AUTHOR=Sheng Jing , Luo Shuilian , Jiang Bo , Hu Yousong , Lin Shuang , Wang Li , Ren Yashi , Zhao Chunling , Liu Zixin , Chen Jun 

TITLE=How prosocial behaviors are maintained in China: The relationship between communist authority and prosociality

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.938468

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.938468

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective</title><p>Numerous studies have demonstrated that religious belief is associated with prosocial behavior. However, how do they maintain cooperation in societies with a predominating atheist population, such as China? Different primings (explicit, subliminal, implicit) and a quasi-experiment are used to examine the link between communist authority and prosocial behaviors among college students in China.</p></sec><sec><title>Materials and methods</title><p>In Study 1 (<italic>N</italic> = 398), the subjects’ communist authority in the university lab was primed by a communist-authority video. In Study 2 (<italic>N</italic> = 296), we compared the priming effects of communist authority and religion on prosocial intention. Study 3 (<italic>N</italic> = 311) investigated the priming effect of communist authority on prosocial behaviors by employing a scrambled sentence task in the university lab. A quasi-experiment was conducted in Study 4 (<italic>N</italic> = 313).</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Results showed that communist-authority, a reminder of secular authorities, increased prosociality among college students. And empathy moderated the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in Study 3 and Study 4.</p></sec><sec><title>Discussion</title><p>Communist authority, a secular authority prime, has a positive effect on promoting prosocial behaviors. These results provided a feasible yet novel way to reveal the mechanism of the relationship between secular authorities and prosociality in China.</p></sec>