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During the Coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), the dissemination of false information on social media increased significantly. The examination of social factors influencing the proliferation of fake news related to COVID-19 necessitates exploration from various perspectives and dimensions. Our research surveyed 392 Pakistani social media consumers, employing a survey questionnaire method conducted through snowball sampling technique. We utilized SPSS 26.0 for descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and regression analysis. The mediation and moderation effects were tested using Andrew F. Hayes' Process program (V3.3). Our findings revealed that COVID-19-related fake news tends to spread through instant news sharing behavior, driven by socialization and entertainment motives, acting as mediating factors in the relationship between instant news sharing and the dissemination of false information. Altruism also plays a moderating role, playing a moderating role in the impact of instant news sharing on fake news sharing, and also playing a moderating role in the impact of socialization on fake news sharing. Employing a rational choice theory framework, our study identifies instant news sharing, socialization, entertainment, and altruism as key rational choices influencing the sharing of pandemic-related fake news among Pakistani social media users.

Background: Altruistic cooperation (AC) is essential in human social interactions. Previous studies have investigated AC-related behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), revealing that there is considerable individual variability in the behavior. However, this issue is still largely unexplored especially in the adult population. Aims: To investigate individual differences in AC-related behavior, we conducted the resource allocation task (RAT) and modified version of the ultimatum game (mUG) among adults with and without ASD. Methods and procedures: The study employed a cross-sectional design, involving 27 adults with ASD (mean age 29.1 ± 4.3 years; three females) and 27 adults with typical development (TD) (mean age 25.8 ± 6.7 years; two females), who completed the RAT and mUG tasks. Beyond clinical characteristics, we assessed three primary psychological metrics: the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), Barratt impulsiveness scale, and the behavioral inhibition and activation systems. Outcomes and results: No significant differences were observed in the proportions of participants with high AC when assessed by RAT (p = 0.15) and mUG (p = 0.59) between the TD and ASD groups. Participants with high AC from the RAT demonstrated higher perspective-taking scores on the IRI than those with low AC within both the TD (p = 0.04) and ASD groups (p = 0.03). In the TD group, high AC individuals also scored higher on the IRI's fantasy subscale as per the mUG (p = 0.03); however, this trend was not present in the ASD group. Conclusions and implications: The present findings indicate that empathy plays an important role in individual differences in AC-related behavior among adults with and without ASD, although the role could be different depending on the types of AC-related behavior between TD and ASD populations.

Misinformation remained a critical consideration during the COVID-19 that further cultivated fears leading to strong unrest among the public globally. This study clarifies certain misconceptions related to the pandemic by investigating whether factors such as altruism, entertainment, information-sharing, information-seeking, comprehensibility have impact on COVID-19 misinformation acceptance and sharing it in the UAE culture, with gender as a moderating factor. An online survey (google.com) was used, with a sample of 200 university students, and analyzed using PLS-SEM software to determine the effects of constructed factors. The findings indicated that entertainment, information-sharing, and information-seeking factors have impact on sharing COVID-19 misinformation, while comprehensibility has impact on acceptance of misinformation. Interestingly, gender was found to have no impact on all the constructed factors, suggesting that other moderating factors (e.g., age) need to be considered in future research. Generally, online users need to learn how to verify online information that they receive/share on other social media, especially regarding health concern.

Background: The blood shortage in China has become a nationwide issue, which poses a threat to critical medical treatments and puts patients at risk. To address this problem, blood donation recruitment and retention campaigns have been launched, with university students being recognized as an important target audience. To recruit this particular population effectively, it is crucial to comprehend their motivations for donating blood. Methods: This study used a modified and extended Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior to explain the determinants of blood donation intention among N = 1165 China's young adults through an online cross-sectional survey, utilizing a snowball sampling technique to recruit participants. Results: In line with previous TPB-based studies, we found positive associations between attitude (β = 0.071, p

