. To maintain positive self-esteem, employees have a strong
incentive to exert effort, which, in turn, may increase job performance
(Tyler, 2001). As Pfeffer (1982) asserts, acknowledgment of ones pres-
tige by other organization members is one of the most important items
of exchange within organizations. For example, perceived high prestige
derived from working in a specific context may motivate employees to
invest more effort. Such trade-offs of prestige, for example, helping
behavior, have been documented in classic organization research (Blau,
1955) and are consistent with both framing theory and (modern) agency
theory. In terms of agency theory, rational actors may maximize their
utility through this exchange if the costs of extra investments in work
effort are more than compensated by the social rewards received from
the employer or from colleagues. As Coleman (1990) puts it, an expres-
sion of encouragement or gratitude for an others action may . . . provide
a great reward for the other (p. 277).
From the perspective of framing theory (Lindenberg, this vol-
ume), it could be argued that employees normative background frame
in their relationship with the employer may be strengthened if the
organization puts them in positions that give them prestige and pride.
Van Emmerik and Sanders (2004) and Van Emmerik and her co-
authors (2002) found support for this idea. They found a positive rela-
tionship between the team-linked status (perceived prestige) of
employees in different faculties within a university and the solidary
behavior of employees. A finding by Koster and his collaborators
(2003) may also be interpreted as supporting this prestige effect. The
authors found a positive relationship between the research oriented-
ness of a department and the solidary behavior of Ph.D. students.
Research orientedness is perceived in the Dutch university system as
an indication of high status of a department. It should be noted, how-
ever, that the described evidence could also be explained from a social
identity perspective (Hogg and Abrams, 1988; Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel and
Turner, 1986), with the argument that employees are willing to make
extra efforts that affirm their identity as members of a group with
a high status.
Social Network Embeddedness
Network embeddedness pertains to the effects on employee behav-

ior of the amount and quality of social relations (e.g., friendships or
informal communication) between employees, as well as the structural
characteristics of the networks these relations constitute (Granovetter,
1985). Networks provide information and serve as a means for the direct
and indirect sanctioning of nonsolidary actions. In addition, social rela-
tions that have a defined duration and are part of a larger network of
relations make it possible to gather information (Granovetter, 1985;
Hechter, 1987). The longer social relationships between employees last,
the more information will be gathered about the other person and the
more likely it is that violations of solidarity norms may be detected and
sanctioned by peers.
The findings of previous research from the agency theoretic per-
spective emphasize this control aspect of social relations (Buskens, 1999;
Raub and Weesie, 2000). Unsolidary behavior toward colleagues may
be tempered when actors fear peer monitoring and future reprisals from
colleagues in their network. Moreover, a longer duration of relationships
may also increase actors dependence on peer rewards, which in turn
gives additional possibilities to sanction opportunistic behavior of
members of the social network.
The agency approach implies that enduring cohesive social net-
works within organizations may increase solidary behavior between
employees (cf. Flache, 1996, 2002; Sanders, 2004). Numerous
researchers have found empirical support for this hypothesis (Barker,
1993; Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939; Seashore, 1954). For instance,
a study among bus drivers in a large city in the Netherlands showed
that, in strongly cohesive working groups, members see leaving their
colleagues alone as highly undesirable and will, because of this, avoid
voluntary absenteeism (Van Yperen, Hagedoorn, and Geurts, 1994).
This suggests that absenteeism that is seen as a form of unsolidary
behavior toward both peers and the employer (Sanders, 2004; Sanders,
Van Emmerik and Raub, 2002, in press; Van Dierendonck, Le Blanc, and
Van Breukelen, 2002) is lower when employees within a team are infor-
mally related to each other. In addition, there is increasing evidence that
group norms at work may play an important and independent role in
fostering or hindering spells of absence. For example, Sanders and
Hoekstra (1998; Sanders, 2004) show that a more intolerant group norm
decreased the absenteeism of the group.
While an agency theoretic perspective seems to provide a straight-
forward explanation of the positive effects of network cohesion, recent
research suggests that this explanation may also suffer from internal
inconsistency. Flache and Macy (1996; Flache, 1996, 2002) argued that
it may be fully in line with the notion of rational gain maximization
that cohesive networks may under certain conditions fail to foster or

even undermine employees solidarity with regard to the production
goals of their work group. In a nutshell, the theoretical argument is that
employees face a conflict between two motives, where one is to main-
tain privately beneficial social relations even with deviants, and the
other is enforcement of a group norm to contribute to collective efforts.
This conflict ensues because peer enforcement may put social relations
between employees under pressure. Accordingly, Flache (1996, 2002)
showed that under certain conditions it may be the utility-maximizing
course of action for rational employees to neither contribute to group
efforts nor enforce solidary behavior by colleagues, but to maintain
instead mutually beneficial social ties even with colleagues who act
unsolidarily toward the organization. Flache (2003) tested this pre-
diction in a vignette study and found that employees of a Dutch
university indicatedas expectedconsiderably less willingness to
pull their weight in a group effort when the social relations in the
group were described as more pleasant and friendly. In a similar vein,
Sanders and Hoekstra (1998; Sanders, 2004; Sanders and Nauta, 2004)
showed that in cohesive teams informal norms concerning illegal
absenteeism may actually foster short-term absenteeism.
The positive and the negative effects of informal relations on soli-
darity that follow from agency theory are consistent with framing theory.
The added value of the framing approach, however, may be to highlight
conditions under which network embeddedness may foster solidarity
rather than undermine it. Fruitful directions for future empirical
research may arise from this. For example, Van der Vegt and Flache (this
volume) suggest that outcome interdependence in work teams may shift
employees attention toward the normative obligation to contribute a fair
share to common production. Outcome interdependence refers to the
extent to which employees are made aware of their common interests,
for example, as a result of group payment or group feedback. Framing
theory implies that higher outcome interdependence may increase the
positive effects of cohesive networks on solidary behavior at the work-
place. Conversely, low outcome interdependence may distract actors
attention from collective goals and strengthen their gain motive of
obtaining social rewards from colleagues. In other words, framing theory
implies that lower outcome interdependence may weaken or even
reverse the effect of cohesive networks on solidary behavior.
The Temporal Context
Temporal embeddedness captures both the history and the

(expected) future of relationships. To the extent that a relationship has
a longer history, actors have had more opportunities to gain information
about the reliability of the other and to learn from previous behavior of
the other. In addition, relationship-specific investments are an impor-
tant result of a common history (Raub and Weesie, 1990, 2000).
Relationship-specific investments can be described as investments that
make the relationship more valuable for both partners, such as invest-
ments in firm-specific skills or in trust building with colleagues. These
investments are lost if an employee decides to accept an offer from
another organization.
An agency theoretic perspective clearly implies that both a longer
history and a longer expected future of a relationship foster solidarity.
Mutual relationship-specific investments reduce temptation for oppor-
tunistic behavior and stabilize the relationship (Williamson, 1975,
1996). Furthermore, a common future allows one to promise the part-
ner future rewards or to threaten the partner with negative sanctions
for undesired behavior. Consistent effects have indeed been found in
research concerning negotiations within organizations. The more indi-
vidual employees (Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993) or departments within
an organization (Nauta and Sanders, 2000, 2001) are positively inter-
dependent in that they have a common future, the more solidary
behavior employees exhibit in terms of problem-solving behavior.
The above-mentioned research of Koster (2005) and his collabora-
tors (2003), Sanders and Van Emmerik (2004) and Van Emmerik and
Sanders (2004) confirms agency theoretic predictions about the effects
of temporal embeddedness on nontenured employees, such as Ph.D.
students, within a university. Koster et al. (2003) hypothesized and
found a curvilinear effect of organizational tenure on solidarity in a
sample of Ph.D. students. That is, at the beginning and at the end of
the employment relationship, Ph.D. students showed less solidary
behavior, measured as OCB, than in the years in between. The results
confirm the notion that solidarity needs a shadow of the past: the
longer employees are related to each other, the more solidary behavior
can arise. The decline of OCB at the end of the employment relation-
ship can be interpreted as an effect of a lighter shadow of the future.
Also in the research of Van Emmerik and Sanders (2004), a positive
relationship between the expected length of stay within the organiza-
tion and OCB was found. The longer employees expected to stay
within the organization, the more OCB they reported.
The positive effects of temporal embeddedness found in previous
studies are consistent with agency theorys assumption that employees
solidary behavior is motivated solely by enlightened self-interest. The
results are also in line with framing theory, when the assumption is
made that employees frame their relationship with the organization
mainly in terms of gain, but normative background motives are at least
strong enough to preclude myopic opportunism in situations in which
the relationship is sufficiently temporarily embedded. Mhlau (2000),
however, showed that, unlike agency theory, framing theory may also be
capable of explaining negative effects of temporary embeddedness on
organizational commitment. Mhlau found that, in a sample of Japanese
industrial workers, employees indicated at the beginning of an employ-
ment relationship a relatively high level of organizational commitment,
but commitment declined with the duration of the employment rela-
tionship. The data suggest a negative effect of the shadow of the past
on intended solidary behavior toward the organization. Mhlau explains
this result with the argument that employees initially perceive mainly
the positive signals sent by seemingly attractive official employment
practices of the firm, which triggers a strong normative frame tempering
gain motivations. As time goes by, however, employees tend to perceive
more and more situations in which they feel that the employer acts
unfairly toward them or their colleagues. As a consequence, employees
normative frame may gradually weaken and they may frame their rela-
tionship with the employer increasingly in terms of gain, which eventu-
ally results in lower levels of intended solidary behavior.
Both agency theory and relational framing emphasize potential dan-
gers of decreasing temporal embeddedness in modern work organiza-
tions that may point to fruitful avenues to explore in future research,
especially with regard to the effects of declining temporal embeddedness
on trust (e.g., Coleman, 1990; Luhmann, 1979; Mayer, Davis, and
Schoorman, 1995). In order to satisfy the demands of a rapidly changing
environment and increasingly competitive markets, growing numbers of
employers are turning to flexible, short-lived employment relations
(Pfeffer, 1982). External flexibility (e.g., employees have temporary jobs
and work only when necessary) especially reduces the long-term per-
spective in the employer-employee relationship, which in turn may put
solidarity with the organization under pressure.
In addition, as a result of the absence of a long-term perspective, the
positive effects of social networks on workplace solidarity may decline.
In a short-term labor relationship, positive and negative sanctioning
among employees may come under pressure, because employees may
have little interest in investing in the future quality of peer relationships.
As a consequence, the chances of opportunistic behavior occurring may
increase, and the chances of solidary behavior occurring may decrease,
even when employees are embedded in informal peer networks.
Conclusions and Future Research
In this chapter, we discussed solidary behavior within modern

organizations and its relationships with institutional, network, and
temporal embeddedness. It was argued that although employees enjoy
autonomy within modern organizations, the disadvantage of this
autonomy is that employers expect team members to work together,

participate voluntarily, cooperate willingly, and submit to the mutual
informal control needed to keep the organization running (Appelbaum
and Batt, 1994; Handy, 1995; Wickens, 1995). This can be summarized
as the employers demand for solidary behavior.
Employee solidarity with the organization is both needed and pre-
carious. This makes it particularly important to have appropriate theo-
retical tools to investigate the conditions that shape solidarity at the
workplace. Accordingly, our main theoretical interest in this chapter was
to determine to what extent effects of the three forms of embeddedness
on employee solidarity can be explained from a framing perspective
(Lindenberg 1998, this volume) and whether this approach adds new
insights into organizational solidarity and improves upon the prominent
competing approach of agency theory (Alchian and Demsetz, 1972;
Petersen, 1993), which explicitly neglects framing effects.
In sum, we tentatively conclude that a large body of the available
empirical evidence on effects of embeddedness is consistent with both
approaches. Employees often tend to show more solidarity with the
organization when the governance structures reward solidary behavior,
when employees are embedded in more and stronger informal relation-
ships with colleagues, and when they expect a longer future and have
had a longer past in the organization. This is in line with both theories.
There are also a number of notable effects of embeddedness that
seem to contradict the view of agency theory but can be explained by
framing. Framing theory suggests explanations for findings that show
that the differentiation of career systems, cohesive networks within
work groups, or the duration of the employment relationship some-
times have negative rather than positive effects on employees solidar-
ity. While this can tentatively be regarded as support for a framing
perspective on employment relations, we wish to emphasize that a
more systematic theory comparison than ours would be required to
arrive at a conclusive assessment of the relative strengths and weak-
nesses of framing and agency theories. In particular, we did not sys-
tematically search for empirical results that contradict a framing
interpretation, nor did we take the relative parsimony of the theories
into consideration.
An important theme in future research may be that the effects of
institutional, network, and temporal embeddedness are interrelated.
For example, when relationships between employees have more time to
develop, there will be more interpersonal contact and more possibilities
to build informal networks. This implies that employees network
embeddedness can be influenced by their temporal embeddedness.
Similarly, changing institutional embeddedness in terms of more short-
term, external flexible contracts leads to diminishing long-term per-
spectives. This may suggest that within modern organizations there is
not enough time to build the close and informal relationships between
employees and with the employer that are the seedbed of solidary
behavior. Growing time pressure within dual-earner households also
puts voluntary participation in informal activities under pressure,
which further undermines solidary behavior. Empirical research
designed explicitly to test these ideas is needed to describe more clearly
how the three elements of social embeddedness are interrelated in their
consequences for solidarity.
We also believe that research into the effects of social embeddedness
might identify manageable factors to improve solidarity within organi-
zations. Employers can choose between governance structures that con-
stitute the settings in which employees weigh alternatives and choose
the duration and timing of their efforts for the organization. An impor-
tant question for future research, therefore, is how employers can design
formal and informal governance such that they strengthen normative
motives and weaken employees gain frames in their relationships with
the organization.
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CHAPTER 10
Sustaining the Motivation to

Volunteer in Organizations
Linda Bridges Karr and Lucas C.P.M. Meijs
One important variant of solidary benefit behavior is organized vol-

unteerism1freely chosen, sustained behavior that is of benefit to
others, that requires some sacrifice of resources and that takes
place within the context of an organization. It is well documented that
organizational volunteers contribute significantly to the amount of
work performed in modern society (see United Nations, 2001).
According to a large-scale international study of volunteering in the
1990s (Salamon and Sokolowski, 2001), volunteer work in nonprofit
organizations amounted to 2.5% of total employment across 24 coun-
tries. The share in some countries was much higher.2 While it is
impossible to say what percentage of volunteer work takes place
within and what percentage takes place outside of organizational
boundaries, it is safe to say that a substantial share of volunteer work
happens in and through organizations. Although most of what we
know about volunteers and volunteerism has been learned through
observations of relatively large organizations (see Smith, 1997), sur-
prisingly little is yet known about one crucial aspect of volunteerism:
the sustainability of volunteer motivation (see Cnaan and Goldberg-
Glen, 1993). If they are not paid, what makes volunteers sustain their
work? What are the processes of motivation and what are some of the
organizational features that can support or reduce the sustainability of
work effort from volunteers?
1
In the interest of readability, the term volunteerism will be understood in
this chapter to mean organized volunteerism.
2
For example, volunteer work was equivalent to 8% of all full-time, nonagri-
cultural employment in Sweden, 7.5% in the Netherlands, and 5.2% in France.
In most of the eleven Western European countries considered in the study, vol-
unteers provided the equivalent of 3% or more of total employment. In the
United States, the figure was 4.6%, and in Australia 3.2%. For the most part,
countries in other geographic regions (Central Europe, Latin America, and
Japan) had much lower percentages.
157
158 L. Bridges Karr and L.C.P.M. Meijs
Existing literature on the motivations of volunteers is equivocal

about the sustainability of volunteer motivation; most organizational
theories begin with the simple idea that the key to continued volunteer
involvement lies in matching individuals (who are variously moti-
vated) with organizations that can make it possible for volunteers to
meet their goals (Billis, 1993; Clary and Snyder, 1991; Clary et al.,
1998; Cnaan and Cascio, 1999; Tschirhart, Mesch, Miller, and Lee,
2001). Tailoring the organizational reward system to fit the motivations
of volunteers is one strategy for accomplishing this goal (see Cuskelly,
1995; Dailey, 1986; Ellis, 1986; Pearce, 1993). At first glance, these sug-
gestions sound plausible. It is by no means obvious, however, what the
motivations of volunteers are, and it is even less obvious whether (and
how) they may be affected by features of the organization. In this chap-
ter, we argue that the sustainability of volunteer motivation cannot be
understood without considering the interaction of organizational char-
acteristics with processes of individual motivation. Because they affect
framing (cf. Lindenberg, this volume), characteristics of organizations
affect the motivational processes of volunteers; thus, these processes
can subsequently reinforce or counteract features of the organization.
The chapter begins by considering the motivation to volunteer and
how it has been addressed in current research. The second section
addresses volunteering from within an organizational context, focusing
particularly on characteristics of an organizations mission and the
manner in which an organization seeks to coordinate the efforts of its
volunteers. In particular, we consider the possible effects of these char-
acteristics on the motivation of volunteers. We conclude by consider-
ing implications for volunteer organizations and outlining avenues for
future research. Throughout the chapter, we illustrate our points with
a qualitative comparison of processes in two volunteer organizations.3
Theories of the Sustainability of Volunteer Motivation
That volunteerism does not flow from altruism alone is well

understood (Bierhoff, 2002; Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen, 1993; Smith,
1981; Tschirhart et al., 2001; Van de Vliert, Huang, and Levine, 2004;
Watts, 2002). Many people choose to volunteer their efforts for the
main purpose of reaping some benefit for themselves. Tocqueville
3
Specifically, we provide examples of the experiences of volunteers in Scouting
Nederland and several councils of Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
The prominence of these two organizations in this work is due to (1) the authors
long-term involvement with the organizations and (2) the opportunity they pro-
vide to give insight into unique organizational differences while holding broader
organizational ideologies and goals (for the most part) constant.
10: Sustaining the Motivation to Volunteer 159
(1862/1945) identified the principle of self-interest rightly under-

stood (lintrt bien entendu) as an important means of guarding
against the threats of individualism in democratic societies. According
to this principle, individuals must come to understand that it is often
in their own best interest to act in the interest of others. Without this
understanding, argues Tocqueville, there can be little hope of achiev-
ing cooperation under conditions of equality. As plausible as this idea
of enlightened self-interest may sound, it does not explain why acting
in the interest of others is ultimately in our own best interest, nor does
it address the possibility that people may not know what is in their best
interest. What is our own best interest when we are not paid for our
efforts, and what keeps us going? A number of theories have attempted
to shed some light on these questions.
The functional approach to volunteer motivation (Clary and Snyder,
1991; Clary et al., 1998) argues that volunteerism may serve any of an
array of functions for a volunteer. This model identifies different cate-
gories of functional volunteer motivations. Career motivations are
directed toward improving a volunteers opportunities in the paid labor
market. Value motivations proceed from the volunteers personal moral
and ethical makeup. Social motivations respond to a volunteers need to
behave in ways that are expected or desired by significant others, peer
groups, or friends. Protective motivations are directed toward preventing
or minimizing unpleasant feelings or circumstances. Volunteers moti-
vated by understanding seek to increase their awareness of particular
questions or issues. Enhancement motivations seek to increase the value
of a volunteers life experiences. Clary and Snyder (1991) argue further
that satisfaction with and the continuation of volunteerism may be pre-
dicted by the extent to which individuals realize appropriate functional
rewards by participating in volunteer work. This functional approach
tells us little, however, about what sustains the motivation of volunteers.
Omoto and Snyder (1995) investigated this question directly by
studying volunteers in organizations that serve people who are infected
with HIV. They found that value motivations played no role and that
three self-serving types of motivations were very important to the
sustainability of volunteering: understanding, personal development,
and the enhancement of esteem. These findings were subsequently con-
tradicted by Penner and Finkelstein (1998) in a study on the same kind
of volunteers. Contrary to Omoto and Snyder, they found that value
motivations play a very important role in the sustainability of volunteer
effort. Although the issue remains unresolved, these studies have made
clear that volunteerism is likely to be sustained by a variety of motiva-
tions rather than by a single category.
Bierhoffs personal project approach (Bierhoff, Klein, and Kramp,
1991; Bierhoff and Schlken, 2001; see also Piliavin and Callero, 1991)
considers the issue from a different but related angle. The personal
project approach draws dynamic links between values, attitudes, and

identities. In other words, individuals who engage in volunteer work
likely have a combination of egoistic and altruistic motives for doing
so. They are likely to have some values that stress concern for others,
and these values have a positive influence on their attitudes toward
voluntary behavior. Engaging in voluntary behavior leads those who do
so to perceive themselves as people who engage in altruistic behavior
and who are altruistically motivated. This emerging prosocial identity
may culminate in a personal project when and if the project is clearly
tied to certain values (for example, the value of abhorring injustice).
In this sense, the variety of motivations that drive volunteers may
be reduced over time. As with the functional approach, however, the
evidence concerning the personal project approach is mixed.
Moreover, this approach provides no clear answer to the question of
whether egoistic or altruistic motivations play the more important part
of sustainability (see Bierhoff, 2002, p. 316).
None of these theories concerning the sustainability of motivation
explicitly incorporates the influence of the organization. Even when
this influence is explicitly acknowledged (see Grube and Piliavin,
2000; Omoto and Snyder, 1995), sustainability is seen as dependent on
the match between a volunteers motivations and the organizations
system of rewards. This literature conceptualizes neither motivation
nor the organizational factors that are assumed to affect motivation in
such a way that their interdependence becomes tractable. For example,
the functional approach allows for empirical assessment of the relative
strengths of its six categories of motivation in particular volunteer con-
texts, yet it provides no theoretical expectations for the conditions
under which one category may carry more weight than another, or how
each may enhance or detract from the others. Furthermore, it does not
consider that an organization may play a role in shaping the motiva-
tions of its existing volunteers, even though such influences are com-
monly documented in the literature (see Cuskelly, 1995; Nathanson
and Eggleton, 1993; Newton, 1995; Pearce, 1993).
Consider the responses of two volunteers, one a Dutch Scouting
leader and the other a Girl Scout leader in the United States (both of
whom had been volunteers for more than 10 years), when asked what
they believed the missions of their respective organizations to be.4
According to the Dutch Scouting leader, the mission of Scouting
Nederland was as follows: to help kids become aware of their
4
The volunteers were asked this question in the context of a larger survey of
attitudes, motivations, and experiences in their volunteer work. The responses
of most volunteers corresponded very closely to the formal mission statements
of the organizations. The two responses presented here were selected for their
illustrative value.
surroundings through membership in a group. The American Girl Scout

