The Effect Of Episodic Foresight On Prosocial Behavior

Prosocial behavior has always been a hot topic in social discussions.At the same time,research on prosocial behavior has also been the focus of researchers at home and abroad.Prosocial behavior usually refers to behaviors that benefit the society and others at the expense of their own interests,and specifically help,share,donate,comfort,cooperate,and volunteering.Episodic foresight is the ability to organize current actions based on expected events,imagining and thinking about future events.Studies have shown that forward thinking about the future can promote prosocial intent and behavior,but the mechanisms involved are still unclear.Therefore,this study analyzes the relationship between episodic foresight and prosocial behavior based on the perspective of emotions.In addition,taking into account individual differences,we further explored the role of optimism in regulation.Study 1 mainly explores the impact of episodic foresight on different prosocial behaviors(helping/volunteering),studies manipulation episodic foresight(EFT/ERT)and imaginary content(helping others event/ neutral event).Donation and volunteering behavior as a dependent variable.The results indicate that episodic foresight is expected to promote short-term or long-term prosocial behavior.At the same time,when the form of prosocial behavior is donation,the promotion effect of the episodic foresight and the imaginary helper on the prosocial behavior will be superimposed,that is,when imagining the future helping others,compared neutral event,the amount of donation is large.Study 2 further explores the psychological mechanism of the impact of episodic foresight on prosocial behavior,and constructs the path of influence of episodic foresight → positive emotion → prosocial behavior from the perspective of emotion.At the same time,it also explores the role of optimism in regulation.Study 2 follows the research method of Study1 to manipulate episodic foresight,while also measuring variables such as positive emotions,optimism,prosocial behavior,and empathy.The results show that positive emotions play a mediating role in the impact of episodic foresight on pro-social,and the first half of the mediation is regulated by optimism.Specifically,the impact of episodic foresight on prosocial behavior is due to the imagining of the future positive emotions of the participants,while positive emotions promote the occurrence of prosocial behavior.This effect was influenced by the level of individual optimism.Compared with the participants with low optimism,the highly optimistic subjects produced more positive emotions in the episodic foresight and thus more prosocial behavior.In summary,this study shows that episodic foresight have a positive effect on prosocial behavior,and this effect is also influenced by factors such as imaginary content,positive emotions,and optimism.At the same time,based on the results of this study,we propose that the positive emotions induced by the situational expectations and emotional expectations can be applied in the reality as a technical means of persuasion to enhance people’s prosocial awareness and prosocial consumption.