Abstract

The word “prosocial” does not appear in most dictionaries; it was created by social scientists as an antonym for “antisocial.” Prosocial behavior covers the broad range of actions intended to benefit one or more people other than oneself—behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, cooperation, philanthropy, and community service. The word “altruism” has at times also been used to refer to these behaviors, or to a subset of them such as self-sacrificial helping or helping in the absence of external rewards. This usage seems inappropriate, however, because altruism is a motivational concept. Altruism is motivation to increase another person’s welfare; it is contrasted to egoism, motivation to increase one’s own welfare (Comte, 1851/1875, Dixon, 2008; MacIntyre, 1967). There is no one-to-one correspondence between prosocial behavior and altruism. Prosocial behavior need not be motivated by altruism; altruistic motivation need not produce prosocial behavior.