leader summed up her perception of the primary mission of her organi-
zation as follows: Bring in the money by selling cookies. The contrast
between these two responses suggests that processes beyond the straight-
forward matching of goals are at work in sustaining the motivation to
volunteer with an organization for an extended period of time. Both
structural and practical aspects of the organization also come into play.
Investigating the sustainability of volunteer motivation requires a
theory of motivation that draws a fundamental link between the motiva-
tions of volunteers and the organizations approach to managing volun-
teers. The prevailing distinction between altruistic and egoistic
motivations may not be very useful in this regard. Conversely, a theory
of volunteer organizations is needed that draws a fundamental link
between organizational processes and volunteer motivation. The follow-
ing section provides a brief description of such theories: a theory of
intrinsic motivation (based on framing theory) and a theory of volunteer
management strategies.
Intrinsic Motivation
Because volunteers in organizations are not paid, it seems reason-

able to assume that intrinsic motivation may play an important role in
sustaining their motivation to work for the organization. The best-known
conception of intrinsic motivation, which has considerable empirical
support, is that of Deci and Ryan (1985). Their concept of intrinsic (as
compared to extrinsic) motivations differs in important aspects from the
distinction between altruistic and egoistic motivation. According to this
conception, activities are intrinsically motivated if they are multifunc-
tional in the sense that they provide a sense of autonomy, relatedness,
and competence. External rewards (such as social approval) are not nec-
essarily detrimental to intrinsic motivation, therefore, as long as they
feed one or more of these three general goals. Deci and Ryans concep-
tion has been extended recently within the context of framing theory (see
Lindenberg, 2001 and this volume). Beginning from the three master
frames in framing theory, Lindenberg distinguished enjoyment-based
intrinsic motivation from obligation-based intrinsic motivation. The
former (based on multifunctionality and a hedonic frame) roughly fits
the Deci and Ryan conception, and the latter reflects behavior that is
guided by norms (based on a normative frame). Both are contrasted with
gain-oriented behavior (i.e., behavior that is motivated by a gain frame).
This distinction also makes clear that the meaning of extrinsic does
not depend on whether there are external rewards but on whether indi-
viduals are oriented toward increasing their resources. In addition, fram-
ing theory explicitly addresses the importance of multiple motivations
by distinguishing between foreground and background motivations. For

example, it is possible for a person to be intrinsically motivated in such
a way that normative concerns (obligation-based intrinsic motivation)
are in the foreground, while resource concerns (such as gaining career
experience or status) are in the background. This is possible, under the
condition that the extrinsic motives that are in the background do not
conflict with the normatively oriented actions of the individual. Should
these motivations be compatible, the extrinsic rewards could even
strengthen obligation-based intrinsic motivation.
Because the three types of motivation (enjoyment-based and obli-
gation-based intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation) are defined
in terms of the types of rewards they involve, they are more readily
linked to characteristics of organizations than are the six functional
motivations of Clary and Snyder (1991) or the altruistic identity in the
theories of Bierhoff (2002) and Piliavin and Callero (1991). Approaching
the question of organizational influences on the sustainability of volun-
teer motivation in this way involves the more straightforward task of
identifying how specific organizational features interact with the three
kinds of motivation. A theory of volunteer management styles that was
recently developed by Meijs and Hoogstad (2001) and further elabo-
rated by Meijs and Karr (2004) is useful in this regard.
Volunteer Management Styles
Recent years have seen the appearance of numerous studies whose

goal is to increase knowledge about the organizational practices of non-
profit (and specifically volunteer) organizations (see Meijs, 1996). The
quest, however, has proved daunting, in large part because the great
variety among these organizations makes comparison difficult, and
because traditional models of management and other organizational
practices often do not fit the nonprofit/volunteer context. One result is
the proliferation in the literature of categorization schemes, by which
various types of organizations can be distinguished along important
dimensions. Meijs and Hoogstad (2001) compared a number of these
typologies in an attempt to move beyond simple categorizations
which invariably result in abstract hybrids and continuatoward
a model that suggests effects of specific organizational or manage-
ment practices in differing organizational environments. They build
a descriptive model of volunteer management style from the work of
Meijs and Westerlaken (1994), who, in turn, were inspired by Handys
(1988) well-known work on nonprofit organizations. More specifically,
the model is based on a contrast that has emerged in the literature
concerning volunteer management in European countries (most specif-
ically in the Netherlands) with that in the United States.
The major distinction that Meijs and Hoogstad (2001; see also
Meijs and Karr, 2004) make between two styles of volunteer manage-
ment styles can be eloquently illustrated by comparing the mission
statements of Scouting Nederland and Girl Scouts of America. The
mission of Scouting Nederland is to offer pleasant, leisure-time expe-
riences to girls and boys, based on the vision of Lord Baden-Powell,
thereby contributing to character development (Scouting Nederland,
1992; translation by authors). The mission of Girl Scouts of America is
to inspire girls with the highest ideals of character, conduct, patriot-
ism, and service that they may become happy and resourceful citizens
(GSUSA, 2003).
The more European type (membership management) relies on
existing volunteers to meet both current needs and new challenges in
the organization. The more American type (program management) iden-
tifies and pursues specific goals by recruiting volunteers for specific
tasks involved in achieving those goals. The key difference is that
membership management focuses on the volunteers themselves, while
program management focuses on specific operational tasks.5 The mem-
bership and program approaches to volunteer management represent
opposing ends of a continuum. In practice, while organizations are
likely to use some combination of these approaches, they do emphasize
one or the other.
Membership management could be expected to cultivate broad,
multifaceted volunteer involvement, likely to lead to greater overall
satisfaction with the volunteer experience. By focusing first on the
volunteers (who are treated as members) and their goals, the member-
ship-managed organization shapes itself to the needs and desires of its
membershipincluding its volunteers. Through careful attention to
those who will be admitted to membership, it guards against the intro-
duction of members whose goals may be contrary to those of the exist-
ing membership. Because it is tailor-made to the specifications of the
membership, it would be difficult for a member to find such a good fit
with any other organization. Because the costs of both entry and exit
are high, the membership-managed organization is likely to cultivate
considerable loyalty among its individual members. Membership man-
agement, however, may not (always) provide a stable basis for long-
term survival. Although individual volunteers may indeed remain
loyal to the organization for long periods of time, the organization itself
risks stagnation, lack of growth, and eventual extinction.
Program management, on the other hand, is designed with an eye
toward resilience and flexibility. The general focus on carefully speci-
fied tasks guards against any one volunteer becoming indispensable.
5
This distinction is similar to that between classic and new styles of volun-
teering, as discussed by Hustinx and Lammertyn (2003).
The limited scope of involvement expected of any volunteer facilitates

both the entry and exit of volunteers, who may affiliate with the organ-
ization only for the purpose of performing one specific, time-limited
task. Because the tasks to be accomplished take priority over the aims
of the volunteers performing them, the program-managed organization
is capable of maintaining smooth, consistent operations over extended
periods of time. Because each task is, for the most part, a self-contained
unit, change in response to environmental shifts involves only the
reworking of single components rather than an overall shift in ideology
or target population.
Program management, however, may not cultivateand may even
discourageloyalty on the part of volunteers. Members who join an
organization in order to participate in programs of limited duration or
those focused on specific activities are less likely to identify themselves
as members of the organization than are those whose involvement is
broader (see Karr, 2001). Although capable of continuity over time, the
program-managed organization can be expected to depend on the avail-
ability of fresh supplies of volunteers, thus risking high turnover,
impersonality, and co-optation.
Motivation and Volunteer Management
Because volunteer work is not paid and because it is likely to be

balanced with other life obligations, enjoyment-based intrinsic moti-
vators are likely to be the most important factor in the sustainability of
volunteer work commitment. Similar to paid work, however, ongoing
volunteer work in an organizational context (as compared to episodic
and informal sorts of volunteering) involves some necessary and pos-
sibly routine tasks that need to be done, whether or not anyone enjoys
doing them. Obligation-based intrinsic motivation, therefore, must also
be highly salient in order to sustain the motivation of volunteers to
work for the organization. A salient orientation toward increasing
individual resources (i.e., a gain frame) is not consistent with the con-
cept of volunteer work, for either the volunteer or the organization
(Handy et al., 2000; Meijs et al., 2003). This means that volunteer work
is not likely to be sustainable for people whose most salient goal
involves individual gain. As mentioned before, this does not mean that
resource-improving motivations (e.g., gaining useful experience or
enhancing success in my chosen profession) are unlikely to play a
role. They may even strengthen intrinsic motivation, as long as they do
not conflict with tasks that are dictated by intrinsic motivation.
Membership and program management styles speak to different
arrays of goals and motivations, and they are thus likely to appeal to
different kinds of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Membership
management depends upon the broad involvement of volunteers in

many aspects of the organizations functioning, and it encourages
the development of strong in-group ties among volunteers. It thus
strengthens both enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation toward the
volunteer work and obligation-based intrinsic motivation toward
co-members. Membership techniques are apparently powerful tools for
building a feeling of community and the internal norms that go along
with it. One negative aspect of this approach is that, although volunteer
organizations need functional differentiation of tasks and task-
discipline, they have limited means for implementing them. Any per-
ception that the organization attaches greater importance to concrete
task objectives than it does to the will and involvement of the volunteer
members should have a particularly chilling effect on the sustainability
of volunteer participation.
By contrast, program management is designed for limited, task-
directed involvement with functionally defined interaction among
volunteers. This is likely to enhance the long-term survival of the
organization as well as its ability to adapt. On the individual level,
however, program techniques are likely to have a dampening effect on
the availability of multifunctional contacts and thus on enjoyment-
based intrinsic motivation. Because the immediate interactions among
volunteers are not embedded within feelings of similarity and convivi-
ality, it is also unlikely that norms arising from the small-group context
will be strong enough to sustain intrinsic motivation that is based on
obligation. The sustainability of motivation is therefore particularly
dependent on both extrinsic rewards and ideological support from the
larger context for obligation-based intrinsic motivation. The limited
ability of program-managed volunteer organizations to foster enjoy-
ment-based intrinsic motivation also limits their ability to retain their
volunteers. On the other hand, the limited ability of membership-
managed volunteer organizations to implement and adapt programs
complicates the general sustainability of the organization as a whole.
The differences in volunteer management style also have effects in the
day-to-day operations of the organizations, particularly with regard to
the recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers. We will illustrate
this in the following section with examples from our studies of
Scouting Nederland and Girl Scouts of America.
An Example
This section provides an anecdotal description of the application of

membership- and program-management techniques to recruitment, train-
ing, and retention in two organizations that share similar historical, ideo-
logical, and practical foundations. Figure 10.1 presents a comparative
Scouting (NL) Girl Scouts (USA)

Recruitment Informal Formal
Grow your own Meet existing needs
Young adults, existing Parents of (prospective) Girl Scouts
members
Training Informal Formal

Basics required but loosely Basics required and strongly
enforced enforced
Supplementary training Supplementary training
offered as development or offered as development or incentive
incentive
Retention Program progression Job specification

Volunteering built in as (and career ladders)
component of program Orientation to mission
Strong local groups Networking with other volunteers
Membership Formal recognition
Membership
Note: An earlier version of this table also appears in Karr, 2004.
FIGURE 10.1. Management practices in Scouting Nederland and in some mem-

ber councils of GSUSA
overview of management practices that are actually in use in Scouting

Nederland (hereafter, SN) and in some member councils of Girl Scouts of
the United States of America (hereafter, GSUSA). While both could best
be described as volunteer-run, mutual service delivery organizations
(Handy, 1988), the Dutch organization reflects a membership approach
to volunteer management, while the American organization reflects a
program approach.
Recruitment
Recruitment in SN is essentially a local activity, carried out by the

volunteers themselves. Paid staff is involved only in such supporting
activities as making brochures and leaflets.6 Volunteers in SN tend to
6
Recruitment within SN actually consists of three distinct and almost separate
processes. The first recruitment process is for group leaders (who work directly
with children). The recruitment of local board members constitutes a second
recruitment process. The third recruitment process focuses on finding volun-
teers to serve on regional or national boards, or to provide support and train-
ing at these levels (see also Meijs, 1997; Meijs and Karr, 2004). In this chapter,
we consider only the recruitment of group leaders.
be home-grown and becoming a leader is built into the normal pro-

gression of SN activities. Beyond the age of 17 or 18, members are gen-
erally faced with the choice of either leaving scouting or becoming
leaders for one of the younger age groups. Within this context, the pri-
mary recruitment tool in SN appears to be peer pressure.
The recruitment of volunteers is a major area of accountability for
both employed staff and higher-level volunteers in GSUSA councils.
Although adult volunteers are sought in many different places through
a wide variety of activities, the greatest proportion of volunteers are
brought in through the major recruitment drives for girl members.7
A second form of adult recruitment drive is typically held in the
spring, as existing leaders make it known whether they wish to con-
tinue as leaders the following year. The process of leader recruitment
is similar in many ways to employee recruitment. Potential volunteers
usually submit applications listing their education, skills, work expe-
rience, interests, and motivations for volunteering, along with charac-
ter references. Staff members and designated volunteers review these
applications, follow up on the references, and extend to appropriate
candidates invitations to become leaders. Appointment to the position
of troop leader is frequently formalized by a written job description
and a letter of agreement signed by both the new leader and the desig-
nated council representative.
Training
Training represents an effort on the part of an organization to estab-

lish and maintain certain behavioral standards. One characteristic of a
membership-managed volunteer organization is a high degree of auton-
omy for local groups. Because of this autonomy, the processes by which
volunteers are socialized to their positions at SN tend to be informal and
highly group specific. Although formal training is officially quite impor-
tant, a relatively small proportion of leaders actually complete the entire
series of required training courses.8 Supplementary workshops are
offered within SN, but participation in these workshops tends to be low.
7
Membership in a troop is highly dependent upon the availability of sufficient
adult volunteers. Many new troops must be formed at the beginning of each
school year. Leaders for these new troops are typically recruited from among
the parents of girls who have expressed an interest in joining the Girl Scouts.
Situations in which a girls chances of being placed in a troop are dependent
on the willingness of her parent to become a troop leader provide some extrin-
sic incentive for parents to volunteer.
8
For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Meijs and Karr (2004) and
Meijs and Olde Hanter (2002).
At GSUSA, careful attention is paid to writing job descriptions

for volunteer positions. In addition, ongoing clarification is often
provided through leaders meetings and articles in council newslet-
ters. GSUSA also ensures that certain standards of consistency in the
Girl Scout program are upheld. The Girl Scout name, logo, and all
program materials are copyrighted, and their use is available only to
authorized individuals. As members and volunteers, leaders have
access to these materials, under the condition that they carry out
their jobs within the guidelines set by council (and national) stan-
dards and policies, which include the completion of a specified
series of training courses. By the time a new volunteer becomes a
fully functioning leader (usually by the end of the first year), it is
likely that she will have completed more than 35 hours of training.
As in SN, GSUSA councils often offer supplementary workshops
and special training courses, which also tend to have relatively low
levels of participation.
Retention
Encouraging the autonomy of local groups and building strong ties

among their members are major retention tools within SN. In addition,
the grow-your-own approach to volunteer recruitment that is practiced
in SN presents a number of specific challenges, including: (1) keeping
youth members so interested in the program that they eventually
choose to become leaders and (2) ensuring the availability of sufficient
group leadership, even as young adults move away from their child-
hood communities in order to pursue studies or begin careers. Practical
measures that can be, and have been, adopted to address the first chal-
lenge include: (1) developing challenging programs for 12- to 16-year-
olds and (2) avoiding a been-there, done that syndrome by ensuring
that activities that would be challenging for adolescents are not incor-
porated into the programs for younger members. With regard to the sec-
ond challenge, SN is at an advantage because the Netherlands is a
small country and many students return home every weekend during
their first few years of study or career.
Volunteer retention activities within GSUSA (for example, see
Woodford, 1997) often focus on two common elements: ideological
commitment and the usefulness of being the leader, in terms of learn-
ing skills and official recognition. Recognizing that identification with
the mission of Girl Scouts is a major reason that many volunteers stay
involved (Arwood, Brandt, Karsky, and Sanner, 2002; Woodford, 1997),
the formal mission statement has a prominent place in most Girl Scout
materials (in the language of this book it is the ideological basis for
obligation-based intrinsic motivation). It appears prominently on many
Girl Scout publications at all levels; in some councils, it is printed on

the back of the business cards of all staff members and administrative
volunteers, and it is discussed, along with the basic goals of the Girl
Scout program, as part of the initial orientation process. Planning
guides and forms are often organized following the basic points of the
mission and goals, such that leaders come into almost constant contact
with them.
Network building is an important side effect of volunteering in
GSUSA, and it is instrumental in the retention of volunteers. In order
to facilitate networking, Girl Scout leaders are regularly brought into
contact with one another through training courses and leaders meet-
ings, as well as through local and council-wide program activities. In
many councils, experienced local volunteers serve as consultants or
coaches for leaders, and other councils have developed mentoring pro-
grams that pair new leaders with experienced leaders for the first year.
Another important source of extrinsic rewards is the highly developed
system of formal volunteer recognition at the national, council, and
local levels. Specific criteria for these awards are distributed to volun-
teers, who are encouraged to nominate their fellow volunteers for
appropriate recognition. Volunteers in all positions are frequently rec-
ognized with patches, pins, or other tokens for such activities as com-
pleting training courses, participating in activities, or turning in
required forms and reports on time. In addition, the national organiza-
tion long ago designated a specific Girl Scout Leaders Day, on which
girl members and their parents, along with representatives of all levels
of the organization, are encouraged to express their appreciation to the
volunteer leaders.
Conclusion
This chapter has addressed issues related to the sustainability of

volunteerism in organizations. Existing theories of sustainability have
generated puzzles because of contradictory findings, or they have been
unable to accommodate the effect of organizational characteristics on
the sustainability of volunteer motivation. In addition, apparently no
theory has dealt with the interaction between volunteer motivation and
organizational features. Our approach appears able to address impor-
tant distinctions with regard to the sustainability of volunteer motiva-
tion. It sheds light on particular types of motivation that are likely to
be crucial for sustained involvement, and particular features of organ-
izations that should be the focus of particular attention. With regard to
motivations, the distinction between enjoyment-based intrinsic moti-
vation, obligation-based intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation
appears more useful than do either the six groups of motivations
distinguished by Clary and Snyder (1991) or the distinction between

altruistic and egoistic motivation. With regard to organizations, the
distinction between membership and program-oriented voluntary
organizations appears important, as that distinction can be clearly
linked to key motivations of volunteers. Membership-managed volun-
teer organizations can use the presumably strongest motivators for
sustained volunteer commitment (enjoyment-based intrinsic motiva-
tion) and link it to obligation-based intrinsic motivation in small
groups. Although this enhances the sustainability of motivation at the
individual level, it limits the sustainability of the organization as a
whole, as it only allows limited adjustment of the program. In program-
managed volunteer organizations, although the program can be focused
and well implemented throughout the organization, extrinsic motiva-
tors (such as the development of transferable skills and official recog-
nition) are necessary at the individual level. Because obligation-based
intrinsic motivation cannot be created in small groups in this type of
organization, it must be brought about by developing and emphasizing
a strong ideological basis. Higher organizational sustainability is
achieved at the expense of a limited individual sustainability.
We illustrated the differences described above with a comparison
of recruitment, training, and retention strategies used in SN and
GSUSA. The viability of our approach remains to be demonstrated
through future research. Nonetheless, by combining intrinsic motiva-
tion theory based on framing theory with the theory of volunteer man-
agement, we have been able to generate a more consistent view of
processes that underlie the sustainability of volunteer motivation.
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PART V
Cultural Context
CHAPTER 11
Ethnic Identity and Solidarity with

Functional Groups
Karen van der Zee
The world is globalizing, and the social groups in which we work, study,
or recreate are becoming more pluralistic in nature. Consequently, soci-
eties have to cope with the integration of different cultures. It is an
important question how immigrants can be motivated to act prosocially
toward members of their new societies and to refrain from antisocial
behaviors. Why would immigrants care about pollution, about people
being robbed on the streets, or about paying taxes if they only feel
partly embraced by the new community? Under what conditions is sol-
idarity of minority group members with societal institutions and, more
generally, the wider society likely to occur? Language problems, reluc-
tance on the part of the majority group with an (often) higher social sta-
tus to accept minority members in their group, cultural differences: all
these factors may prohibit the development of social relationships that
cross the borders of the ethnic group. It seems essential that minority
members of society are able to define their social identities in terms of
important functional groups within society (being a sorority member, a
parent with other parents in a day care facility, an employee in a com-
pany, a member of a soccer team) rather than solely in terms of ethnic-
ity. Only under those circumstances are minority members likely to
identify with the norms and the values of those functional groups and
to behave accordingly. In this chapter I will discuss how patterns of
solidary behavior may emerge that match the requirements of society
or institutions within society. Departing from social identity theory
(Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Turner, 1982), the focus is on the interface
between categorical identities (ethnic group, age, gender) and identi-
ties linked to functional groups, as well as on the way identities can be
combined in order to promote solidarity frames (cf. Lindenberg, 1998
and this volume). Following Lindenbergs arguments, I expect to find
that when minority members frame their relationship to the functional
group in terms of solidarity with that group, this puts the norms of
the functional group at the center of their attention and shifts the
175
176 K. van der Zee
motivation to comply with conflicting minority norms into the back-

ground. A number of variables are examined that are assumed to stim-
ulate a common identity in diverse groups. In conclusion, possible
interventions aimed at promoting a common group identity among
ethnic minority groups will be discussed.
Diversity, Social Identity, and Solidarity
Social categorization theory assumes that individuals have a ten-

dency to categorize themselves according to their membership of social
groups (see Turner, 1982). People who participate in societal groups,
like sporting teams, work groups, or school committees, often differ in
terms of important social categories, such as gender, age, or ethnicity.
This implies that members of a given functional group have two impor-
tant sources of identification: their functional group (e.g., their work
team or sports club) and their social category within that group (e.g.,
their gender or ethnic identity). Ashforth (2001) argued that the
salience of an identity to an individual is determined by the identitys
subjective importance and its situational relevance. A subjectively
important identity is one that is highly central to an individuals core
sense of self or is otherwise highly relevant to his or her goals, values,
or other key attributes (cf. Miller, Urban, and Vanman, 1998; Sherman,
Hamilton, and Lewis, 1999). The more subjectively important a per-
sons identity, the more likely he or she is to seek opportunities to enact
the identity, and to define a situation as identity relevant (Ashforth and
Johnson, 2001). Ethnic identity is subjectively important for most indi-
viduals. Moreover, similarity is an important basis for categorization
(see Turner, 1982). Equal norms and values combined with common
experiences lead members of ethnic subgroups to feel attracted to each
other. Therefore, culture is highly likely to exert an influence on a per-
sons attitudes and behavior. If the primary source for identification is
the social category, the ethnic group reinforces behaviors that are con-
sistent with group members cultural values rather than with norms of
the functional group (e.g., the persons project team at work).
Consequently, what is regarded as appropriate behavior differs across
ethnic subgroups in the social group. Incompatibility of cultural values
may then harm constructive group processes (e.g., Messick and
Mackie, 1989; Tajfel, 1982; Tajfel and Turner, 1986). What is perceived
as solidary behavior is then determined by existing reciprocal relations
with ethnic group members rather than by relations with members of
the functional group. For example, under conditions of strong ethnic
identification, a Surinam football player on the Dutch team may be
inclined to support his Surinam fellow player who was not selected for
the final team by refraining from playing, rather than offering his tal-
11: Ethnic Identity and Solidarity 177
ents for the benefit of the team. In a study among postgraduate students
in Birmingham who worked on a group task in teams that varied in
terms of diversity, we showed that commitment to the team was
reduced when team members strongly identified themselves with their
ethnic background (Van der Zee, Atsma, and Brodbeck, 2004).
Social reference groups provide the enforcement and meaning of
and rationale for behavior exhibited by the group. To create the solidar-
ity frame that stimulates group members to direct their behavior toward
important group goals, it seems important that the self-categorization
of group members and task conditions are congruent (e.g., Worchel,
Morales, Pez, and Deschamps, 1998). This means that, in functional
groups, the primary source of self-categorization should be membership
of that particular group rather than the ethnic group. If group members
identify with the functional group rather than with their ethnic group,
they share their social identities. The meaning of and rationale for
behavior exhibited by the group is then provided by group goals and
the norms and values that exist within the group. Under those condi-
tions, minority group members are more willing to contribute to the
common goals of the group. Indeed, empirical research has shown that
group identification plays an important role in shaping perceptions of
solidarity and of group members willingness to engage in collective
action (Doosje, Ellemers, and Spears, 1995; Karasawa, 1991; Veenstra
and Haslam, 2000).
Identification with task groups in particular occurs quite naturally.
Human beings seem to have in common a need to work or to produce
something, a tendency to search for purpose or meaning in life, and a
tendency to adjust to institutions. From the perspective of framing
theory, this striving for common purpose and a collective identity can
be understood as a tendency to establish a stable normative frame in
the group (Lindenberg, 1998). Such a frame makes the behavior of
others predictable. It sets the norms for giving and taking. It makes
giving less risky, because the person knows that he or she is likely to
get something in return by virtue of the group norms. However, in -
situations of a competing subgroup identity this tendency is less obvi-
ous. What can groups do to ensure that a strong group identity occurs?
First, it seems important to create functional interdependence
among group members. Shea and Guzzo (1987) propose that group effec-
tiveness is a consequence of the extent to which an individual group
member depends on other members of the group to be able to carry out
his or her task (task interdependence) and the extent to which a group
member believes that other group members goal attainment facilitates
movement toward his or her own goals (outcome interdependence) (see
also Van der Vegt, Emans, and Van de Vliert, 2000, 2001; Van der Vegt
and Flache, this volume). In intercultural groups, it is possible to bene-
fit from the different perspectives of other group members. Whether
178 K. van der Zee
these different perspectives result in solidary behavior depends on how

the interdependence between group members is structured. As stated
earlier, diverse groups seem to be most effective under conditions
whereby each group member has a specific role in the group and group
outcomes are reached through internal differentiation and the capacity
for different members to perform different roles. Group diversity may
have neutral or negative implications for solidarity if there is little task
interdependence or little need to interact. There is no need for a strong
group identity to develop in this case and ethnic subgroups may be the
major source of identification. If a group member performs under condi-
tions of high task interdependence combined with low outcome interde-
pendence, however, he or she is not likely to develop positive attitudes
toward other group members or readiness to be influenced by infor-
mation, suggestions, and ideas provided by others (cf. Deutsch, 1973).
In such a situation, ethnic diversity may trigger cooperation problems,
conflict, distrust, and stereotyping. This inhibits a group members
overall pleasure in the task and his or her motivation to generate, adopt,
and implement new ideas. As a result, ethnic diversity is negatively
related to group processes and outcomes (see also Van der Vegt and
Flache, this volume; Van der Vegt, Van de Vliert, and Oosterhof, 2003).
Conversely, if a group member works under conditions of high task
interdependence combined with high outcome interdependence, he or
she will use the knowledge and skills of interdependent members to
solve problems, will experience high-quality group processes and
extensive mutual learning, and will be receptive to information and
suggestions from interdependent others. In such a situation, group
diversity may provide positive outcomes. That is, the facilitative and
cooperative interactions with dissimilar group members, resulting
from high task and goal interdependence, may enhance group mem-
bers willingness to cooperate with and help others. An example is a
group of volunteers working on a plan to create recreation space in a
new neighborhood where the local government is considering building
new apartments. Group members may be citizens who are lawyers,
urban planners, gardeners, and even sculptors, who may all make a
specific contribution to the quality and acceptance of the final plan
and all benefit from the final result. It is not difficult to imagine that
under those circumstances the focus would be on learning from each
other and mutual help rather than on the fact that the architect is from
Arabia, the gardener is from England, and the urban planner is from
Amsterdam.
Second, it seems important to focus on similarities between group
members and to find ways to represent the differences between
group members. According to Brewer (1991), social identification is
rooted not only in a need to belong (see also Tajfel, 1978) but also in the
need to be distinct. These needs are contradictory and, therefore,
difficult to combine. In defining group membership in an ethnically

diverse team, a strong emphasis is usually put on similarities and on
adjustment to well-defined (majority) norms. The need to be distinct is
thereby threatened, particularly among minority members. Since group
affiliations are in many cases powerful and emotionally significant,
group members may resist giving up their distinctiveness and, in the
case of ethnicity may even be unable to do so (Brown, Vivian, and
Hewstone, 1999). Studies on mergers, for example, show that mutual
prejudice increases when it is emphasized too much that employees
from the merged groups are similar. Under those conditions, employees
themselves start to focus on differences (Hornsey and Hogg, 1999; Van
Leeuwen and Van Knippenberg, 2003). Brown et al. (1999) argue that it
is, therefore, desirable that, under conditions of diversity, group mem-
bers be allowed to keep at least part of their distinctiveness. This can
be achieved by creating possibilities for group members to identify
themselves at a personal level with their ethnic background, and at a
functional level with their task group. Dual identification in groups with
both a subgroup and a superordinate group is usually referred to in the
literature as dual identity (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2000; Gaertner, Mann,
Dovidio, Murrell, and Pomare, 1990).
Empirical evidence has shown that a dual identity is associated
with positive group outcomes in terms of more harmonious intergroup
relations (Gaertner, Rust, Dovidio, Bachman, and Anastasio, 1994).
Little research has been conducted to examine the outcomes of dual
identity in relation to ethnic diversity. In our own work among post-
graduate students in Birmingham, we failed to find support for advan-
tages of a dual identity over a strong identification with the team only
(Van der Zee, Atsma, et al., 2004). Patterns of identification have also
been investigated in relation to the acculturation of immigrants into
societies. Four strategies were distinguished that immigrants can use in
adjusting to the new society, depending on whether they give up or
maintain aspects of their native culture and on whether or not they
value interactions with members of the new culture (Berry, 1997). These
strategies define the way the new society is framed and the social rela-
tions that are likely to develop. Seeking interactions with members of
the new culture and giving up ones old culture is referred to as assim-
ilation; seeking interactions in the new culture, but also maintaining
aspects of the old culture is called integration. A cultural identity char-
acterized by low identification with the native culture and avoidance of
contacts in the new culture is called marginalization, and, finally, a cul-
ture characterized by identifying with the old culture but avoidance of
contacts in the new culture is referred to as separation. It is not difficult
to draw a parallel between assimilation and the development of a super-
ordinate identity, and between integration and the development of a
dual identity. Research has clearly shown that, in terms of well-being,
180 K. van der Zee
integration is associated with more favorable outcomes than assimila-

tion (Van Oudenhoven and Eisses, 1998; Van Oudenhoven, Prins, and
Buunk, 1998). As far as I know, no research has explicitly linked assim-
ilation and integration to solidarity.
In the previous sections the disadvantages of imposing a strong
superordinate category have been highlighted, and the potential
virtues of a dual identity have been discussed. Brewer and Gardner
(1996) go even further and argue against a strong focus on collective
identities. They argue that, when a collective identity is primed,
people are motivated to ensure the welfare of their group, often relative
to other groups. When this happens, people tend to characterize them-
selves in terms of the group prototype and determine their self-worth
by evaluating how their group compares to other groups. Particularly
in performance-oriented social contexts such as work organizations,
the emergence of competition may lead to a lack of solidarity with the
larger organization. Moreover, it may leave minority members fearing
that they will be categorized and deemed unworthy in-group members.
Low self-esteem and negative feelings may result in hostility toward
majority members, and this negativity is likely to be reciprocated by
the majority members (Brickson, 2000). Brewer and Gardner (1996)
argue that mutual cognitive understanding and concern among major-
ity and minority members are most likely to occur from a relational
identity orientation. Such an orientation is likely to emerge from
dyadic relationships, for example, organized in small face-to-face
groups or dense and integrated networks. Moreover, it is stimulated by
activities directed toward ensuring the welfare of others (mentoring or
providing emotional or instrumental support, for example, as a volun-
teer caregiver). Under such circumstances, minority identities can
remain evident without becoming the cognitive focus of interaction.
The situation is framed in terms of relations rather than in terms of
group membership and the norms that go along with it. Studies indi-
cate that a relational orientation promotes the extension of empathy
and positive affect, even beyond ones immediate interaction partners
to other targets and perceivers (Pettigrew, 1997). Interestingly, Wright,
Aron, McLaughin-Volpe, and Ropp (1997) found a so-called extended
contact effect: merely knowing that an in-group member has had sig-
nificant interactions with an out-group member leads to improved atti-
tudes toward members of that out-group. To extend these findings to
solidary behavior, the solidary behavior of minority members may be
enhanced by significant interpersonal relations with majority group
members or by the observation that important in-group members
engage in such relations. Much of the skepticism about creating func-
tional group identities is based on observations of experimentally
created groups or real groups (such as nations) whereby no interactions
were involved. Research on real groups in work organizations suggests
that identification with a functional group does not necessarily evoke

negative stereotypes of out-group members (Hennessy and West, 1999).
It therefore seems worthwhile to further investigate the conditions
under which the development of a dual identity is facilitated. In the
next section I will discuss a number of variables that may affect the
ability of groups to create dual identities among their members.
Personality and Identity Patterns
Research on intercultural adjustment has suggested that person-

ality may be related to patterns of identification among immigrants.
Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven (2000, 2001) distinguish between a
number of intercultural traits that seem relevant in this regard: cul-
tural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability,
and flexibility. Cultural empathy denotes the ability to recognize and
empathize with the feelings, cognitions, and behaviors of members of
different cultural groups. Open-mindedness refers to an open and tol-
erant attitude toward members of different cultural groups and toward
different norms and values. Individuals high in social initiative have
a tendency to take initiative and to approach other persons rather than
to wait and see what others do. Emotional stability refers to a ten-
dency to remain calm in stressful situations versus a tendency to show
strong emotional reactions under stressful circumstances. Finally,
flexibility denotes an ability to adjust ones familiar ways of acting in
response to the demands of new and unknown situations, and a ten-
dency to see new situations as a challenge. In an earlier study among
Frisian emigrants, we found evidence that cultural empathy and open-
mindedness both were related to the acculturation strategy of integra-
tion (Van der Zee, Van Oudenhoven, and Bakker, 2002). In another
study, emigrants were presented with case descriptions of an emigrant
who used one of the four strategies stated by Berry (1997). The data
revealed that flexibility interacted with Berrys contact with the new
culture dimension in determining emigrants affective and normative
reactions. The more flexible they were, the more positive emigrants
emotional and normative reactions were to descriptions in which
the focal person sought contact with the new culture. Flexibility was
particularly related to positive emotional and normative reactions
to assimilation (Bakker, Van der Zee, and Van Oudenhoven, in press).
In a study among immigrants to Germany, Schmitz (1994) found sup-
port for a relationship between flexibility as a stress reaction style and
integration as the preferred acculturation strategy. In sum, although
much more research needs to be done, there is evidence to suggest that
the five intercultural traits may facilitate the development of a dual
identity.
182 K. van der Zee
Group Culture and Identity Patterns
In addition to personality traits, group culture seems to influence

identification in intercultural groups. Hofstede (1980, 1991) has per-
formed influential work in the field of cultural values. He identified
four dimensions of cultural differences that seem to hold in both organ-
izations and nations. The dimension of individualism/collectivism
refers to whether people define themselves as individuals or as mem-
bers of a group. The dimension of power distance denotes the degree of
formality of relationship with superiors. Third, uncertainty avoidance
refers to the degree of ambiguity about the future that can be tolerated;
and, fourth, masculinity/femininity indicates whether achievements
or interpersonal relationships are valued. How do these dimensions
influence social identity patterns among minority groups? First, indi-
vidualistic cultures stress individuals independence from the social
group. Collectivistic cultures are characterized by strong, cohesive in-
groups and high loyalty toward the in-group (Hofstede, 1991).
Bontempo, Lobel, and Triandis (1990), for example, found that individ-
uals from collectivistic cultures are more willing to sacrifice themselves
for the benefit of others than are individuals from individualistic
cultures. Moreover, individuals from collectivistic cultures derive more
satisfaction from compliance with the norms of the group. In compari-
son with individuals from individualistic cultures, they place more
emphasis on the needs and goals of the groups, social norms and obli-
gations, shared responsibilities, and cooperation with group members
(Hofstede, 1983; Wheeler, Reis, and Bond, 1989). It must be noted that,
although it is likely that collectivism provides the best ground for the
development of a strong group identity, it may also neglect individual
and culture-related differences between group members and thereby
promote assimilation rather than integration in the group.
With respect to uncertainty avoidance, a low tolerance for ambi-
guity seems to be associated with a stronger need for clarity and con-
trol (Cox, 1993). Groups with a low tolerance for uncertainty may favor
assimilation and separation as ways to manage sociocultural differ-
ences. Although in the case of assimilation identity, patterns may
emerge that match task conditions and may, therefore, lead to the right
solidarity frame and constitute mechanistic rather than organic soli-
darity patterns. Mechanistic solidarity disregards real differences and
threatens distinctiveness needs. Small differences in values are not
easily accepted because they introduce uncertainty and potential
conflict in the group, and group members expressing such differences
may be excluded.
Third, a high power distance may lead members from minority
groups to think that they are inferior by virtue of their membership of a
disadvantaged group. Feelings of inferiority seem also linked to inferior
skills, such as limited knowledge of the local language and lack of

insight into what is expected within the culture of the specific group.
This may have a negative impact on identification with the group
and strengthen ethnic identity. Finally, to a lesser extent, masculinity/
femininity may also affect patterns of identification. Feminine cultures
are defined by an emphasis on good interpersonal relationships and
loyalty, and, therefore, promote solidary behavior among their mem-
bers, thereby providing a good environment for integration. Feminine
cultures may also stimulate the development of what Brewer and
Gardner (1996) referred to as a relational orientation.
Identification Patterns and Threat
The emotional importance of affiliation to ones cultural group is

related to an important function of culture. Being part of a cultural
group creates safety. Culture provides a shared perspective on reality
that creates order, structure, and meaning (Greenberg, Solomon, and
Pyszczynski, 1997). Within a culture, norms and values emerge that
protect those who behave according to these norms and values. By liv-
ing in accordance with the norms and values that exist within a
culture, individuals sense that they make a valuable contribution to
a meaningful world, which enhances their self-esteem (Greenberg
et al., 1992). Giving up part of that culture or acknowledging the fact
that ones cultural worldview is but one of several possible ways of
considering reality tends to mean giving up part of that safety. It is,
therefore, not surprising that the importance of cultural values
increases when an individuals basic sense of safety is threatened
(Greenberg et al., 1997; Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczinsky, 1991).
The patriotic reaction of the American people to the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001, provides a clear historic example in this regard.
The willingness of American people to help fellow Americans who
suffered loss was intriguing, as was their overt negative and aggressive
attitude toward citizens with an Islamic background. Empirical evi-
dence can also be found in the scientific literature. In a series of stud-
ies, Greenberg, Pyszczynski, and Solomon (1990), for example, showed
that Christian subjects were inclined to view Jewish targets more neg-
atively when threat was induced by making the subjects think about
their own death (mortality salience). In a study performed by
Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, and Lyon in 1989
(Study 1), municipal court judges were asked to set bond for a hypo-
thetically alleged prostitute. They found that judges set higher bonds
for the alleged prostitute upon introduction of threat, again making
death salient, than in a control condition. Moral transgressors implic-
itly or explicitly challenge our worldview, evoking a strong cultural
184 K. van der Zee
frame in which the norms and values of a different subgroup are

strongly disapproved of. Under threatening circumstances, individuals
strongly need the protection of their culture in order to retain a posi-
tive sense of self and the world around them, and consequently are
more strongly inclined to adhere to their own cultural group. This
stimulates solidary behavior directed at their own cultural group rather
than at social groups that are less central to their self-concepts. In an
experimental study among students, we found that individual differ-
ences in identification with an intercultural situation and perceptions
of such situations as threatening disappeared after induction of threat
(Van der Zee, Van Oudenhoven, and De Grijs, 2004).
Identification Patterns and Power
The likelihood that minority and particularly majority members will

accept a normative frame that is based on their membership of a func-
tional group rather than their ethnic group depends on the power differ-
ences associated with the different groups. Hence, intergroup hostility
and antagonism are natural results of competition between groups for
control of the economic, political, and social structures of social systems
(Giles and Evans, 1986). Strong power differences lead to strong tensions
between minority and majority groups over whether to change or pre-
serve the status quo. Interethnic conflicts in South Africa and, recently,
Zimbabwe provide clear examples. At the level of individuals within
functional groups, powerless individuals are motivated to reduce the
power distance between themselves and more powerful groups and indi-
viduals, as long as they perceive the possibility for movement. Under
conditions where structural barriers prevent them from moving upward,
however, they distance themselves from powerful others mentally and
cognitively (Fiske, 1993; Mulder, 1977). Under such circumstances, other
low-status minority members form the primary source of identification.
Conclusions and Possibilities for Interventions
In sum, I have argued that both by stimulating identification of

immigrants with the new society and by creating strong identification
with relevant social groups, rather than primarily with ethnic back-
ground, the solidarity of both ethnic minority group members and
majority group members may increase. Strong identification with rele-
vant social groups that extend the borders of cultural groups leads peo-
ple to frame their relationships in terms of solidarity with the goals of
the social group. These insights can be used to design diagnostic tools
as well as interventions.
First, social identity theory distinguishes a number of strategies

aimed at reducing problems in intergroup relations by creating alterna-
tive categorizations among individuals (Messick and Macky, 1989;
Tajfel and Turner, 1986). These strategies can be used in interventions
to create a more positive social identity among immigrants. Examples of
strategies are the creation of subordinate goals and recategorization. The
former strategy is also one of the core conditions for reducing negative
attitudes among group members in the contact hypothesis. With respect
to recategorization, patterns of identification with social groups (work
teams, school classes) and with social categories (ethnic category, gen-
der) can be enforced experimentally. For example, Gonzalez and Brown
(1999) showed an instruction film on earlier groups performing a task,
whereby the common identity of two subgroups was made salient or
not. It is assumed that stressing the common identity of the group in
relation to the task causes the cultural frame to be replaced by a func-
tional group frame, and thereby stimulates solidary behavior toward the
functional group. The identity of the social reference group can be made
salient, for example, by articulating group mission statements, celebrat-
ing group achievements, formulating a group dress code, or creating a
group logo (Ashforth and Johnson, 2001).
Second, as I have argued, there may be a disadvantage of a strong
focus on collective identities. Under certain circumstances, it seems
preferable to stimulate the development of social identities based on
interpersonal relationships rather than group membership. The idea of
creating small face-to-face groups or dense and integrated networks can
be traced back to the basic principles of the contact hypothesis
(Allport, 1954). The contact hypothesis states that under particular
conditions contact between members of two groups with different
norms and values may lead to a reduction in negative attitudes. The
core of the theory is the particular conditions, such as having equal sta-
tus, disconfirming stereotypes, equalitarian norms, intimacy between
members of both groups, and interdependent attainment of common
goals. Particularly intimacy seems to be an important criterion for the
development of what Brewer and Gardner (1996) refer to as relational
identity orientation. The importance of creating interdependence was
stressed at the beginning of the chapter.
Third, it seems that patterns of functional interdependence and
power differences can be manipulated using structural interventions in
the way group tasks are organized and in group composition. With
respect to personality, providing group members with training in the
different dimensions may be helpful. Although we have shown that
the five intercultural traits are reasonably stable over time (Van der Zee
and Van Oudenhoven, 2000), we have also shown that experience in
living abroad (Van der Zee and Brinkmann, 2004) is associated with
an increase in scores, suggesting that training can be effective.
186 K. van der Zee
Furthermore, tolerance for ethnic diversity decreases in situations of

threat. This implies that social groups have to be extra alert to solidarity
problems linked to diversity under conditions of threat, for example, due
to reorganizations or fusions between groups. More generally, it seems
important to create conditions that provide members with a sense of
safety. One way to reach this end is to create a climate of mutual under-
standing among group members. Empathy and trust enhance positive
feelings toward the group as a whole (Batson et al., 1997; Finlay and
Stephan, 2000; Galinsky and Moskowitz, 2000) and can help to reduce
threat and anxiety in interacting with out-group members (Hewstone,
Rubin, and Willis, 2002; Stephan and Finlay, 1999). In addition, I have
stressed the importance of a group climate that accepts differences
between group members. In this regard, Cox (1993) argues that an inter-
cultural group climate is characterized by tolerance for ambiguity, by an
appreciation of differences, and by low rigidity with respect to what is
regarded as acceptable behavior of group members. If a group manages
to create a shared common identity among its members that is linked to
the functional aims of the group, and yet at the personal level acknowl-
edges and appreciates interpersonal differences, all group members
from both majority and minority subgroupsmay start to feel committed
to the aims of the group. Under those circumstances, solidarity patterns
will emerge that benefit the group and will eventually also help immi-
grants integrate into the new society.
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CHAPTER 12
Solidarity in the Absence of External

Sanctions: A Cross-Cultural Study of
Educational Goals and Fair-Share
Behavior
Detlef Fetchenhauer and Rafael Wittek
In the main theoretical framework of the present book, it was outlined

that an actors level of solidary and prosocial behavior in a given situation
is largely dependent on his or her framing of the situation. According to
Lindenbergs framing theory (in this volume), three general and distinct
ways of framing a given situation can be: (1) a hedonic frame aimed at
immediate pleasure, (2) a gain frame aimed at the maximization of ones
own personal resources and largely ignoring the well-being of others, and
(3) a normative frame in which people aim to do what is morally appro-
priate even if such behavior opposes their material self-interests.
In this chapter we relate this theory to determine in which situa-
tions people follow social norms of fairness and (financial) honesty.
When investigating this question, it is necessary to distinguish two
kinds of situations. First, an actor may perceive that disobeying a cer-
tain social norm might lead to some external sanctions. Take the exam-
ple of a university professor who has given a presentation at a private
company and has earned 2,000 euros for this. When filling in his yearly
tax declaration, he wonders whether or not to declare this extra
income. This does not need to be a moral question. If the professor
assumes the tax authorities will find out if he conceals this extra
income and he expects severe punishment for such behavior, he
may indicate the extra income simply because he wants to avoid the
punishment. In the terminology of Lindenbergs framing theory,
the professors decision in this example is independent of whether he
is in a normative or in a gain frame. Even if he feels no moral obliga-
tion at all to pay his taxes, he may do so because he perceives this deci-
sion to be in his material self-interest. To put it differently: if external
sanctions are severe enough, problems in ensuring solidary behavior
do not emerge.
191
192 D. Fetchenhauer and R. Wittek
However, what do people do if they do not have to fear any exter-

nal sanctions? Consider the following example: a person finds a wallet
on the street. In the wallet is some money and the address of the puta-
tive owner. What does the person do? He knows that the money isnt
his and that it would be fairest to send the wallet to the owner without
removing any money. However, nobody saw him find the wallet. Thus,
nobody will ever find out if he keeps the money for himself. In situa-
tions like these, a persons behavior very much depends on his or her
framing of the situation. If this person is in a gain frame, he will take
the money. Only if he is in a normative frame will the person do what
is morally appropriate and send the money back.
Many chapters in the present book deal with the question of when
people use a normative frame or a gain frame in a given situation. This
chapter deals with cross-country differences with regard to a certain
kind of solidary behavior: peoples willingness to refrain from finan-
cially exploiting others when they have the chance to do so. In deter-
mining whether people in some countries are more honest and more
trustworthy than people in others, we concentrated on a cluster of
behaviors that can be described as follows: (1) when disobeying rules
of fairness and honesty, no sanctions are to be feared, (2) the victim of
ones antisocial behavior is an unknown other person (as in the exam-
ple of the lost wallet) or an anonymous institution (as in the case of tax
evasion).
We refer to the degree to which people refrain from antisocial and
unsolidary behavior in such situations as fair-share behavior. The
labeling of this scale appears to be somewhat arbitrary. In previous
studies in which related operationalizations were used as in this study,
similar scales were called civic virtues by Knack and Keefer (1997),
material self-interest by Halpern (2001), and financial honesty by
Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt (2001).
The Measurement of Fair-Share Behavior
It is a demanding task to measure fair-share behavior at the cross-

country level because it is then necessary to conduct large-scale sur-
veys in different countries using identical questionnaires. Fortunately,
items that can be regarded as indicators of fair-share behavior
were measured in the World Value Surveys (WVS). This survey is an
international study that was conducted in a large number of different
countries at different points of time. For the present analysis, we used
data from the first two waves of the WVS, which were gathered in 24
different societies in 1981 and in 43 different societies in 1990
(Inglehart, 1990, 1997). At both points of measurement, random sam-
ples comprised of approximately 1,000 to 2,000 respondents in each
12: Solidarity in the Absence of External Sanctions 193
country. We restricted the analysis to Western democratic industrial-

ized countries that participated in at least one of these two waves.
Nondemocratic third-world countries were excluded because in these
countries the validity of participants answers is questionable and
samples might not be representative (see Van de Vliert and Lindenberg,
this volume).
In both waves of the WVS, respondents were given a list of 24
behaviors that might be regarded as morally wrong. The subjects were
asked to indicate how justified they would judge these behaviors on
a 10-point Likert scale ranging from never to always. For our purposes,
however, it did not appear reasonable to use all 24 behaviors as indi-
cators of solidarity. For example, whereas euthanasia and abortion are
forbidden or deviant behaviors in some countries, they are legal and
socially accepted in the Netherlands. We thus restricted our analysis to
seven items that refer to different aspects of fair-share behavior. The
choice of these seven items was based on the following arguments:
First, all seven indicators were highly correlated with each other and
could thus be integrated into one single scale (see also Fetchenhauer
and Van der Vegt, 2001). Second, all seven indicators refer to behaviors
that are forbidden by law and are thus legally sanctioned. Third, all
items refer to private decisions of a certain actor, in which the proba-
bility of external sanctions might be low.
The seven indicators were: (1) avoiding paying a fare on public
transport; (2) claiming government benefits you are not entitled to;
(3) cheating on tax if you have the chance; (4) buying something you
know was stolen; (5) keeping money that you have found; (6) accepting
a bribe in the course of duties; and (7) failing to report damage you have
done accidentally to a parked vehicle. For the further analysis, we inte-
grated these seven indicators of fair-share behavior into one single scale.
Generally speaking, respondents in all countries indicated that
the seven behaviors in question were illegitimate. The averages on the
10-point Likert scale ranged between 1.6 (Buying something you know
was stolen in 1981) to 3.0 (Keeping money that you found in 1990).
It may be argued that the answers of the participants were highly
influenced by aspects of social desirability and that, therefore, any cross-
cultural differences that might be found with regard to this scale meas-
ure differences in social desirability rather than differences in fair-share
behavior. If this interpretation were correct, however, a one-dimensional
structure should be found of all 24 items that measured the legitimacy of
behaviors that might be condemned from a moral perspective. This was
not the case as factor analyses of these 24 items revealed a multidimen-
sional structure (see also Halpern, 2001). Of course, this multidi-
mensionality is only an indication that the answers were not simply an
artifact of cross-country differences in social desirability. More impor-
tant is the relationship of the scale with behavioral measures.
In this regard, an experiment reported in the Economist (Whom can

you trust? June 22, 1996) is of some importance. In 14 different European
countries, 20 wallets containing $50 and the addresses of their putative
owners were intentionally lost. The percentage of wallets that were sent
back to the owner in each country was positively related to our measure
of fair-share behavior (r = .42; p < .10). Further evidence for the validity
of our fair-share behavior scale comes from studies in which that scale
was related to interpersonal trust, economic growth rates, and crime rates.
Fair-Share Behavior and Interpersonal Trust
Putnam (1993) assumes that (financial) honesty and interpersonal

trust, as important elements of social capital, are positively correlated
with each other. This positive correlation is explained in two different
ways (Knack and Keefer, 1997). First, it is argued that people are able
to estimate the trustworthiness of their fellow citizens: people in coun-
tries with a high level of honesty tend to trust each other because they
know that most of their fellow citizens are honest (i.e., can be trusted).
According to this argument, trust is merely the perception of others
honesty. Another explanation has it that in many situations it only
pays to be honest if ones interaction partner is also honest (e.g., in a
prisoners dilemma game). According to this line of reasoning, honesty
and trust can be regarded as characteristics that are mutually rein-
forcing. That is, the more people trust each other, the more they tend
to be honest, and vice versa.
In a recent study, Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt (2001) empiri-
cally investigated the relationship between fair-share behavior and
interpersonal trust. As a measure of interpersonal trust, they used the
following item from the WVS: Generally speaking, would you say that
most people in your country can be trusted or that you cant be too
careful in dealing with people? Possible answers to that dichotomous
question were Most people can be trusted and You cant be too care-
ful. For each country, the percentage of people that indicated that
Most people can be trusted was taken as a measure of general trust
in others. Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt showed that a countrys level
of interpersonal trust was substantially correlated to the countrys
degree of fair-share behavior.
Fair-Share Behavior and Economic Growth Rates
According to Putnam (1993) and Coleman (1990), the level of fair-

share behavior in a country can be regarded as one element of its social
capital. The main argument of social capital theory is that societies are
endowed with social as well as physical and human capital (e.g.,

employees skills and knowledge), and that social capital is an important
predictor of long-term economic performance. It can be argued that a high
level of mutual trust and fair-share behavior in a society lowers transac-
tion costs and thus increases economic growth (Knack and Keefer, 1997).
First, less time and money has to be spent in protecting oneself against
exploitation by others (e.g., fewer written contracts are needed, and con-
tracts do not need to specify every possible contingency in advance).
Second, more innovations are stimulated because fewer resources are
required to monitor business partners or employees, and inventors trust
that they will be able to harvest the profits from their inventions (i.e., that
their inventions will not be plagiarized by others). Third, in high-trust
societies, the decision to hire new personnel can rest mainly on the for-
mal qualifications of applicants while, in low-trust societies, relatedness
or personal knowledge is important to ensure the trustworthiness of
a new employee. This leads people to invest more resources in their
own human capital in high-trust societies because they can count on their
formal skills and knowledge being considered. In sum, a high level of
social capital in a country reduces transaction costs and thus stimulates
activities that lead to a high level of economic growth.
In line with this reasoning, fair-share behavior (as measured in the
WVS) was a significant and important predictor of economic growth
rates (Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt, 2001; Knack and Keefer, 1997).
The higher a country scored on fair-share behavior, the higher its growth
rates were. This relationship was still significant when a number of other
variables were controlled for (i.e., urbanization, economic inequality,
proportion of agriculture in the gross domestic product, and economic
prosperity) (Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt, 2001). Thus, the more peo-
ple in a country tend to be honest in financial affairs, the more people
trust each other and the better the countrys economic performance.
Fair-Share Behavior and Criminality
As Halpern (2001) has shown, fair-share behavior, as measured in

the WVS, is also significantly related to crime rates. Halpern used an
index of fair-share behavior (called material self-interest) similar to
that used by Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt (2001) and Knack and
Keefer (1997), and related this index to crime rates as they were meas-
ured in the International Crime Victimization Survey (ICVS) (Van Dijk
and Mayhew, 1992). In the ICVS, respondents were asked whether
they had been victim to different forms of crime during the previous
12 months. An index of five different and rather serious crimes (i.e.,
theft, burglary, robbery, physical assaults, and sexual assaults) was
used as a measure of national crime rates.
Based on a sample of 15 Western countries, Halpern showed that

the lower a countrys crime rate was, the higher its level of fair-share
behavior (r = .49). This negative relationship between honesty and
crime rates remained significant even when other potential predictors
of crime rates (e.g., urbanization, economic inequality, or gross domes-
tic product) were controlled for. When these variables were entered
into regression analyses, the explanatory power of fair-share behavior
even increased to a -coefficient of .68.
In sum, the external validity of the scale used to measure fair-share
behavior in the WVS was proved with regard to a number of different
criteria. The higher a countrys scores on the scale, the more often lost
money was returned to its owner, the more people trusted each other
in everyday life, the better the countrys economic performance, and
the lower its crime rates.
Educational Styles and Cross-Country Differences

in Fair-Share Behavior
Cross-country differences in fair-share do have real and important

consequences. But how can these differences between different nations
be explained? As was outlined above, the indicators of fair-share used
in the WVS refer to situations in which an actor can follow his or her
own financial interest without facing the risk of being detected. The
question remains, what determines whether people internalize social
fairness norms? A partial answer to how people internalize moral
norms can be found in research on educational styles (Hoffman, 2000;
see Hoffman, 1970). As Hoffman (2000) emphasizes, many interactions
between children and their parents consist of the parents telling the
children to stop or to refrain from a certain kind of behavior. Such dis-
ciplinary efforts occur up to 10 times an hour, 50 times a day, and
15,000 times a year (Hoffman, 2000). According to Hoffman, these dis-
ciplinary efforts can take three basic forms:
Power assertion. This kind of behavior implies threats of physical force
or deprivation of possessions and privileges, and actual force or dep-
rivation. For example, a mother sees her six-year-old son hitting his
younger brother and says, If you dont stop that immediately, I will
beat you too.
Love withdrawal. Here, parents threaten to or actually withdraw affec-
tionate resources from their children. For example, If you hurt your
little brother, I will not read a bedtime story to you this evening.
Induction. Parents using inductive methods to educate their children
encourage their children to take the perspective of the victim of their
behavior. By this means, they aim to stimulate empathic concern for
the suffering of the childs victim. For example, Your little brother
is very sad if you always hit him.
Hoffman (2000) notes that all three of these disciplinary methods
are successful most of the time. In most instances, parents are able to
make their children stop a certain kind of behavior (at least for the
moment). Furthermore, all three methods make very clear the parents
disapproval of their childrens behavior. Hoffman asserts, however, that
there are important differences between the three kinds of behavior:
Inductions do two important things that other discipline techniques do
not do: (a) they call attention to the victims distress and make it salient to
the child, thus tapping into the childs empathic proclivity (using it as an
ally) by activating any or all of his or her empathy-arousing mechanisms
and producing empathic distress and (b) inductions point up to the role
of the childs action in causing that distress. This creates the condition for
feeling empathy-based guilt, which is a feeling of intense disesteem for
oneself for wrongfully hurting another. (Hoffman, 2000, p. 151)
He further argues that the more parents use inductive methods to

educate their children, the more prosocial behavior gets internalized,
since only this disciplinary method can raise empathic consideration
for the victim of a childs misbehavior. As a large number of studies
have shown, empathy with the victim is a strong determinant of proso-
cial behavior. Especially Daniel Batson (1991) has made this assump-
tion central in his studies of altruistic and prosocial behavior (for an
overview of these studies, see Bierhoff, 2002).
Hoffmans theory has been tested using experimental methods
(Kuczynski, 1983; Sawin and Parke, 1980) and correlational methods
(e.g., Krevans and Gibbs, 1996). Most of these studies confirmed
Hoffmans main hypotheses. For example, Krevans and Gibbs pre-
sented parents with five different scenarios in which a child misbe-
haved and asked them to indicate how they would behave if their own
child engaged in such behavior. The answers to these questions were
categorized into the different disciplinary methods described above.
The prosociality of the children (aged 11 or 14) was measured using
teacher ratings as well as behavioral data the children themselves pro-
vided (donating money, which they got as a bonus). Furthermore, a
number of standardized scales were used to measure the maturity of
empathy of the children. In line with Hoffmans theory, the more par-
ents indicated use of inductions and the less they indicated use of
power assertion, the higher the childrens degree of prosocial behav-
ior. This link was no longer significant if childrens empathy was
included in the analysis. This result was in line with the assumption
that the relationship between inductive disciplinary methods
and prosocial behavior is mediated by the effect of inductions on
childrens empathy.
To summarize these results, Hoffman (2000) provides an empiri-

cally confirmed theory of how prosocial behavior is internalized. It
does not help simply to punish children for their antisocial behavior.
Instead, it is necessary (a) to explain to them the reasons, why their
behavior was wrong, (b) to make them take the victims perspective,
and (c) to trigger empathic distress with the victim.
Lindenbergs framing theory (see Chapters 1 and 2 of this volume)
can be used to further integrate Hoffmans findings on the effects of
educational styles on childrens prosociality into a more general theory
of solidary behavior. Referring to Lindenbergs terminology, it may be
argued that the basic difference between a gain frame and a normative
frame lies in the focus of an actors behavior. When adopting a gain
frame, people mainly focus on the consequences of their behavior for
themselves. When applying a normative frame, people also regard the
possible consequences of their behavior for others.
Therefore, use of the educational method of induction discussed
above has the consequence that people habitually approach social sit-
uations using a normative frame, while use of the methods of power
assertion and love withdrawal causes people to use a gain frame when
approaching social situations. When people are in a gain frame, they
focus by definition on their own advantage and thus only cooperate if
it is to their benefit.
In sum, Hoffmans theory of norm internalization (2000) and
Lindenbergs framing theory predict that the more people have grown
up in a culture that puts emphasis on internalizing prosocial norms
by stimulating empathy with the potential victims of antisocial
behavior, the more they will tend to act solidarily and prosocially. On
the other hand, in cultures that emphasize punishment and external
sanctions, people will only follow rules of fairness and honesty if
such external sanctions are apparent in a given situation. Related
approaches that may explain why people act less prosocially when
they are threatened with punishment are Freys economic theory of
personal motivation (Frey and Ntozake, 1997) and Decis theory of
intrinsic motivation (1975).
The Measurement of Educational Styles
In the WVS, participants were not asked elaborate questions about

how they educated their children. However, they were given a list of
11 qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home and
were asked to choose up to five values that they regarded as important.
The restriction to name only five important educational goals was not
followed in each country to the same degree (e.g., in Iceland, respon-
dents named 8.3 goals on average). Therefore, for the present analysis,
the importance of a certain educational goal was measured by relating
its frequency of mention to the total number of all educational goals

that were mentioned as important. Two educational goals can be
regarded as indicators of a power-assertive style of education: obedi-
ence and independence. It can be argued that the more authoritar-
ian the educational value system of a country, the more its inhabitants
adhere to values like obedience and the less they adhere to values like
independence. In line with this reasoning, both values were highly
negatively related to each other (r = .64; p < .01): the more often respon-
dents in a country named obedience as an important educational goal,
the less often they mentioned independence as important. Thus, it was
possible to integrate both variables into one single scale, which we
called authoritarian educational goals (Cronbachs alpha of this scale
was .78 after independence was inverted).
For example, in Denmark, a minority of 20% indicated that obe-
dience was important, but a vast majority of 81% named independ-
ence as an important educational goal. On the contrary, in France,
53% mentioned obedience as a significant educational goal, but only
27% indicated that independence was important. Denmark scored
lowest and France scored highest on authoritarian educational goals.
Is it possible to measure the educational climate of a country by
measuring the importance of certain educational goals in a large survey
study? There is no way to answer this question directly. However, if
current educational goals have their origins in deeply rooted cultural
values, then these goals should be related to a number of other indica-
tors of an authoritarian/patriarchal culture.
Indicators of an Authoritarian/Patriarchal Culture
Age of Democracy. It can be argued that the longer a country has been a
democracy, the more its inhabitants are socialized in a way that empha-
sizes democratic as opposed to authoritarian and dictatorial ways of
solving societal conflicts. The 18 countries that formed the basis of the
present study differ in the length of time they have been ruled by a dem-
ocratic government without interruption. We grouped the countries into
three different categories: (1) countries that have been democratic at least
since the end of World War I (e.g., Denmark, Switzerland, Britain, and
the United States); (2) countries that have been democratic since World
War II (e.g., Germany, Austria, and Italy); and (3) countries that had a
nondemocratic government for at least some time after 1945 (i.e.,
Portugal, Spain, and France) (see the Appendix for the values of all coun-
tries that were included in the present analysis). We found that people
in countries with a long democratic tradition, like Denmark or
Switzerland, endorsed authoritarian educational goals to a much lesser
degree than did people in countries with a short or unstable democratic
tradition, like Spain or Portugal (r = .53).
Religious Tradition. We restricted the present analysis purposely to

Western industrialized countries with a Christian tradition (Japan
was, therefore, excluded from the analysis). However, although these
countries are all Christian, they differ widely with respect to whether
they can be described as predominantly Catholic or predominantly
Protestant. We argue that Catholicism can be regarded as an indicator
of an authoritarian/patriarchal culture. This argument is derived from
the fact that the sphere of religion and religious institutions has
shaped peoples cultural value system for centuries (Hofstede, 1998).
The Catholic Church can be described as much more authoritarian
and patriarchal than Protestant churches. To begin with, the internal
structure is highly undemocratic, with the pope having nearly dicta-
torial power. Furthermore, women are not allowed to become
priestsa fact that clearly highlights the patriarchal nature of the
Catholic Church, in which strong distinctions are made between men
and women.
To measure the countries religious traditions, we classified all
countries into three different categories (see the Appendix): (1) coun-
tries with a strong Protestant tradition and a high percentage of
Protestants (e.g., Sweden or Norway); (2) countries with a mixed cul-
ture of both Catholics and Protestants (e.g., Germany or the United
States); and (3) countries with a high percentage of Catholics (e.g., Italy
or France). It was found that people in Catholic countries like France
favored authoritarian educational goals much more than people in
Protestant countries like Norway (r = .52).
Female Empowerment. It can be argued that the less authoritarian and

patriarchal a country is, the more women take part in political deci-
sions and hold high positions in politics and business. The United
Nations (2001) ranked all countries of the world according to a so-
called female empowerment index. As this index was not available for
all countries, we used only one of its elements, namely, the percent-
age of seats in parliament that were held by women in 1990, as a
measure of female empowerment (see the Appendix). This vari-
able was strongly related to authoritarian educational goals. The more
women in parliament, the less favored authoritarian educational goals
were (r = .66).
As can be seen from the above, although the measurement of edu-
cational goals in the WVS is surely questionable, these goals were
closely related to a number of external criteria. The higher the endorse-
ment of authoritarian educational goals was, the shorter a countrys
history of being a stable democracy, the higher the percentage of
Catholics, and the more seats in parliament were held by women.
Therefore, it seems warranted to regard the measurement of educa-
tional goals in the WVS as a valid indicator of authoritarianism.
The Relationship between Authoritarian Educational

Goals and Fair-Share Behavior
Having confirmed the validity of both key variables, fair-share behav-

ior and authoritarian educational goals, we tested whether these two
variables are negatively related to each other as was hypothesized based
on Hoffman (2000) and Lindenberg (this volume). This was found to be
the case as the correlation between authoritarian educational goals and
fair-share behavior indicates (r = .76; p < .01). The less people in a given
country who adhere to authoritarian educational goals (like obedience),
the more honest the inhabitants of this country were on average.
Figure 12.1 shows how 18 Western industrialized countries scored
on these two dimensions. As can be seen, the countries differed
greatly: on both dimensions, the countries with the highest values
scored about four standard deviations higher than the countries scor-
ing lowest. The figure also reveals a number of different clusters of
countries that can be described on the basis of their geography and
their cultural (e.g., sociolingual) background. Scandinavian countries
tended to have high levels of fair-share behavior and low levels of
authoritarian educational goals. This was especially the case for
Denmark and Norway. The same was true for Austria and Switzerland,
which are geographically very close to each other but appear different
with regard to their historical backgroundsSwitzerland is mainly
Protestant with a long democratic tradition, whereas Austria is mainly
Catholic with a mixed political history.
Germany turned out to be a kind of an outlier in this analysis, com-
bining a rather low degree of fair-share behavior with a very low degree
of authoritarian educational goals. One can speculate that the strong
tendency of Germans to oppose any kind of authoritarian education is
a reaction to its Nazi history.
Most of the English-speaking countries had moderate values on
both fair-share behavior and educational goals. This was true for the
United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland. The Netherlands was
located in the same cluster (consistent with its self-image of being a
rather Anglo-Saxon culture).
Countries that are predominantly Catholic and speak Roman lan-
guages, like France, Portugal, and Belgium, formed another cluster of
countries. People in these countries tended to have a low degree of fair-
share behavior but strongly endorsed authoritarian educational goals.
Interestingly, Italy (and to some degree Spain) had moderate values on
both dimensions and appeared to be more similar to the Anglo-Saxon
countries than to their Southern European neighbors.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explain these results in
more detail (e.g., Why is fair-share behavior so much lower in Finland
than in most other Scandinavian countries?). In the present study, we
Financial
Honesty
Denmark Austria
Norway Sweden
1 Switzerland
Iceland
Ireland
0 USA Italy
Finland Netherlands Britain
Germany Canada
Spain
202
1
Belgium
Portugal
2
France
Authoritarian
educational
2 1 0 1 2 goals
FIGURE 12.1. Authoritarian educational goals and financial honesty

were mostly interested in the general relationship between authoritar-

ian educational goals and fair-share behavior. In sum, our hypothesis
that these two dimensions are negatively related to each other was
clearly confirmed.
To test the robustness of the relationship between authoritarian
educational goals and fair-share behavior, a regression analysis was run
in which a number of other potential predictors of fair-share behavior
were controlled for:
Economic prosperity. As Fetchenhauer and Van der Vegt (2001) have
shown, there is a weak but significant positive correlation between
the economic prosperity of a country and the fair-share behavior of
its citizens (a cynic might argue that inhabitants of rich countries
can more easily afford to be honest as they already have enough
money). As a measure of a countrys economic prosperity, we used
gross domestic product per capita (World Bank, 1993).
Economic inequality. The degree of economic inequality in a country
(i.e., the degree to which the richer have more money than the poor)
can be regarded as a measure of the grade of relative deprivation that
is experienced by the poor people in the country. Feeling deprived of
resources might make people willing to gain financial resources by
illegitimate means (e.g., by being dishonest in financial affairs). The
Gini-index was used as a measurement of income inequality in the
different countries. Estimates of the Gini-index were taken from a
large dataset made available by the United Nations University (2000).
Level of urbanization. A large number of studies show that people in
rural areas are more helpful and more often act in a prosocial fash-
ion than people in urban areas (for a summary, see Bierhoff, 2002).
Measures of urbanization were derived from Taylor and Jodice
(1983). The results of this regression analysis showed that the only
significant predictor of fair-share behavior was the degree of author-
itarian educational goals (a = .74). Neither economic prosperity
(gross national product) nor economic inequality (the Gini index)
nor level of urbanization influenced the average fair-share behavior
of a countrys citizens.
Summary and Outlook
We analyzed cross-national differences in one kind of solidary

behavior: fair-share behavior. We showed that cross-country differences
in fair-share behavior are negatively related to the degree to which a
countrys inhabitants adhere to authoritarian educational goals. This
relationship was robust and substantial even when we controlled for a
number of other potential determinants of fair-share behavior (eco-
nomic prosperity, economic inequality, and level of urbanization).
Thus, Hoffmans hypothesis that power assertion and punishment

are unsuccessful methods of making children internalize social norms
was empirically confirmed. This is the more noteworthy as Hoffman
(2000) developed his theory mainly as a developmental psychologist
and never intended to use it for the prediction of cross-cultural differ-
ences in norm internalization or prosocial behavior.
Unfortunately, the WVS does not provide good indicators of
whether people adhere to an educational style that Hoffman would
describe as induction. However, although there were no direct indi-
cators of the use of inductive methods in educating children, two edu-
cational goals directly measured the importance of prosocial behavior
of children: responsibility and unselfishness. Neither of these cor-
related with fair-share behavior. One possible reason for this result is
that every culture educates children in prosocial values (Sober and
Wilson, 1998). However, according to Hoffmans theory, the degree to
which people really act unselfishly and responsibly depends not
on whether they have been told they should do so but on the way these
values have been taught to them.
Our findings show that authoritarian educational goals are related
to a general patriarchal cultural background. People in countries with
a Catholic confessional history, with rather unstable democracies, and
with a low percentage of women in parliament had much more author-
itarian educational goals than people in countries that are mainly
Protestant, have been democracies for a very long time, and have a high
percentage of women in parliament. Thus, the way people are taught to
follow rules of fairness and solidarity in a given country is deeply
rooted in its cultural history. For example, whether countries are
mainly Catholic or Protestant has been rather stable for centuries and,
as Hofstede (1998) has shown, is related to whether and how long the
country was part of the Roman Empire.
These facts point to a central problem unique to cross-cultural
research: the problem of disentangling mere correlations based on a
limited number of countries from real causal analyses. Naturally, cross-
national analyses such as those conducted in the present study can
never prove any kind of causality, as is possible in laboratory experi-
ments. Nonetheless, the strength of the relationships that we found
shows that they can hardly be interpreted as chance.
The findings of the present analysis indicate the importance of
educational goals as determinants of fair-share behavior. However, as
was outlined above, fair-share behavior is only one example of solidary
behavior in the absence of external sanctions.
Future researchers should investigate in more detail how a coun-
trys educational values and its history determine whether people
habitually apply a gain frame or a solidarity frame when they have the
choice between acting to their own personal advantage or following
the rules of fairness and honesty.
Appendix: Values for Variables and Scales Used with

Regard to 18 Western Industrialized Countries
Percentage
Authoritarian of women
Fair-share educational Age of Confessional in
Country behavior1 goals2 democracy3 tradition4 parliament5
Austria 1.43 0.92 2 3 11.50

Belgium 1.22 0.63 3 3 7.50
Britain 0.20 0.77 3 1 6.30
Canada 0.41 0.16 3 2 9.60
Denmark 1.52 1.76 3 1 29.10
Finland 0.11 0.74 3 1 31.50
France 2.15 1.82 1 3 6.40
Germany 0.43 1.41 2 2 15.40
Iceland 0.51 0.29 3 1 20.60
Ireland 0.24 0.27 3 3 8.40
Italy 0.05 0.41 2 3 12.90
Netherlands 0.23 0.06 3 1 20.00
Norway 1.07 1.29 3 1 34.40
Portugal 1.42 1.74 1 3 7.60
Spain 0.73 0.93 1 3 6.40
Sweden 1.07 0.09 3 1 28.50
Switzerland 0.97 0.55 3 1 14.00
United States 0.03 0.12 3 2 5.30
1
z-standardized values (to increase the scales reliability, the values of the WVS from 1981 and
1990 were collapsed if available)
2
z-standardized values
3
1 = low (less than 55 years); 2 = medium (since World War II); 3 = high (at least since World War I)
4
1 = large percentage of Protestants; 2 = mixed; 3 = large percentage of Catholics
5
Percentage of women in parliament in 1990
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CHAPTER 13
Wealth, Climate, and Framing:

Cross-National Differences in
Solidarity
Evert van de Vliert and Siegwart Lindenberg
Solidarity in the form of showing concern for other peoples welfare

varies, not only across individuals, groups, and organizations, but also
across countries (see also Fetchenhauer and Wittek, this volume). Not
surprisingly, solidarity seems to be higher in more affluent countries,
allegedly because people have more resources, enabling them to be
generous (see below). There is contradictory evidence, however.
Levine, Norenzayan, and Philbrick (2001) conducted a series of field
experiments on spontaneous helping in large cities in 23 countries in
North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, and
Asia. They found more helping in poor countries than in rich countries
and concluded that prosperity may make people selfish. Who is right?
How can these contradictory findings be explained?
In this chapter, we use framing theory to contextualize the influ-
ence of affluence on solidarity. We will do this by using an idea that
appears to have been abandoned long ago: climate matters. More than
a century ago, the proponents of the so-called geographical school
argued that climate matters for all sorts of social phenomena (for an
overview, see Sorokin, 1928). They could not explain, however, how
climatic effects were brought about, and how they linked up to social
circumstances. As a result, their theories were eventually rejected as
crackpot ideas. Nevertheless, there is some truth to their original claim,
certainly with regard to solidarity. For example, Van de Vliert,
Schwartz, Huismans, Hofstede, and Daan (1999) followed up a study
on cultural femininity by Hofstede (1998, 2001), and related cultural
femininity to thermal climate. Inhabitants of countries with more fem-
inine cultures tend to have more sympathy for the weak, empathize
more with others regardless of their group, and feel that the needy
should be helped and that immigrants should be integrated. In a simi-
lar vein, they prefer to handle conflicts through problem solving and
compromise rather than flight or fight (Emans, Laskewitz, and Van de
207
208 E. van de Vliert and S. Lindenberg
Vliert, 1994; Rognes, 1994). Van de Vliert et al. (1999) found that fem-
inine cultures flourish more in climatic environments that are cold
(e.g., Scandinavia) or hot (e.g., East and West Africa), and that there is
a strong positive relationship between climate and affluence (Hofstede,
2001). This, of course, does not explain why wealth sometimes has a
positive and sometimes a negative impact on solidarity, but it led us to
develop a mechanism that might help us solve the problem.
Framing, Climatic Demands, and Wealth Effects
The basic idea of our theory is a combination of framing-based

solidarity theory and a climatic demand theory. Together, they are able
to explain important effects of private and public wealth on solidarity.
The solidarity theory (Lindenberg, 1998 and this volume) states that
when people are strongly interdependent in a small face-to-face group
they develop strong solidarity within the group and opportunistic
behavior between groups. Their normative frame and their gain frame
are antagonistic. Behavior toward the out-groups is governed by an
unadulterated gain frame (with opportunistic behavior), whereas
behavior toward the in-group is governed by a normative frame.
Researchers investigating solidary behavior in a society with many
such groups and found helping in situations of daily living (in the
small circle) and little solidarity across groups. When the interde-
pendence in the small group is weakened and replaced by functional
interdependence among individuals from different groups, then strong
solidarity gives way to weak solidarity, which extends across groups.
The important feature of weak solidarity is that the gain frame and the
normative frame are not antagonistic. Gain-seeking behavior toward
strangers is tempered by normative concerns, and the latter are tem-
pered by opportunities for gain. Researchers investigating a society
with weak solidarity would find much less sacrifice for others in situ-
ations of daily living but more emphasis on egalitarianism, tolerance,
and respect for strangers.
The climatic demand theory focuses on the homeostatic needs of
individuals and the influence of climate on the amount of resources
needed to meet homeostatic demands. Extreme climates create a
demand for resources for dealing with extreme temperatures (hot or
cold). People in poor countries with extreme climates use most of their
resources to deal with homeostatic problems. This has consequences
for solidarity (solidarity in the in-group and gain orientation toward
the out-group, making solidarity and pursuit of gain clearly antagonis-
tic). In terms of framing theory, people in rich countries with extreme
climates have resources to spare and develop weak solidarity across
groups, with normative and gain frames being compatible and in
13: Wealth, Climate, and Framing 209
balance. In the remainder of this section, we will elaborate our inte-

gration of climatic demand theory and framing theory; we will then
present some empirical evidence.
Climate and Resources
Like all warm-blooded species, humans regulate their body tem-

perature within narrow limits. They must obtain and metabolize much
food to maintain thermoregulation and health. The day-to-day topical-
ity of these basic physiological needs is apparent from the frequency
with which people worry and communicate about thermal discomfort,
hunger or thirst, and related purchases. The climate-contingent needs
for thermal comfort, nutrition, and health require that humans contin-
uously use, adjust, and organize a variety of elements from their envi-
ronment, especially in less temperatecolder or hotterclimates.
Here, climatic demands refer to behavioral necessities for directly or
indirectly coping with climatic cold or heat, while climatic resources
refer to physical, technical, or sociopsychological means in the envi-
ronment to cope with climatic cold or heat.
Climatic Demands
Climate-contingent needs for physiological comfort are linked with

corresponding behavioral necessities. For fully acclimatized people, the
most comfortable outdoor temperature ranges from 17.8C (64F) to 22.2C
(72F) in Britain (Ambler, 1968), and from 26C (78.8F) to 28C (82.4F)
in the tropical climates of Nigeria, Calcutta, Singapore, New Guinea, and
North Australia (Fanger, 1972). Note that acclimatization has only a mar-
ginal effect on the variation of comfortable temperatures around the mean
of 22.5C (72.5F). The above-mentioned figures, therefore, allow the
corollary that, on a worldwide scale, environments colder than 20C
(68F) produce more heat loss, constriction of blood vessels, and shiver-
ing. Environments hotter than 27C (80.6F) produce more heat storage,
dilation of cutaneous vessels, and sweating. As a result, notwithstanding
the acclimatization effect, more extreme ambient temperatures evoke
more intense feelings of physiological and psychological discomfort,
greater relocation risks, and a stronger need for behavioral interventions
(Parsons, 1993). Examples of adaptive behaviors that individual members
of a society learn to deem necessary, to believe in, and to strive for are
changing activities, putting on or taking off clothing, changing location,
using heating or cooling methods, changing jobs or working hours, or
buying protective or compensatory devices (e.g., a sauna bath or swim-
ming pool). At the societal level, all such individual-level behavioral
interventions produce collective demands for different clothing, housing,

and working arrangements, and health provisions (for example, against
frost bite, pneumonia, asthma, rheumatism, gout, and influenza in cold
climates, and malaria, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, trypanosomiasis,
ochocerciasis, Chagas disease, and filariasis, among others, in hot cli-
mates; see Sachs, 2000, p. 32).
To balance the high energy costs of keeping warm, cold climates
require a higher caloric intake. To compensate for sweating, hotter cli-
mates increase the need for water and salt. At the same time, these
climates make it more difficult to meet these demands. Food production
is lower in cold climates because of reduced solar radiation and frost
and snow, even if fish or other forms of wildlife can provide abundant
food supplies. In the warmest climates, food is often limited owing to
droughts, soil erosion, and rapid food spoilage. After the initial African
genesis, human populations achieved flourishing expansion and evolu-
tion once they settled in the temperate zones of the earth.
Climatic Resources
Societies in more extreme climates, which have to resolve continu-

ously the basic problems of thermal and nutritional discomfort and cli-
mate-related illnesses, use available financial means to solve these basic
problems as satisfactorily as possible. Although physiological comfort
can be achieved through behavioral interventions in and of themselves
(e.g., more or less activity in case of cold or heat), comfort is often
achieved using resources to cope with cold or heat. Some
self-supporting societies, especially in the polar and desert regions, have
not yet developed a full-fledged system of shops and markets for trading
homeostatic goods and still use their creativity to develop housing,
clothing, and equipment that effectively protect them. As a rule, how-
ever, climatic resources are for sale and have a price; that is, they share
financial means as an underlying dimension. Money can buy a wide
variety of immovables, conveniences, appliances, recreational facilities,
services, practices, and consumables that overcome or mitigate the hard-
ships of climatic cold or heat. Diener, Diener, and Diener (1995) even
related national wealth to the fulfillment of basic physiological needs
(r = .76, n = 55, p < .001 for the link between wealth and a composite
index of need fulfillment). Accordingly, most income is used to enhance
fulfillment of the basic physiological needs (housing, clothing, food, and
household energy), even if goods and services consumed in the pursuit
of income to purchase such homeostatic goods are left out of considera-
tion (e.g., certain fractions of health care, education, and transportation)
(Parker, 2000). For a populace living in a less temperatecolder or hot-
terclimate, income might thus have higher utility and more beneficial
consequences (for the interactive effects of the possession and evaluation

of money see Diener and Oishi [2000]). The findings of a study reported
by Van de Vliert, Huang, and Parker (2004) show that this could well be
the case. Economic development professionals from each continent who
had all traveled extensively in low-income and high-income countries
were asked the following question: Assume that the average income of
a German today is indexed at 100. Based on your knowledge, how much
would the average person from your country of origin need to earn to be
equally happy to the average German? Please base your answer on the
index of 100 (e.g., if your country of origin is Germany, your answer must
be 100; if the average person would be as happy as the average German
by earning less, the answer must be between 0 and 100). The aggregated
ratings demonstrated that a countrys residents do indeed need more
income to reach the same crude standard of happiness to the extent that
the climate they live in deviates from the comfortable average tempera-
ture of 22.5C (72.5F; r = .65, n = 34 countries, p < .001).
In high-income countries, up to 50% of personal income is spent on
all conceivable kinds of homeostatic goods. This figure goes up to 90%
in low-income countries (Parker, 2000), and in cases of grinding poverty
many needs for homeostatic goods cannot be met at all by a majority of
the population. In addition, poverty fails to protect people from extreme
weather disasters (Triandis, 2000). All in all, it is no wonder that a sec-
ondary analysis of 11 datasets by Inkeles (1997) yielded a strongly pos-
itive median correlation (r = .55) between the level of national wealth
and the aggregated degree of ability to cope, manage, and master.
Financial resources are a means of control in general and a means of
thermal and nutritional control in particular. In short, no better proxy of
the country-level availability of climatic resources and control of phys-
iological comfort exists than national wealth.
Framing
If a country is poor (i.e., many people are poor and the country lacks
important facilities that help people deal with extreme temperatures) and
if the climate is extreme, a large part of private resources is absorbed in
peoples basic homeostatic regulation. This is likely to have important
consequences for framing. In all likelihood, it will create strongly con-
trasting master frames (Lindenberg, this volume). Because climatic
resources are scarce, expectations that people will help each other to meet
the homeostatic demands and the demands of daily living are likely to be
strong where they are likely to be most relevant: in the small group or in
small aspects of daily living across groups. In these situations, the goal to
act appropriately is likely to be strongly supported by tradition, public
opinion, and personal standards, leading to a salient normative frame and
clear expectations in the mental model for relationships to which the

norms apply (cf. Lindenberg, this volume). By contrast, because resources
are scarce, situations to which these norms do not apply are likely to be
seen as legitimately open to opportunistic behavior (with a gain frame).
For example, stealing from a person who one is not obliged to help may
be illegal, but is likely not to be considered immoral. In short, the frames
are clearly separated by situation. A person is motivated either norma-
tively or by self-interest. Solidary behavior and gain-oriented behavior are
seen as opposites. Weber (1961, p. 261) already observed that, historically,
where in-groups were strongly normatively regulated, the behavior
toward out-groups was virtually unregulated ethically.
If the climate is extreme but the country is rich (i.e., many people
are rich and the country has important facilities that help people deal
with extreme temperatures), the homeostatic demands can be met with
resources to spare. Again, this is likely to have important consequences
for framing. As there are resources to spare, there will be less empha-
sis on helping in the small circle and in daily living. Interdependence
within the small group is likely to have given way to system inter-
dependence among individuals of different groups, through the very
processes that helped to create the wealth in the first place (special-
ization, contractual relations embedded in rational-legal regulations,
infrastructure and welfare provisions by the state, and so forth). The
solidarity norms of former times (of helping in the small circle and in
daily living) will have changed into the norms of a weak form of soli-
darity across groups and into norms that are not in opposition to gain
but can function as regulatory devices for achieving gain across groups
(such as egalitarianism, tolerance, respect for strangers).1 In such
weak solidarity, the normative and the gain frames keep each other
in check in the sense that neither is likely to dominate a situation
among strangers or acquaintances. This leads to the paradoxical situa-
tion that people in poor countries with extreme climates are likely to
put more emphasis on help in the small circle and in daily living, but
are at the same time less likely to have general altruistic values and
behavior across groups than people in comparable rich countries.
People in countries with temperate climates are unlikely to have
experienced scarcity of homeostatic resources and are thus less likely
1
Of course, situations in which solidarity norms and rules regulating gain are
compatible rather than antagonistic develop gradually. In all likelihood, this
requires important institutional changes (see Weber, 1961, p. 261ff). In other
words, the implicit assumption in solidarity theory is that the wealth of a coun-
try is based on changes in its infrastructure and institutions. Thus, the theory
should be less applicable to countries whose wealth is based mainly on natu-
ral resources (such as oil) without much change in the conditions that reduce
the need for strong solidarity and increase the need for weak solidarity.
to have developed in-groups with strong solidarity norms. For this rea-
son, they are also less likely to have developed traditions of extreme
opportunism toward out-groups. Normative and gain frames have not
been strongly separated by the scarcity of resources, nor have they
come to support each other. These two frames, are, therefore, neither
extremely salient nor strongly interdependent. Situations may or may
not cause altruistic motivations to be combined with gain motivation,
depending on peoples personal circumstances rather than on general
conditions of the country as a whole.
Some Empirical Evidence
Climatic Conditions and Cultural Femininity
As mentioned earlier, studies of cultural femininity provide inter-

esting findings on the relationship between climatic conditions and sol-
idarity. For our theory, the most important findings have to do with the
correlation of a culture of femininity (akin to weak solidarity) with cli-
matic conditions. In his by now classic large-scale study of 53 national
and regional cultures, Hofstede (1998, 2001) has demonstrated that sol-
idary attitudes and behavior are more prevalent in societies that value
gender equality and quality of life rather than caring women versus car-
ing men. Cultural femininity and the concomitant norms of weak soli-
darity frames flourish in Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland,
Denmark, and the Netherlands) but founder in Japan, in Germanic
countries (Germany, Switzerland, and Austria), and in some Latin
European and Latin American countries (Italy, Mexico, and Venezuela).
More feminine cultures are associated with more sympathy for the
weak, empathy regardless of group membership, and readiness to help
the needy and integrate immigrants. Conflicts tend to be resolved
through problem solving and compromise rather than open aggression
or avoidance (Emans et al., 1994; Rognes, 1994). With regard to work,
members of more feminine cultures participate more in voluntary asso-
ciations and activities, and attach more importance to cooperative rela-
tions and solidarity with managers and fellow workers in paid work.
A follow-up study (Van de Vliert et al., 1999) showed that cultural
femininity and weak solidarity thrive in more difficult climatic environ-
ments that are closer to the icecaps, on the one hand (e.g., Scandinavia),
and closer to the equator, on the other hand (e.g., East and West Africa).
This U-shaped climate-femininity relationship is a robust finding that
survives when population size and density and the countrys standing in
civil liberties and political rights are controlled. In addition, although
cultural femininity is not related to geographical latitude in all coun-
tries, it is strongly positively linked to latitude in wealthier countries
(Hofstede, 2001). Taken together, and given that wealthier countries tend
to be located in colder climates, this suggests that the curvilinear link
between climate and cultural femininity is steeper on the cold side than
on the hot side of the U-shaped curve. But the U shape itself is evidence
in support of the assumption that weak solidarity thrives when the cli-
mate is more demanding and the country is rich.
Altruistic (Weak Solidarity) Values
Inspired by Levine et al.s (2001) prior study, Van de Vliert et al.

(2004) constructed a 71-nation index of altruistic values on the basis of
available indicators of egalitarian commitment to promoting the wel-
fare of others (Schwartz, 1992, 1994), importance of tolerance and
respect for other people (Inglehart, Basaez, and Moreno, 1998), and
competitiveness (Lynn, 1991; reversed coding). Each of the three indi-
cators of altruistic values was statistically controlled for collateral com-
ponents of self-interest before it was integrated into the overall index
of selfless concern for others interests. This index can be considered
to tap norms of weak solidarity.
Based on this index, altruism was highest in Sweden, Argentina,
Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and lowest in Thailand, Egypt,
Jordan, and Indonesia. However, this apparent wealthaltruism link
differed across climatic zones (see Figure 13.1). In colder climates, peo-
ple in rich countries were more altruistic and people in poor countries
were less altruistic than were people in countries with temperate
2
Altruism
High-income
0
2 Low-income
6
4 2 0 2 4
Cold Temperate Hot
FIGURE 13.1. Altruism in countries with cold, temperate, and hot climates,
broken down for high- and low-income countries
climates. Similarly, in hotter climates the tendency for people in rich

countries to be more altruistic and for people in poor countries to be
less altruistic approximated significance. Controlling for latitude as a
proxy of variations in sunlight and day-night cycles and for the coun-
trys surface area, population size, and population density had no
noticeable influence. In line with our theory, the research team argued
that affluence drives both subjective well-being and altruism. General
concern for others can be found especially in rich countries where
individual and public means can be used to meet the multiple
demands of a cold or hot climate and to pay for a general concern for
the welfare of others (egalitarianism, tolerance, respect).
Spontaneous Helping (Strong Solidarity)
Our theory predicts that weak solidarity is higher in rich coun-

tries, especially when the climate is demanding. We have shown above
that there is evidence for this claim. However, the theory also states
that people in poor countries with demanding climatic conditions
place more emphasis on helping in the small group and in daily living
than do people in rich countries in such climatic conditions. There is
also some evidence pointing in this direction. Levine et al. (2001) con-
ducted a series of field experiments on helping in the small aspects
of daily living. The field experiments were carried out in large cities in
23 countries in North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe,
Africa, and Asia. In each city, the researchers measured spontaneous
helping behaviors by pedestrians in three nonemergency situations:
helping by assisting a blind person across the street, offering help to a
pedestrian with an injured leg trying to pick up a pile of dropped mag-
azines, and alerting a pedestrian who dropped a pen.
Overall, helping was most frequent in Brazil, Costa Rica, Malawi,
and India, and least in the Netherlands, Singapore, the United States,
and Malaysia. Note that the Netherlands came out as the least helpful
in the small aspects of daily living, whereas it was one of the highest-
scoring countries with regard to values of weak solidarity. These cross-
national differences in helping could not be explained by means of the
general pace of life, but were inversely related to a countrys economic
productivity and positively associated with norms that emphasize con-
cern for social obligations. Levine et al. (2001) argued that prosperous
countries may require their citizens to pursue personal needs and to
ignore, in general, norms that traditionally prescribed helpfulness
toward fellow members of society. Our theory gives a very different
interpretation to these findings: especially in demanding climates,
prosperous countries encourage weak solidarity (with a low level of
personal sacrifice but a wide reach across groups), whereas poor
countries encourage strong solidarity (with a high level of personal

sacrifice in the small circle and daily living but with competitiveness
or open opportunism across groups).
A secondary analysis of these data (Van de Vliert, Huang, and
Levine, 2004) revealed that Levine et al. (2001) in fact investigated
inhabitants of two distinct groups of countries: a group of high-income
countries with predominantly cold climates, and a group of low-
income countries with predominantly hot climates. In the group of
poor countries with hot climates, a warmer climate tends to be associ-
ated with more helping behavior (rs = .46, n = 12, p < .07). Thus, for
poor countries it was found that, as our theory predicts, the more
demanding the climate, the more helping in daily life. As expected, the
level of helping in the rich/cold group was lower than in the poor/hot
group. Here, too, the higher the net climatic demand (i.e., the colder
the country in this group), the more likely that people would help in
small aspects of daily living (rs = .59, n = 11, p < .05).
Altruistic Motives for Doing Voluntary Work
As elaborated above, our theory states that in the case of strong sol-
idarity, normative and gain frames are strictly separated by people and
situation. A person is either a friend or group mate to another and does
not think of gain in interacting with him or her, or the person is not a
friend or group mate to the other person and can unabashedly try to
gain as much as possible from the interaction. In short, solidary behav-
ior and gain-oriented behavior are seen as opposites. In weak solidar-
ity, normative and gain frames are compatible. The two frames keep
each other from becoming extreme and thus a normative frame func-
tions as a regulatory device in the service of gain. Again, there is some
evidence that this is the case. Studies in voluntary work cover only a
small part of solidary behavior, but they happen to involve the testing
of the compatibility or incompatibility of solidarity and the pursuit of
gain and can thus be used as evidence for or against our theory.
Working in some way to help others without monetary recom-
pense is a significant social phenomenon with hundreds of millions of
participants worldwide (cf. Karr and Meijs, this volume). The most
common voluntary activities involve assisting the elderly or handi-
capped, acting as an aide or assistant to a paid employee, babysitting,
fundraising, and serving on committees (Clary and Snyder, 1991,
p. 128). Curtis, Grabb, and Baer (1992) reported cross-national differ-
ences in working for a variety of voluntary associations, and the World
Values Survey (e.g., Inglehart et al., 1998) has mapped cross-national
differences in the importance of a number of self-serving and altruistic
reasons for doing voluntary work.
The many national reasons for volunteering recorded reveal that

a country can be low in self-serving motives and high in altruistic
motives (e.g., China), high in self-serving motives and low in altruis-
tic motives (e.g., West Germany), or low in both (e.g., Denmark and
Italy), but that a majority of countries tend to be high in both (e.g.,
Brazil, Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Nigeria). It should be noted that this
country-level observation cannot tell us whether the inhabitants nor-
mative and gain frames are compatible or not, let alone whether the
negative or positive individual-level interdependence between self-
serving and altruistic motivations is dependent on characteristics of
the national context such as climate and wealth. A further study was
designed to focus on these issues (Van de Vliert, Huang, and Levine,
2004).
This study included 33 countries whose residents reasons for
doing unpaid voluntary work had been assessed using the 19901993
World Values Survey (n = 13,584 respondents; World Values Study
Group, 1994; Inglehart et al., 1998). The study dealt solely with people
who did voluntary work and the question was why do they do it? If our
theory was correct, then under demanding climatic conditions (hot or
cold) in rich countries, voluntary workers would show compatible nor-
mative and gain frames; that is, they would show a positive correlation
between altruistic and self-serving motivations (weak solidarity).
In temperate climates, these motivations would be moderate and unre-
lated, irrespective of the wealth of the country. Under demanding
climatic conditions in poor countries, the expectations were that
voluntary workers would be driven solely by a normative frame,
that is, they would be motivated solely by altruistic motives (strong
solidarity), and that self-serving motivations would not support their
altruistic motives, or would even detract from them.
The findings were as follows. A gain frame was indicated by self-
serving motivations, which were represented by Time on my hands,
wanted something worthwhile to do; Purely for personal satisfaction;
For social reasons, to meet people; To gain new skills and useful
experience. A normative frame was indicated by altruistic motivations,
which were represented by A sense of solidarity with the poor and dis-
advantaged; Compassion for those in need; Identifying with people
who were suffering; Religious beliefs; To help give disadvantaged
people hope and dignity. A stepwise multilevel analysis was conducted
to predict the compatibility or incompatibility of the frames. In step 1,
country-level individualism-collectivism was controlled for because this
cultural dimension is positively associated with both colder climates
and national wealth, and because the collectivism pole of the dimension
is an indicator of solidarity with members of in-groups rather than mem-
bers of society at large (Hofstede, 2001). In steps 2 and 3, the individual-
level motivation to serve ones own interests was entered (the degree of
self-serving motivation in step 2, and the cross-national variation in the

relationship between self-serving motivation and altruistic motivation in
step 3). In step 4 average climatic temperature, temperature-squared, and
gross national income per capita were entered. The two-way interactions
followed in step 5, and the three-way interactions in step 6.
The analysis revealed that cultural individualism-collectivism at
the country level does not play a part (step 1), that self-serving moti-
vation at the individual level is positively related to altruistic motiva-
tion (step 2), and that the link between self-serving motivation and
altruistic motivation varies considerably from one nation to another
(step 3). The most important finding, in step 6, showed that while a
voluntary workers self-serving and altruistic motivations are unrelated
in low-income and high-income countries with temperate climates,
they tend to be positively linked in high-income countries with cold or
hot climates (see Figure 13.2). Moreover, while a voluntary workers
altruistic motivations tend to be moderate and equally high in low-
income and high-income countries with temperate climates, they tend
to be higher in poor countries with cold or hot climates than in rich
countries with cold or hot climates. In addition, in poor countries with
demanding climates, voluntary workers seem to be motivated solely by
altruistic motives.
Four general conclusions may be drawn that relate to solidarity
frames and solidary behaviors. First, volunteers worldwide are driven
by a complex fabric of self-serving and altruistic reasons for doing
unpaid work. This conclusion emphasizes the generalizability of the
complexity of motivations for doing voluntary work from North
America (for overviews, see Clary and Snyder, 1991; Clary et al., 1998;
Schroeder, Penner, Dovidio, and Piliavin, 1995) and Germany
(Bierhoff, 2001) to other continents and countries. The classic debate
of egoistic helping versus altruistic solidarity appears to be oversim-
plified. Second, a voluntary workers self-serving and altruistic moti-
vations tend to be especially positively linked in high-income regions
with cold or hot climates (e.g., Scandinavia), and tend to be unrelated
in high- and low-income regions with temperate climates (e.g.,
Southern Europe and the southern part of South America) and in low-
income regions with cold climates (e.g., the Baltic States) or hot cli-
mates (e.g., West Africa around the Gulf of Guinea). Third, especially
in depressed countries where the climatic demands are maximal and
the financial resources minimal, volunteering seems to be driven
mainly by altruistic motivation. All these points support expectations
generated from our theory. While this is not a conclusive test of our
theory, it lends considerable support to our view of the way wealth, cli-
mate, and framing interact in bringing forth different kinds of solidary
behavior.
Cold Climate Temperate Climate Hot Climate
4.5 4.5 4.5
3.5 3.5 3.5
2.5 2.5 2.5
1.5 1.5 1.5
0.5 0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5 0.5
1.5 1.5 1.5
2.5 2.5
Altruistic Motivation
2.5
3.5 3.5 3.5
4.5
219
4.5 4.5
1.5 0.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 1.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 1.5
Self-Serving Motivation Self-Serving Motivation Self-Serving Motivation
Rich Poor Rich Poor Rich Poor
FIGURE 13.2. Relationship between self-serving and altruistic motivations for doing voluntary work in countries with cold, tem-
perate, and hot climates, broken down for high-income countries (broken lines) and low-income countries (unbroken lines)
Conclusion
There are contradictory findings about the influence of wealth on

solidary behavior. Some researchers have found that people behave
more solidarily in rich countries (supposedly because they have money
to spare) than in poor countries. Other researchers have found that peo-
ple help more in situations of daily living in poor countries than in rich
countries (supposedly because prosperity makes people more selfish).
We showed that when the simultaneous effects of wealth, climatic
demands, and framing effects are considered, the puzzle of contradic-
tory findings can largely be solved. The theory we developed can be
summarized as follows.
Demanding climates create a strong need for private and public
resources to deal with the homeostatic needs of individuals. When the
country is poor, this enormous need for resources creates strong soli-
darity in the small circle and in situations of daily living but also self-
ish and opportunistic behavior across groups. In terms of framing, such
situations create incompatibility between normative and gain frames.
The people toward whom ones behavior is solidary (the small circle)
are separated from the people toward whom one may act opportunisti-
cally (people from out-groups). When such countries become rich,
there is less need for the helping hand of the small circle and more
need for normative regulation of system interdependence (i.e., of
behavior among members of society, be they friends or strangers). The
solidarity norms, formerly so prominent in the small circle, thus do not
vanish but change into norms supporting egalitarianism, tolerance, and
respect for strangers. The likely result is that solidarity becomes inter-
twined with gainful interactions with acquaintances and strangers, and
it is thus used as a regulatory means for achieving gain. In this way,
normative and gain frames become compatible and are combined in a
weak form of solidarity across groups (with values of egalitarianism,
tolerance, and respect). People in rich countries with demanding cli-
mates seem to show more solidarity in general values and state provi-
sions, whereas people in poor countries with demanding climates
seem to show a greater tendency to help in situations of daily living
with little altruism across groups. This finding goes a long way toward
solving the puzzle of contradictory findings in the literature. Countries
in temperate climates have neither the specific climate-driven source
of solidarity nor the climate-driven competition for resources. For this
reason, both solidarity and self-serving behavior are likely to be more
dependent on idiosyncratic circumstances (hence moderate on aver-
age) and unrelated. We showed in this chapter that the evidence from
studies that allows us to trace the simultaneous effects of wealth and
climate supports this theory of solidary behavior at the collective
(country) and individual levels.
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PART VI
Outlook
CHAPTER 14
How to Explain Prosocial and

Solidary Behavior: A Comparison
of Framing Theory with Related
Meta-Theoretical Paradigms
Hans-Werner Bierhoff and Detlef Fetchenhauer
The present book brings together an impressive series of studies of

prosocial behavior and solidarity. The compilation is impressive for
several reasons. On the one hand, the richness and fruitfulness of
research on prosocial behavior is illustrated again and again, touching
different fields of research (e.g., developmental psychology, social
psychology, personality, organizational psychology, institutional and
cultural processes). On the other hand, the contributions are all up-
to-date summaries of research and theory elaborating basic ideas from
the framing perspective, which is represented in this book by Siegwart
Lindenberg (Chapter 2). The studies in this book confirm the viability
of this approach as a theoretical construct and its potential to organize
a vast variety of research under a single theoretical umbrella.
In this chapter we will not attempt to summarize the content of the
foregoing chapters in detail. Instead, we will contrast the general theo-
retical framework of this book with other explanations of prosocial and
solidary behavior. In particular, we will discuss the meta-theoretical
perspectives of neoclassical economics, classical (functionalistic) soci-
ology, psychoanalysis, personality psychology, social psychology, and
theories that have been developed within evolutionary biology and
evolutionary psychology.
First, we briefly recapitulate the basic assumptions of the theoret-
ical framework used in this book (see Lindenberg, Fetchenhauer,
Flache, and Buunk, this volume). It is argued that prosocial and sol-
idary behavior is determined by the way a given actor perceives and
defines a certain situation. This definition of the situation is assumed
to be a function of the mental model of a social relationship (e.g., Is
the other person my friend, enemy, or competitor?) and the way a sit-
uation is framed by an actor. According to Lindenberg (this volume),
225
226 H.-W. Bierhoff and D. Fetchenhauer
there are three general frames that actors might use to cognitively struc-
ture a given situation: (1) a hedonic frame in which the most important
goal is to satisfy ones immediate physical desires, (2) a gain frame in
which actors aim to maximize their long-term profits irrespective of
others, and (3) a normative frame in which actors aim to do what is
morally and ethically most appropriate. This subjective definition of a
social situation by an actor is influenced by two main factors: attributes
of the person (e.g., personality, skills, learning history) and the situa-
tion (e.g., the social, institutional, and cultural contexts). One assump-
tion of this model is that the influence of both the personality of the
actor and the situation in which he or she is acting is mediated by the
subjective definition of the situation. The chapters of the present book
try to disentangle these processes with regard to the specific issues that
they address. At first glance, these basic ideas may seem uncontrover-
sial. When we discuss the relationship of this theoretical framework
with other meta-theoretical paradigms, however, it will become appar-
ent that this first impression is rather superficial, as many social sci-
entists do not subscribe to the basic assumptions of the model.
Utilitarian Explanations of Human Behavior
One idea that is in opposition to the theoretical framework of

Lindenberg et al. (this volume) is the selfishness assumption of homo
oeconomicus as it is used in neoclassical economics, normative game
theory, and various versions of rational choice theory. According to
rational choice theorists, people in general are basically selfish. As
Milgram and Roberts put it, people will be very sharp in discovering
even subtle ways in which they can advance their interests and they
will be fundamentally amoral, ignoring rules, breaking agreements,
and employing guile, manipulation, and deception if they see personal
gain in doing so (1992, p. 42). Thus, people will only cooperate with
others if such cooperation is in their own interest (Hechter, 1987).
Deterrence (i.e., the threat of negative sanctions) or material rewards
are the only ways to make people refrain from criminal and antisocial
behavior (Becker, 1968). For example, a taxpayer will only pay taxes if
he or she perceives a high risk of being detected and punished for not
doing so. In the terminology of Lindenbergs framing theory, humans
basically always act according to a gain frame.
This does not imply that people never help each other or that they
never cooperate with others. However, according to rational choice the-
ory, solidary and prosocial behavior can only be observed if such behav-
ior is in the interest of the actor. Many of the empirical findings discussed
by Sanders, Flache, Van der Vegt, and Van de Vliert (this volume) are in
line with such reasoning. For example, it is at least sometimes found that
14: Explaining Prosocial and Solidary Behavior 227
employees show more organizational citizenship behavior the longer they

expect to work at their current organization, which can be explained by
the assumption that employees rationally weigh future investments and
future gains of their current position and only show commitment to their
work and toward their colleagues if they expect that such commitment
will pay off in the future.
In the past two decades, however, a growing number of experi-
ments have been conducted that can be regarded as clearly showing
that theories that base their reasoning on the assumption that humans
always and under all conditions act totally selfishly must be rejected.
To illustrate this point, suppose you, the reader, participate in an
experiment and are given $50 by the experimenter. Your task is to
divide this money between yourself (Person A) and another subject
(Person B). However, you do not know who this other person is and
will never get to know her. The experimenter tells you that the other
person will be informed about the distribution of the money that you
are offering to her. This person then has two options: either she can
accept your offer and the money is divided exactly the way you pro-
posed, or she can reject the offer, in which case the money is given
back to the experimenter and neither of you gets anything. How much
of the money would you keep for yourself and how much would you
offer to the other person? If you were Person B in this experiment, what
amount of money would Person A have to offer you to make you accept
the offer? Now, suppose you participate in a related experiment. Again,
you have to divide $50 between yourself and another person. In this
case, however, the other person does not have the opportunity to reject
your proposal. She is just given what you offer to her. How much
would you be willing to give to Person B in such a situation?
The two situations described above are called ultimatum games
and dictator games, respectively. The results of empirical studies
show that, in ultimatum and dictator games, the offers of Person A are
on average approximately 4050% of the total amount of money that is
at stake (for an overview, see Camerer, 2003). In ultimatum games, on
average, only offers that are above 25% of the whole amount of money
are accepted by Person B (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1987), indi-
cating that people are willing to sacrifice considerable monetary
amounts to punish someone who has been too greedy and that they do
so even if it will be of any help for them in the future (Gth and Tietz,
1990, p. 447). These results are remarkably independent of the amount
of money that is to be distributed. In an ultimatum game experiment
conducted in Indonesia, only 3 of 37 subjects made offers below 20%
though the subjects had to distribute an amount of money that equaled
an average salary of 3 months (Cameron, 1999).
These and many other studies show that humans are willing to
sacrifice their own resources for the sake of fairness and justice, even
under conditions of unrepeated interactions and total anonymity, if

such a behavior is costly, and if they have no material interest in doing
so. To translate these results into the terminology of the framing theory
by Lindenberg, humans obviously do not always act according to a gain
frame, but at least some people under some conditions seem to apply
a normative frame when deciding whether or not to act fairly.
Functionalistic Sociology
Classical functionalistic theorists within sociology would argue

differently from economists and rational choice theorists when
explaining prosocial and solidary behavior. The basic assumption of
theorists like Parsons (1964) or Durkheim (1902/1997) is that people
follow certain social norms (including norms of fairness and solidarity)
because they are educated (i.e., socialized) to do so (cf. Bierhoff, 2005).
Throughout the process of socialization, people learn that certain nor-
mative expectations exist within a given society and culture. If an actor
does not follow these normative expectations, he or she has to face cer-
tain sanctions and moral condemnation by other members of the soci-
ety. For example, in a society that is highly influenced by the Catholic
Church, it might be forbidden to use contraceptives (like condoms) or
to have premarital sex. Disobeying this rule will lead to punishment
(e.g., loss of status, exclusion) and to signals of moral outrage. It is
important to note that society as a whole exerts power over the behav-
ior of its members not predominantly via external sanctions, but by
making people internalize such social norms. Thus, people follow
social norms not only because they fear they will be punished other-
wise, but also because they would feel guilty if they did not (social
psychologists would distinguish these two mechanisms as compliance
and commitment).
This sketch of functionalistic sociology is surely a caricature rather
than a fair description, but it shows that within this meta-theoretical
paradigm actors are expected usually to act according to a normative
frame in most situations. To put it differently, whereas rational choice
theorists tend to neglect and ignore the importance of normative
frames, theorists like Parsons (1964) tend to neglect and ignore the
importance of gain frames for the explanation of human behavior.
This school of thought has consequently been criticized in recent
decades because it cannot explain why people follow social norms if it
is not in their interest to do so and why people should be willing to
bear costs if they have to enforce social norms on others (e.g., Opp,
1989). To some degree, Lindenbergs framing theory can be regarded as
an integration of classical economic and classical sociological reason-
ing. On the one hand, people act very much in accordance with what
would be predicted by rational choice theorists if they are in a gain

frame. On the other hand, people try to follow societal demands for
fairness and ethicality if they are in a normative frame.
Personal and social context variables affect the framing process.
However, Lindenberg focuses more on the explication of the framing
process than on the different ways in which personal and social context
variables affect framing. This is exactly where the contribution of the
other chapters of the book lies. They flesh out in various ways that fram-
ing processes are being influenced by personality and social, cultural,
and organizational factors. For example, Karr and Meijs (this volume)
show how important management style in volunteer organizations is for
the core motivations for volunteering in the organization. In Chapter 10
they focus on organized volunteerism, which they define as freely cho-
sen, sustained behavior that is of benefit to others, that requires some
sacrifice of resources, and that takes place within the context of an organ-
ization. Current theories of volunteerism explain the sustainability
of volunteer work either by prosocial norms or by the fulfillment of ego-
istic motives, or by both. Karr and Meijs (this volume) assume that the
maintenance of volunteer work is based on the organizations approach to
volunteers, which influences their motivational processes. They make
use of a distinction between enjoyment based and obligation based
intrinsic motivation, which is derived from framing theory. Whereas the
former resembles Deci and Ryans (1985) concept of intrinsic motivation,
the latter is based on social norms of social responsibility. Both are
contrasted with external incentives (such as career transfer). Two man-
agement styles of volunteer organizations are contrasted: membership
management and program management. Membership management,
which is intended to involve members in as many areas as possible, is
likely to build on volunteers goals. In contrast, program management is
aimed at the recruitment of volunteers for the fulfillment of specified
tasks where each task is a self-contained unit. Membership management
encourages involvement in the organization on the basis of obligation-
based intrinsic motivation. In contrast, program management is likely to
elicit extrinsic motivation and, in addition, is usually built on appeals of
social obligation.
Functionalistic sociology has often been used to explain cross-
cultural differences between different countries. In the present book,
two chapters deal explicitly with cross-cultural differences in prosocial
and solidary behavior. Fetchenhauer and Wittek (this volume) argue
that people in a given society tend to be more honest and exhibit more
fair-share behavior the less they have been educated to do so in an
authoritarian manner. Interestingly, the cross-national differences
that these authors found were not related to the importance of honesty
in a given society, but rather to the way its members are educated to be
honest and fair.
Van de Vliert and Lindenberg (this volume) also deal with cross-
country differences in prosocial and solidary behavior. They show that
such differences can be explained by the interaction of thermo-climatic
conditions and the wealth of different countries. Following theoretical
assumptions that may be derived from functionalistic sociology, the
authors argue that in rich countries the level of solidarity corresponds
to the harshness of climatic conditions. To put it differently, the more
a society is in need of prosocial behavior from its inhabitants, the more
such behavior occurs. However, the results for poor countries contra-
dict such a functionalistic explanation of cross-national differences in
solidarity. In these countries, the level of solidarity seems to be lower
the more adverse the climatic conditions are. It seems that, in these
countries, people simply cannot afford to act solidarily because they
need their resources for their own well-being and survival.
Psychoanalysis
None of the contributors to the present book refers explicitly to

Freuds psychoanalysis. Lindenbergs framing theory, however, shows
quite some correspondence with the topological model of the psyche
proposed by Freud (1933). According to Freud, the mind is divided into
three mental provinces: (1) the Id, which is conceived of as the dark
part of our personality basically oriented toward positive sensations
and hedonic pleasure, (2) the Superego, which represents the moral
expectations which were expressed by parents in particular and soci-
ety in general, and (3) the Ego, which can be regarded as a reality-
oriented instance negotiating and integrating the desires of the Id with
the demands of the Superego. It is remarkable that Lindenbergs three
master frames correspond well with the three psychic instances in
Freuds (1933) topological model. Instead of saying that a person is in a
hedonic frame, one might also say that he or she follows the dictate of
the pleasure principle, which regulates the drives of the Id. In addition,
the normative frame and the Superego correspond very well to each
other because both imply that the individual is urged to keep to norma-
tive and moral prescriptions internalized into conscience. If these pre-
scriptions are violated, anxieties and guilt are elicited. In this vein,
Freud considers guilt to be an expression of the tension between Ego
and Superego.
Finally, the gain frame in Lindenbergs theory only partially corre-
sponds with the concept of the Ego proposed by Freud (1933).
According to Lindenberg (this volume), humans acting within a gain
frame tend to be rather immoral and selfish, whereas the Ego in Freuds
theory is regarded as an instance that serves to balance the demands of
the Id, on the one hand, and the Superego, on the other hand. But the
gain frame resembles the Ego in Freuds topological model because

both concepts represent the individuals orientation toward reality
constraints. In summary, the structural correspondence between
Freuds topological model and Lindenbergs framing theory is quite
evident.
The common ground of these two theories may be illustrated by
the analysis of criminal behavior. Criminals not only harm other peo-
ple and society as a whole by their unsolidary and antisocial behavior,
but they may also harm themselves by giving in to their immediate
desires because of their overemphasis on the pleasure principle. Thus,
a normative frame that fosters solidary and prosocial behavior is
endangered not only by people calculating their own rational self-
interest but also by people who are not able to do what would be the
best for themselves and for others (see Veenstra, this volume).
Personality Psychology
Prosocial and solidary behavior has long been investigated by per-

sonality psychologists. A vast body of evidence shows the importance
of personality dispositions for the explanation of prosocial behavior
(cf. Bierhoff and Rohmann, 2004; Graziano and Eisenberg, 1997). The
prosocial personality, which includes compassion, perspective taking,
and social responsibility, predicts the level of prosocial behavior in
experimental and field studies. The Big Five personality model
(McCrae and Costa, 1999) offers a framework for locating the prosocial
personality. As Van der Zee and Perugini (this volume) point out, such
a frame is based on high agreeableness as the most important trait of
the Big Five personality structure, with its emphasis on sympathy,
warmth, and sincerity. In addition, many other personality disposi-
tions have been shown to influence peoples level of solidary behavior
(see Van der Zee and Perugini, this volume).
Personality is, thus, an influential determinant of prosocial behav-
ior. This fact was more or less ignored by social psychologists in the
1960s and 1970s, when research on prosocial behavior flourished for
the first time (cf., Darley and Latan, 1970). In retrospect, such a fail-
ure to acknowledge dispositional factors as determinants of prosocial
behavior seems puzzling. Early researchers were possibly so impressed
by the success of their attempts to show that prosocial behavior is
under situational control that they completely missed the role played
by personality. This weakness in theorizing is overcome in
Lindenbergs framing theory, which takes into account the combined
influence of situational and personality factors, because both are said
to exert an influence on the activation of specific frames. For example,
altruistic people are likely to frame their interactions in terms of a
normative frame emphasizing trust and the welfare of others (Van der
Zee and Perugini, this volume).
Although the importance of a prosocial personality for prosocial
behavior has been empirically confirmed, we feel that personality the-
ory does not offer an integrated theoretical framework to explain why
this is the case. If it pays to be prosocial, why doesnt everybody act
accordingly? If it pays to be antisocial, the corresponding question
emerges. Some personality psychologists have pointed to potential
genetic determinants of peoples prosociality, but such analyses do not
answer the question why so much individual variance with regard to
this personality dimension occurs.
One potential answer to this question focuses on the possibility
that certain personality dispositions are adaptive in some circum-
stances but not in others. The contribution by Veenstra (this volume)
can be regarded as a step in the direction of analyzing such an inter-
play between personality and environment. Veenstra deals especially
with the structure of prosocial and antisocial personality dispositions
andbased on a review of the existing literatureconcludes that these
dimensions cannot be regarded as different sides of the same coin.
Rather, he asserts that some people score either high or low on both
dimensions. Furthermore, he shows that children and juveniles may
develop prosocial and antisocial personality dispositions partly in
response to the opportunity structure in their neighborhoods.
Social Psychology
Much research in social psychology on prosocial and solidary

behavior had the goal of identifying the situational determinants of
helping others who are in need. In many experiments, people were
given the opportunity to help others (mostly strangers), and it was
observed how such prosocial behavior was influenced by social deter-
minants that were experimentally varied. Based on this research, social
psychologists identify a large number of determinants that have been
identified as influencing the willingness to help others: the compe-
tence and the mood of a potential helper, the number of onlookers, sim-
ilarity between helper and person in need of help, the attractiveness of
the recipient of help, and so forth (for an overview of related research,
see Bierhoff, 2002).
Besides this fund of knowledge about the determinants of helping
behavior, however, a general social psychological theory of prosocial
(and antisocial) behavior does not exist. Thus, whereas social psychol-
ogists might argue that sociologists or rational choice theorists
assumptions about human behavior are artificial and unrealistic, soci-
ologists might argue that social psychology does not have a general
theory that is able to predict human behavior in a given situation (as

opposed to only explaining it after the fact). One could say that sociol-
ogists know much about woods, but not so much about the different
trees, whereas social psychologists know many details about different
trees, but not so much about woods.
Nevertheless, we think that social psychology as a discipline has
much to offer with regard to the explanation of human prosocial and
antisocial behavior in general and with regard to the framing theory
used in this book in particular. Lindenberg argues that an actors behav-
ior is influenced by the way a situation is subjectively perceived and
that this subjective definition is influenced by specific situational cues.
Thus, the theory stresses the importance of situational variables very
much in correspondence with social psychological reasoning. For
example, the subtitle of a recent textbook on social cognition is How
Individuals Construct Social Reality (Bless, Fiedler, and Strack, 2004).
A specific example of how Lindenbergs framing theory might profit
from such social-psychological approaches is found in studies of the cog-
nitive structuring of moral situations. Kuczynski (1982, 1983) compared
two verbal rationales that are immediately relevant to the gain frame and
the normative frame in studies with children: self-oriented rationale and
other-oriented rationale. They were used to induce the children to resist
a temptation. In this context, the self-oriented rationale pointed to the
negative consequences of a transgression for the child, whereas the
other-oriented rationale pointed to the negative consequences of a trans-
gression for the experimenter. The other-oriented rationale was more
effective in inducing resistance to temptation than the self-oriented
rationale. It is likely that the other-oriented rationale triggered a norma-
tive frame, whereas the self-oriented rationale triggered a gain frame.
More generally, it might be assumed that the activation of a specific
frame depends on the cognitive structuring which is used. For example,
if a significant other emphasizes compassion and social responsibility as
dominant themes in the situation, it is likely that the normative frame
will take precedence over the gain frame. In contrast, if significant oth-
ers encourage a definition of the situation in terms of own advantages
and disadvantages, it is more likely that the gain frame will become dom-
inant in the situation. The results reported confirm the assumption that
the activation of a specific frameeither a normative or a gain frame
has different consequences for prosocial behavior.
Evolutionary Theory
At first glance, cooperative and prosocial behavior appears to be a

miracle from an evolutionary perspective. Because reproductive success
is bound up with maximizing ones own resources, it seems maladaptive
to give voluntarily ones own resources to other individuals. Therefore,

it could be reasoned that evolutionary history rewarded selfishness and
should have punished cooperation and altruism, thus steadily decreas-
ing altruistic tendencies in the human (and other) species (Fetchenhauer
and Bierhoff, 2004; Sober and Wilson, 1998). Below, we will discuss
different theories that have been used by evolutionary biologists and
evolutionary psychologists to explain why prosocial behavior is not nec-
essarily maladaptive under all circumstances and we will show how
these different theories are related to Lindenbergs framing theory, on the
one hand, and to a number of different chapters of the present book, on
the other hand.
Kin Altruism
As Hamilton (1964) has shown in his theory of kin-selection, it

can be adaptive for an organism to share his or her own resources with
another individual if this individual is genetically related to the donor
because such behavior might help to spread ones genes more than
would pure selfishness. This theory of inclusive fitness explains the
behavior of species in which some individuals do not have the chance
to reproduce themselves (e.g., ants and bees). Hamiltons argument
implies that people should invest more resources in their children
(sharing 50% of their genes) than in their nephews (sharing only 25%
of their genes) or in nonrelatives (blood is thicker than water). The
theory of kin altruism was confirmed in many studies of human and
nonhuman species (for an overview, see Gaulin and McBurney, 2001).
The concept of kin altruism seems to be consistent with
Lindenbergs notion of strong solidarity, which implies a concern for
the group rather than for oneself and not keeping track of ones inputs
and outcomes within a certain relationship.
Humans (and other species) are not able directly to identify the
genetic relatedness of other individuals to themselves and thus have to
use indicators for deriving inferences about this issue. One valid indi-
cator of genetic relatedness is the degree to which certain persons are
similar. Another good indicator is the familiarity of others (if we know
a person from his birth the chances are higher that we are genetically
related to him than if we got to know him when he was 20). Thus, from
evolutionary psychology it can be derived that we are more willing to
help a person the more this person is perceived as similar and famil-
iara prediction that is very much in line with the empirical results
concerning similarity and familiarity (Bierhoff, 2002).
The empathy-altruism hypothesis (Batson, 1991) is very popular
in social psychology; it states that people benefit another person as an
end in itself because they feel empathic concern (i.e., compassion) for
the needy person. This empathy-altruism hypothesis was confirmed in

many experiments (for overviews, see Batson, Van Lange, Ahmad, and
Lishner, 2003). As Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, and Neuberg (1997)
have shown, in correspondence with the results of earlier studies, such
empathic feelings are strongly determined by perceptions of similarity,
familiarity, and common fate with the recipient of help.
This line of reasoning may be applied to the results of those stud-
ies presented in the present book that deal with diversity in work
teams (Van der Zee, this volume; Van der Vegt and Flache, this vol-
ume). These researchers focused explicitly on group diversity as a fac-
tor that might impair solidary behavior. Van der Zee (this volume)
discusses the problems that ethnic heterogeneity poses for solidarity in
groups. According to her reasoning, what first appears as a problem
can turn out to be an opportunity to overcome intergroup hostilities.
By creating a project group, people who participate join in a common
endeavor and cooperate with each other. Sherif (1966) already pointed
out that cooperative groups tend to foster attraction and sympathy
among their members.
An important lesson from the findings of Van der Zee (this
volume) is that intergroup tensions constitute a threat to solidary
behavior in groups (e.g., project groups), but that they may be over-
come if the group activates an engine that enhances understanding
between minority and majority members. This positive potential of
project groups that bring together participants from different cultural
backgrounds for the reduction of intergroup prejudice was widely
overlooked in the past. It is at least partly based on familiarity and per-
ceived common fate, which presumably increase the level of mutual
understanding and compassion.
Whereas Van der Zee (this volume) is primarily concerned with
group diversity, which stems from the different cultural backgrounds
of the group members, Van der Vegt and Flache (this volume) point out
that group diversity may stem from several sources. For example, it
may be based on different demographic characteristics or it may be the
result of the necessity to form project groups with members who con-
tribute diverse skills and expertise. Such diversity may result in nega-
tive effects, which possibly include the stigmatization and rejection of
single group members by the majority. These effects are explained
by the increased likelihood of the occurrence of communication prob-
lems in heterogeneous groups as well as by intergroup discrimination
(cf., Tajfel and Turner, 1986).
Studies of intergroup discrimination seem to indicate that group
diversity usually leads to intergroup hostility. Research reported by
Van der Vegt and Flache (this volume) offers at least some confirma-
tion: group diversity was associated with low levels of helping in work
groups characterized by low task interdependence. However, when
task interdependence was high, diversity was positively related to

helping, with higher perceived dissimilarity being associated with
higher levels of helping among group members. Additional data indi-
cated that group diversity suppressed helping only under incongruent
combinations of task and outcome interdependence (i.e., low-high and
high-low combinations were problematic). Van der Vegt and Flache
(this volume) point out that these results correspond closely with the
framing perspective. Stable solidary frames may foster high levels of
prosocial behavior among group members if the need to help each
other is especially pressing.
Reciprocal Altruism
Many instances of human cooperative behavior cannot be

explained by the theory of kin selection because they take place
between genetically unrelated people. To explain the fact that humans
(and other species such as primates) engage in such behavior, Trivers
(1971) developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, stating that indi-
viduals will make their own level of cooperativeness toward a certain
person dependent on that persons behavior toward them in the past.
As computer simulations have shown (Axelrod, 1984), organisms are
able to maximize their own outcomes if they use the Tit-for-Tat strat-
egy. This simple game strategy implies that one reacts to the coopera-
tive behavior of others by behaving cooperatively oneself, and one
reacts to the noncooperative behavior of others by behaving uncooper-
atively oneself. Two further demands of the Tit-for-Tat strategy are also
important: (1) always start a relationship with a new interaction part-
ner by behaving cooperatively and (2) do not react to the uncooperative
behavior of others by extended retaliation but by acting uncoopera-
tively only once immediately after provocation.
For the theory of reciprocal altruism to be valid, humans need to
have the ability to identify cheaters by keeping track of their own and
others inputs and profits from an ongoing exchange relation (Buunk
and Schaufeli, 1999; Tooby and Cosmides, 1992). Furthermore, it can
be predicted that people have a strong preference for balanced rela-
tionships (i.e., relationships in which the ratio of ones own inputs and
outcomes equals that of ones interaction partners). This assumption
was confirmed in many independent studies (for an overview, see
Buunk and Schaufeli, 1999). Indeed, the norm of reciprocity is valid in
many cultures, constituting a recurring element in human societies all
over the world (Komter, 1996; Triandis, 1978).
People feel distressed when they get more than they deserve. In
addition, they feel angry and a desire for retaliation when they are
exploited by others. Gouldner (1960) attributed a relationship-stabilizing
function to the norm of reciprocity, describing it as an all-purpose

moral cement (p. 175). It induces people to remain socially indebted to
each other over time. Gouldner assumed that the norm of reciprocity so
structures social relations that, between the time of Egos provision of
gratification and the time of Alters repayment, falls the shadow of
indebtedness (p. 174).
The concept of reciprocal altruism very much corresponds with
Lindenbergs notion of weak solidarity. Actors are not primarily moti-
vated to act on behalf of others, but they are tuned to follow some rules
of fairness and equity. When applying the rule of reciprocity in everyday
life, an important problem for actors is to determine whether a certain
interaction partner is going to reciprocate their own prior concessions or
not. As Fetchenhauer and Dunning (this volume) point out, in many sit-
uations, being prosocial oneself is only reasonable if ones interaction
partner turns out to be prosocial, too. They argue that, when having to
predict the prosociality of others, people follow the I am more prosocial
than average heuristic, which takes ones own level of solidarity as an
anchor from which a value is subtracted to estimate the degree of others
solidarity. This approach is quite reasonable in a highly unstructured
social situation in which the only available evidence of what the other
player will do may be derived from observation of ones own intentions.
Flache and Macy (this volume) used the technique of computer
simulation to gain new insights into reciprocal altruism. The authors
argue in Chapter 3 that, on the basis of the win-stay (reward-approach)
lose-change (punishment-avoidance) rule, reciprocal solidarity may
become self-reinforcing in exchange relations. The effect of perceived
generosity may be incorporated into this reinforcement explanation by
assuming that it determines the reward value that is experienced after
successful cooperation. It might be especially gratifying if a reward
occurs as a result of high generosity instead of stinginess. In contrast,
the exchange behavior of a partner who is reluctant to share his or her
resources may be regarded as disappointing. Reinforcement learning
theory explains cooperation by assuming that it is mutually rewarding,
whereas framing theory offers the explanation that it is dependent on
the activation of the normative frame (instead of the gain frame, which
may be operating in the background). Both theoretical approaches
come to similar conclusions with respect to the prediction of coopera-
tion, although the presuppositions are quite different.
Flache and Macy (this volume) point out that reinforcement learning
theory or framing theory are not meant to replace evolution theory.
Instead, in Chapter 3 they are said to offer a microfoundation . . . that is
missing in evolutionary approaches. From an evolutionary point of
view, cooperation is feasible if the cost to the helper is less than the
reward for the recipient of help. A society that is able to profit from such
a maximization of the outcomes of individual efforts is in a good position,
giving its members a competitive advantage over members of societies

that do not take advantage of such a cooperative system. Beyond this gen-
eral principle, the question arises how cooperation in individual
exchange relationships is regulated. On the basis of middle-range theo-
ries like reinforcement learning theory and framing theory, it is possible
to derive more precise predictions in a specific social context.
Game-theoretical approaches have long been concerned with the
issue of betrayal. One of the first studies of the temptation to defect was
published by Komorita and Mechling (1967) using the paradigm of the
Prisoners Dilemma game. Instead of focusing on the building of trust,
they focused on how a betrayal shakes trust that has already evolved. The
results indicated that the betrayal induced more competition if the loss of
the participant was high instead of low. The negative repercussions of a
betrayal were especially strong if the temptation of the party who com-
mitted the betrayal to defect was high and if the prior history of coopera-
tion was relatively short. Although it is not possible to relate these results
directly to everyday exchanges, they are at least suggestive in indicating
that high losses after betrayal are especially devastating for the party
being betrayed and that the temptation that leads to the actions of the
other party exerts some influence on how the betrayed party responds.
Buunk and Dijkstra (this volume) consider another, more dramatic
example of betrayal: infidelity of a partner in a marital relationship.
The ultimate betrayal of an extramarital affair occurs frequently in
marital relationships, which may be conceptualized as long-lasting
prosocial relationships between marriage partners. It makes sense to
consider fidelity as prosocial behavior supporting the expectation of
solidarity of the partners. Therefore, infidelity might be understood as
a violation of specific rules that apply to marital relationships (e.g., to
be faithful). Empirical evidence shows that infidelity is a major cause
of separation and divorce.
Buunk and Dijkstra (this volume) developed an exchange perspec-
tive to account for the occurrence of extramarital affairs in marriages.
They assert that the meaning of outcomes is changed by extramarital
affairs because the uniqueness of the relationship with the marital part-
ner is threatened. As a consequence, the positive value of the rewards
produced by the partner is undermined and negative consequences are
created (e.g., the feeling of being excluded from the activities of the
partner, losing the extra status in the relationship with the partner). In
addition, extramarital relationships may elicit feelings of unfairness.
Whereas the perception of fairness fosters cooperative relationships,
perceived unfairness threatens the viability of a cooperative relation-
ship. It is important to understand that long-term relationships are
connected with the development of norms, which make the relation-
ship predictable and enhance its cohesion. Empirical findings show
that an extradyadic affair is linked with a high level of anger and
disappointment of the long-term partner (feeling betrayed, cheated,
and unjustly treated). An important factor that contributes to the resist-

ance against the temptation to defect is commitment, which is closely
linked with a normative frame and with prosocial behavior.
The findings of experimental studies of betrayal and the study of
natural couples converge in important aspects, although differences are
also apparent. The correspondence of the results of experimental studies
of betrayal and studies of the repercussions of extramarital affairs on
marriages is quite impressive. It points to the validity of studies using
experimental games. In addition, the correspondence shows that highly
emotional experiences in marital relationships may be understood on
the basis of exchange processes like those investigated in experimental
games. The results of artificial laboratory studies of cooperation, tempta-
tion to defect, and betrayal may be generalized to fidelity and infidelity
in marital relationships. In addition, the differences between game-theo-
retical studies and the study of infidelity are also remarkable. Especially
the behavior of players in experimental games seems to be driven either
by cooperative intent, which may be understood as a facet of the norma-
tive frame, or by a competitive intent, which represents the gain frame of
maximizing ones own positive consequences. In contrast, the difference
in frames between fidelity and infidelity in marital relationships juxta-
poses a normative frame (fidelity) with a hedonic frame (infidelity)
because infidelity seems to be driven mainly by sexual passion.
In correspondence with Lindenbergs (this volume) theoretical
account, studies of marital infidelity illustrate the occurrence of frame
switches. A betrayaleither in the context of a marital relationship or
in the context of a cooperative relationshipinduces a more or less
immediate frame switch, which leads to a corresponding reinterpreta-
tion of the relationship.
Beyond Kin Altruism and Reciprocal Altruism
Most proponents of evolutionary theory would argue that the the-

ories of kin altruism and reciprocal altruism are sufficient to explain
human prosociality. However, many studies within experimental
economics have shown that human behavior cannot sufficiently be
explained within these approaches (Fehr and Fischbacher, 2003;
Fetchenhauer and Bierhoff, 2004). As mentioned above, in many situ-
ations people show high levels of prosocial behavior even when they
participate in unrepeated interactions with genetically unrelated
others. However, why should people refrain from exploiting their inter-
action partners if these interaction partners are not genetically related
to them and there is no shadow of the future (Axelrod, 1984)?
Frank (1988) has offered a theoretical explanation for the fact that
people often act cooperatively even in situations where no future inter-
actions are to be expected. The main argument can be summarized as
follows: if cooperative and prosocially oriented people are able to

identify each other they will choose each other as interaction partners
and will thus achieve higher outcomes than people who do not have
a disposition to behave fairly and cooperatively. However, egoistic
and noncooperative people have a strong incentive to appear trust-
worthy and cooperative in order to exploit the cooperativeness of oth-
ers. This has two effects: (1) people are strongly motivated to
distinguish between those who are really trustworthy and cooperative
and those who only pretend to be so, and (2) cooperative and proso-
cial people have a strong incentive to send valid signals of their trust-
worthiness that cannot easily be imitated by uncooperative others.
According to Frank, the combination of these effects explains why
people are able to identify each others trustworthiness. Prosocial
individuals could survive and have reproductive success because they
were able to identify each other as participants in mutual cooperation.
However, to appear to be trustworthy, one must act fairly and honestly
regardless of the concrete situation in which one is acting because
otherwise ones cooperation would be interpreted as being caused by
manipulative intent.
As Frank shows, the (reproductive) value of being cooperative or
not is to a high degree dependent on the frequency of both strategies in
the population. The prediction is that an equilibrium between both
strategies emerges, with some people being cooperative and others
noncooperative. This theory explains the fact that both strategies can
be observed empirically: on the one hand, prosocial behavior with
people being willing to sacrifice remarkable amounts of resources for
the well-being of others and, on the other hand, selfish and egoistic
attempts to exploit others who have a cooperative intent.
Summary and Outlook
As mentioned above, our discussion of the contributions to this

book was organized not on a chapter-by-chapter basis but with an inte-
grative perspective in mind. Our aim was to suggest commonalities
and differences that emerge across the contributions, relate the results
to the framing approach, and point to related meta-theoretical
approaches in an attempt to put the theoretical approach of Lindenberg
(this volume) to solidarity and prosocial behavior in perspective.
The conceptual issues on which the research on prosocial behav-
ior presented in this book focused are the following. One basic issue is
whether prosocial behavior is consistent across different measures,
including measures of antisocial behavior. From the framing perspec-
tive, consistency among measures of prosocial behavior is expected,
but this is not necessarily the case among measures of prosocial and
antisocial behavior. Some of the main topics which run through the
chapters of this volume include the principle of reciprocity, trust in
social relationships, intergroup cooperation, structural factors that
mold helpfulness in organizations, including interdependence and
embeddedness, and hidden structural determinants of prosocial behav-
ior, which relate to cultural and environmental influences. These
topics constitute the main points of the agenda for future research on
prosocial behavior and solidarity. This research will hopefully profit
from the theory of framing outlined by Lindenberg (this volume) as
well as from the other theoretical accounts that were taken into
account, especially evolutionary theory. Although gaps between
disciplines (e.g., psychology, sociology, biology) are obvious because
they focus on different issues and use different methods, they
have very much to offer to each other and hopefully will profit a lot in
their future advances if interdisciplinary exchange is pursued more
thoroughly.
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Index
Page numbers with t and f represent table and figures, respectively.

A Authoritarian educational goals,
Absenteeism, 148 199, 203
Acclimatization effect on behavior, relationship of fair-share behavior
209, 217 with, 201203
Acculturation, 181 Authority ranking, see
Adolescence-limited and life-course Categorization of social rela-
persistent antisocial behavior tionships
of juveniles, 9698 Authority relationships, see Status
Adolescents, 103104 relationships
groups of, 102103
Agency theory, 144, 147, 149150 B
individual behavior in, 144 Biases, 71
Agreeableness, 79t, 84 Big Five model of personality,
Altruism, 9, 158, 160 7880, 231
Altruistic behavior, 85 Bi-strategic strategies, 100101
Altruistic motivations, 161, 170, Breach of trust, 111
213, 218 Bush-Mosteller stochastic learning
for doing voluntary work, model, 52
216220
Altruistic values, 214 C
Antisocial behavior, 9394, 102, Career differentiation, effect of, 146
198 Case illustration of volunteer man-
development related to family agement styles
characteristics, 96 recruitment, 166167
factors influencing, 9495 retention, 168169
in adolescence, 9698 training, 167168
studies of relationship with Casual extradyadic sex, 113
prosocial behavior, 9899 Categorization of social relationships
Anxious attachment index, 119 authority ranking, 10
Approaches to prosocial and sol- communal sharing, 10
idary behavior, 48 equality matching, 10
Assimilation, see Immigrants in market pricing, 10
adjusting to new society, strate- Chicken game, 52
gies adopted by Civic virtues, 192
243
244 Index
Climatic demand(s), 209, 220 Demographic characteristics, effects

theory, 208 of, 130
Climatic resources, 209210 Demographic dissimilarity, 133
influence of income, 210211 Dependency, 116
Close relationships, 115 Dictator games, 227
Coercive strategies, 100101 Disciplinary efforts, basic forms of
Cognitive induction, 196197, 204
abilities, 95 love withdrawal, 196
impairment, 94 power assertion, 196
Cognitive mechanisms Dispositional factors, 119
approach, 50 Diversity and solidarity, 1415
avoidance, 50 Divorce, major cause of, 112
Cognitive processes, 3, 6 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 103105
factors influencing, 26 Dual identity, 179
Cognitive-motivational process, 40
Collective E
identity, 180 Egalitarian commitment, 214, 220
performance, 127 Ego, see Freuds psychoanalysis
Commitment, 118 Egoistic motivations, 161, 170
Comparison level for alternatives, 116 Embeddedness of employees, forms of
Competing approaches, 4748 institutional embeddedness, 15,
Computational model of learning, 143, 145, 152
5556 network embeddedness, 15, 143,
Condoms, use of, 119 147148, 152
Conflict, 213 temporal embeddedness, 15, 143,
Conscientiousness, 79t, 8083, 88 147, 149150, 152
Considerateness, 910 Emotional stability, 119
Control systems, see Governance Emotional unfaithfulness, 114
structures, formal Empathy-altruism hypothesis,
Cooperation, 9 234235
Cooperative reciprocity, 47, 57 Employees social relationships,
Cooperativeness, 236, 240 142, 144, 148
Criminal behavior, analysis of, 231 English speaking countries,
Cross country differences in fair- fair-share behavior in, see
share, see Fair-share behavior Fair-share behavior
Cross cultural differences, 175, 228 Error management theory (EMT), 68
Islamic culture, 131 Ethnic diversity, 178179, 186
western culture, 131 Ethnic identity, 176, 183
Cultural femininity, 207, 213 importance of, 176
latin American countries, 213 Evolutionary models, 48
north European countries, 213 Evolutionary theory, 233234
Cultural individualism-collectivism, beyond kin and reciprocal altru-
role of, 218 ism, 239240
Culture, function of, 183 kin altruism, 234236
reciprocal altruism, 236239
D Extended contact effect, 180
Degree of autonomy, 167 External flexibility, 151
Degree of prosociality, 69 External sanctions, implications of,
Degree of solidarity, 11 191
Index 245
Extradyadic involvement, degree of, Functionalistic theory of sociology,

115 228230
Extradyadic sex, 111112, 116118
reproductive benefits of, 113 G
Extradyadic willingness, 118, 121 Gain frame, see Master frames
Extramarital relationships, 238 Gain goals, 37
Extramarital sexual relationships, Gain-seeking behavior, 208, 212
111113 Game theory, 5152
cross cultural differences, 112 Game-theoretical approaches,
potential benefits from, 113 238
Extrinsic motivation, 16 Gini-index, 203
Extroversion, 78, 79t, 81 Global competition, 141
Globalizing, 175
F Goal framing, 3
Fairness, 9, 118; see also Prosocial theory, 13
behavior, kinds of Governance structures, 145
Fair-share behavior, 192 characteristics, 145
criminality, 195196 formal, 145
cross country differences, informal, see Informal governance
196198, 203 structures
economic growth rates, 194195 Group culture, influence of,
educational styles, 196198 182
English speaking countries, 201 Group diversity, 235
interpersonal trust, 194195 impact of, 178
in Scandinavian countries, 201 Group identification, importance of,
measurement, 192194 177178
potential predictors, 203
Family characteristics, related to H
development of prosocial and Habituation, 5758
antisocial behavior, 96 destabilizing effects on learning
Feedback, 127 dynamics, 57
Feminine cultures, 183 Hedonic frame, see Master frames
Fidelity, 14 Hedonic goal, 3637
Firm-specific human capital, 142143 Helping behavior, 131, 147
Framing and learning, 49 Histrionic personality disorder,
Framing predictions, 5355, 58 119
Framing processes, 6, 31, 36, 40, 51, HIV infection, risk of, 119; see also
212213 Unsafe sex
affect of backgound goals, 3839 Hoffmans theory of norm
Framing theory, 4950, 5354, 58, 77 internalization, 198
Framing-based solidarity theory, 208 Homeostatic demands, 208, 212
Free-ride in group efforts, 126, 129 Homeostatic goods, 210211
Freuds psychoanalysis, 230231 Homooeconomicus, assumptions
Functional approach to volunteer in, 226
motivation, 159 Honesty, 194; see also Fair-share
career motivations, 159 behavior
enhancement motivations, 159 Horizontal organizational structures,
protective motivations, 159 141
social motivations, 159 Hyperactivity and inattention, 94
246 Index
I Interdependence, types of
Id, see Freuds psychoanalysis around work inputs, 126
Immigrants in adjusting to new around work outcomes, 126128,
society, strategies adopted by 132, 149, 177178, 236
assimilation, 179 Internalization, 35
integration, 179 Interpersonal
marginalization, 179 differences, 125
separation, 179 relationship, 133
Improvement, kinds of, 34 trust, see Fair-share behavior
Income level on solidary behavior, Intrinsic motivation, 146, 164165
influence of, see Solidary theory, 161162
behavior Invisibility, see Rules for solidarity
Indicators of an authoritarian/
patriarchal culture J
democracy, 199 Jealousy, cause of
female empowerment, 200 of men, 114
religious tradition, 200 of women, 114
Individual team members, behavior Joint effects of interdependence, 131
of, 130 Joint production of outcomes,
Individualism/collectivism, 115116
dimensions of, 182
Individuals, behavior of K
collectivistic cultures, 182 Kinds of prosocial behavior, 27;
individualistic cultures, 182 see also Solidary behavior,
Infidelity, 111112, 115, 238 kinds of
Influence of background goals, Kin-selection, 234
3233
Informal governance structures, L
146147 Lintrt bien entendu, 159
influence of, in work perform- Learning model and the framing
ance, 147 approach, differences in,
prestige, 147 5859
pride, 147 Learning theory, 50, 58
self-esteem, 147 differences with analytical game
Informal relations, 149 theory, 50
Institutional embededness, see Lindenbergs framing theory, 67,
Embededness of employees, 105, 130, 135, 142, 146147,
forms of 149, 152, 191, 198, 207, 226,
Integration, see Immigrants in 228, 230231, 233, 237, 241
adjusting to new society, applications of, 144
strategies adopted by individual behavior in, 144
Intelligence level, influence of, Lindenbergs model, 120
9495
Intercultural traits M
cultural empathy, 181 Machiavellianism, 82
emotional stability, 181 Management behavior on
flexibility, 181 employees, 142
open-mindedness, 181 Management simulation study,
social initiative, 181 131132
Index 247
Marginalization, see Immigrants in Multiple motivations, importance

adjusting to new society, of, 161
strategies adopted by Mutual prejudice, effect of, 179
Margoliss model, 7 Mutual relationship-specific invest-
Marital relationship, 111113, ments, 150
238239
mental image of, 116 N
specific rules of, 111112 Narcissism, 119
Marriage primacy, see Rules for Narcissistic personality, 82
solidarity Negative emotionality, 94
Masculinity/femininity, 182183 Negative emotional response, 112
Master frames Negative reciprocity, 8788
gain frame, 3435, 37, 3940, 82, Negative relational signal, 115
144, 191, 198, 208, 216217, Neoclassical economics, assump-
233 tions from, 144
hedonic frame, 34, 37, 4041, 81, Network embeddedness, see
144, 191, 226 Embeddedness of employees,
normative frame, 35, 37, 40, 80, forms of
144, 191, 198, 208, 216217, Neurotic-introverts, 82
228, 231, 233, 237, 239 Neuroticism, 79t, 81
Material self-interest, 195 Noncontrolling strategies, 100101
Mate-switching hypothesis, 113 Norm of reciprocity, 237
Mechanistic solidarity, 182 Normative frame, see Master frames
Melioration, 51 Norms guiding a relationship, 116
Membership management, see Numeraire, 31
Volunteer management styles,
theory of O
Membership techniques, 165 Openness to experience, 79t
negative aspects of, 165 Opportunistic relationship, 11, 27,
Mental model 115
of intimate relationship, 14 Organic solidarity, 10
of relationship, 2829 Organizational
of social relationship, 11 behavior, 126, 142, 150
relation to behavior, 29 commitment, level of, 151
model, subcategory, 2829 performance, 142
Microelectronic revolution, 141 reward system, 158
Misanthropy heuristic, 70 rules, 142
Mission statements of scouting solidarity, 141142, 151
leaders, case examples, volunteers, 157
160161, 163 Organized volunteerism, 157
Monitoring systems, see Governance Outcome interdependence, see
structures, formal Interdependence, types of
Motivation, three types of Overriding goals, 34
enjoyment-based intrinsic motiva-
tion, 162, 169, 228 P
extrinsic motivation, 162, 164, 169 Pair bonding, 113
obligation-based intrinsic motiva- Paranoid cognitions, 70
tion, 162, 164, 169, 228 Parenting, 96
248 Index
Partners extramarital behavior, 115 Psychobiological models, 81

Peer pressure, influence of, 167 Punishment, 50
Perceived dissimilarity, 131
Personal project approach, 159160 Q
Personality Qualified monogamists, 113
and cognitive frames, 8083, 8889
and mental models of social rela- R
tionships, 8385 Rational choice theory, 47
characteristics, 7778, 119 Rationality, 7
dimensions, 78 Reciprocal solidarity, 45
psychology, 231232 Reciprocators, 87
Personality factors related to negative, 8788
prosocial and antisocial behavior, positive, 8788
94 Reciprocity, 4546, 49, 56, 58
sex differences, 9596 Recruitment of volunteers, see Case
Philanthropy heuristic, 70 illustration of volunteer
Positive reciprocity, 8788 management styles
Potential predictors of fair-share Reinforcement learning mechanism,
behavior 52f, 53, 56
economic inequality, 203 Reinforcement learning theory,
economic prosperity, 203 13, 237
level of urbanization, 203 Relational identity orientation, 180
Power, dimensions of, 182, 184 Relational signaling, 49
Priori ordering of the frames, 36 Relationship-specific investments, 150
Prisoners dilemma (PD), 52 Remuneration policies, see
Program management, 163164; see Governance structures, formal
also Volunteer management Reproductive cost
styles, theory of to female, 114
advantages of, 164165 to male, 114
case illustration of, 165169 Respect, 214
disadvantages of, 164 Restricted intensity, see Rules for
Propinquity, 50 solidarity
Proselfs, 86 Rewards, 50, 114, 127128, 145,
Prosocial behavior, 41, 9395, 191, 147, 149, 161, 226, 237
197, 204, 225226, 228, collective, 128
230232, 234, 237240 individual, 128
and core motivations, 40 performance-related payment,
and sacrifices, 39 145146
development related to family Rules for solidarity, 117
characteristics, 96
in gain frame, 39, 41 S
in hedonic frame, 4041 Scandinavian countries, fair-share
kinds of, 118 behavior in, see Fair-share
studies of relationship with behavior
antisocial behavior, 9899 Self esteem, 180, 183; see also
Prosocial Informal governance structures
identity, 160 Self-categorization theory, 130
strategies, 100101 Separation, see Immigrants in
Prosocials, 86 adjusting to new society,
Prototypes, 2829 strategies adopted by
Index 249
Sexual infidelity, 114 Solidary benefit behavior, 157

Shortterm mating, see Casual Spontaneous helping, 215216
extradyadic sex cross national differences in, 215
Situation, role of, 120 Stag Hunt, 53
Social capital Stages in a relationship, 114115
importance of, 195 Status relationships, 11, 27
theory, 194 Stochastic collusion, 5556
Social categorization, 177 Strong solidarity, 1011, 215216;
theory, 176 see also Spontaneous helping
Social exchange theory, 114115 Superego, see Freuds psychoanalysis
Social groups, 175 Susceptibility to infidelity, see
Social identity, 130 Personality, characteristics
theory, 175, 185
Social incentives, 144 T
Social networks of employees, Task interdependence, 127, 129,
influence of, 143 131, 135, 177178, 235236
Social psychology, 232233 influence of, 127
Social reference groups, 177 Team commitment, 128129, 131
Social relationships of employees, Temporal embededness, see
see Employees social Embededness of employees,
relationships forms of
Social value orientations, 8687 Theories of self-categorization, 7
Socialization, process of, 228 Theories of the sustainability of vol-
Solidarity and trustworthiness, 6670 unteer motivation, 158161
Solidarity relationships Theory of goal-framing
strong, 27; see also Strong solidarity basic mechanism, 2930
weak, 27; see also Weak solidarity interaction between background
Solidarity, 46, 111, 125126, 131 and foreground goals, 3233
downsizing, 125 Thorndikes law of effect, 46, 50
increased information load, 125 Threat, 183184
interdependence, 125126 Tit for tat, 48, 236
perception of others, 6566 Tolerance, 214, 220
reengineering, 125 Trustworthiness, 9, 118, 240; see also
Solidary behavior, 142144, 146, Prosocial behavior, kinds of
148150, 152, 175176, 178, Typical strategies, 100
180, 191, 207, 212, 225226,
228, 230232, 235, 240 U
cross-country differences in, 192 Ultimatum games, 227
effect of climate, 208, 230 Uncertainty avoidance, 182
effects of private and public Uniqueness bias, 61
wealth, 208 cultural explanation, 6465
influence of wealth, 210211, motivational explanation, 6264
218, 230 Unsafe sex, 119
Solidary behavior, kinds of
altruism, 9 V
considerateness, 910 Value motivation, 159
cooperation, 9 Values for variables and scales used
fairness, 9 with western industrialized
trustworthiness, 9 countries, 205
250 Index
Violent jealousy of males, 116 Volunteer retention activities within

Visibility, see Rules for solidarity GSUSA, 168
Volunteer management styles,
theory of, 162164 W
case illustration of, 165169 Weak solidarity, 11, 237; see also
membership management, Altruistic values
163165, 170, 228 Work team performance, 125126,
program management, 163164, 134, 141
170, 228 Workgroup diversity, 125126, 129,
Volunteer motivation, 158, 161, 169, 131, 235
229

(Critical Issues in Social Justice) Siegwart Lindenberg, Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk (Auth.), Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk, Siegwart Lindenberg (Eds.)-Solidarity

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(Critical Issues in Social Justice) Siegwart Lindenberg, Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk (Auth.), Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache, Bram Buunk, Siegwart Lindenberg (Eds.)-Solidarity

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Solidarity and Prosocial

An Integration of Sociological and

CURRENT SOCIETAL CONCERNS ABOUT JUSTICE

ENTITLEMENT AND THE AFFECTIONAL BOND:

THE JUSTICE MOTIVE AS A PERSONAL RESOURCE:

LIVING AND DYING WELL

RESPONSES TO VICTIMIZATION AND BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD

SOLIDARITY AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR:

THEORY, JUSTICE, AND SOCIAL CHANGE:

VALUES, ACHIEVEMENT, AND JUSTICE:

Detlef Fetchenhauer, Andreas Flache,

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005930805

ISBN-10: 0-387-28031 -6 e-ISBN 0-387-28032-4

Printed on acid-free paper.

2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America. (SPI/IBT)

Hans-Werner Bierhoff, University of Bochum, 44801 Bochum, Germany

Hans-Werner Bierhoff is full professor of social psychology at the

Bram P. Buunk is full professor of social psychology at the University of

Pieternel Dijkstra is currently working as a freelance author. She is

David Dunning is full professor of psychology at Cornell University.

Detlef Fetchenhauer is both, full professor of social and economic

and explanations of prosocial and antisocial behavior. His work has

Andreas Flache is assistant professor of sociology at the University of

Linda B. Karr is currently a senior researcher at the department of

Michael W. Macy is full professor of sociology at Cornell University.

Lucas C.P.M. Meijs is assistant professor of management of nonprofit

Siegwart M. Lindenberg is full professor of theoretical sociology at the

Marco Perugini is senior lecturer at the University of Essex (England).

Karin Sanders is full professor of human resource management at the

Ren Veenstra is senior researcher at the department of sociology of the

Gerben van der Vegt is associate professor of management and organi-

Rafael P. M. Wittek is full professor of sociology at the University of

Karen van der Zee is full professor of organizational psychology at the

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii

Part II. Personality and Socialization

Part III. Social Context: Networks and Social Exchange

8. Understanding the Joint Effects of Interdependence

Part IV. Institutional Context

Part V. Cultural Context

Part VI. Outlook

This book is the product of an intensive cooperation between psychol-

book unless it was necessary to explain the respective terms. We hope

Solidarity and Prosocial Behavior:

This book is about what sociologists call solidarity and social

To explore the important role that cognitive processes like framing

Existing Approaches to Prosocial and Solidary Behavior

Let us briefly recount these approaches. Within sociology, the ques-

Another prominent suggestion in this direction has been to introduce

Overview of the Theoretical Framework

In the remainder of this chapter we present a general framework for

FIGURE 1.1. A General Framework for the Study of Solidary Behavior

solidarity. Below, we discuss the elements of this framework and their

We argue that the extent to which an actor shows solidarity is

agreeableness, or conscientiousness, as well as the skills and abilities of

Overview of the Chapters of this Book

We conclude this introduction with a brief overview of the various

In Chapter 3, Flache and Macy compare Lindenbergs approach the-

configurations of prosocial and antisocial behavior, on the other hand. In

solidarity frame dominates, but diversity may impose counterproduc-

motivation as well as extrinsic motivation (such as gaining experience

Prosocial Behavior, Solidarity,

There is no shortage of theories of prosocial behavior. Sociology,

It is my aim here to uncover some of these mechanisms, using the-