Introduction: Although current antiretroviral therapy allows most people with HIV (PWH) to experience normal longevity with a good quality of life, an HIV cure remains elusive due to HIV reservoir formation within deep tissues. An HIV cure remains highly desirable to the community of PWH. This study reports on the perceived risks and benefits of participation in the Last Gift study, a study aimed at characterizing HIV reservoirs via post-mortem autopsy, among PWH at the end of life (EOL) and their next-of-kin (NOK)/loved ones. Methods: Last Gift participants (PWH with a terminal illness and/or near the end of life) and their NOK/loved ones were surveyed for perceptions of risks, benefits, and meaning for participation in the Last Gift study. Results: The average age of the 17 Last Gift participants was 66.6 years, 3 were females, 1 person identified as Hispanic, and 15 as Caucasian. The average age of the 17 NOK/loved ones was 56.7 years, and relationships to Last Gift participants included partner/spouse, sibling, friend, child, parent, grandparent, and nephew. The only perceived personal risk of the Last Gift among participants was the blood draws (3/17). NOK/loved ones perceived the following risks: blood draws (2/17), physical pain (3/17), worry that something bad will happen (2/17), and unpleasant side effects (1/17). Participants in Last Gift and NOK/loved ones indicated the study had various positive social effects. For both participants and NOK/loved ones, the most frequent perceived personal benefit of the Last Gift was the satisfaction of supporting HIV cure research. Discussion: Participants perceived minimal personal and societal risks and valued the altruistic benefits of participating in the Last Gift study. Last Gift participants and NOK/loved ones were cautious about possible personal risks of EOL HIV cure research but still viewed that the emotional, psychological and societal benefits of participation outweighed potential risks.

Theory suggests that selfless prosocial behaviors originate from motives grounded in tangible, motivational, and psychological resources, which can be activated to stimulate volunteering and charitable giving. This study investigates how individuals’ social capital may serve as such a resource; it explores the peculiar role of the strategic pursuit of relationships to predict individuals’ likelihood of engaging in prosocial behavior. Based on survey responses by n = 779 German citizens actively engaged in nonprofit hobbyist communities, we find that individuals with higher social capital are more likely to donate their incentive for study participation to charity. However, individuals who maintain relationships for strategic reasons are significantly less likely to donate. These results enhance our understanding of social capital as a conditional resource for prosocial behavior, highlighting practical implications for fundraising, and help practitioners better understand donor motivation and the relevance of networks and social capital for charity.

The present experiment used the trapped rat model to explore whether pharmacological manipulation of distress affects the likelihood of helping behavior. 120 Sprague-Dawley rats (30 male pairs and 30 female pairs) completed 12 consecutive, daily trials assessing helping behavior. During an individual trial, a trapped rat was placed in a restrainer in the center of an open field, while its cagemate could move around freely and possibly open the restrainer by lifting a door. Trapped rats received an intraperitoneal injection of either 1) physiological saline, 2) the anxiolytic midazolam (1.5 mg/kg), or 3) the anxiogenic yohimbine (2.5 mg/kg) 30 min prior to the start of each trial. Dependent variables measured were: 1) door opening latency (sec), 2) percentage of trials in which a door opening occurred, and 3) the number of free rats classified as "openers." Based on emotional contagion theory, we predicted that 1) free rats paired with midazolam-subjects would show attenuated helping behavior (e.g., higher door opening latency) compared to controls, and conversely 2) free rats paired with yohimbine-subjects would show enhanced helping behavior. First, a significant sex-difference was observed, in that more females were classified as openers than males. This supports previous evidence that females express higher altruistic motivation and experience stronger emotional contagion than males. Second, midazolam-treatment significantly attenuated helping behavior. From trials 4-12, free rats paired with midazolam-subjects expressed slower door opening latencies compared to controls. Third, yohimbine-treatment significantly increased helping behavior (e.g., reduced door opening latencies) - but only on trials 1-3; by trials 9-12, this pattern was reversed. These results are consistent with emotional contagion theory and indicate that intensity of distress directly modulates altruistic motivation through vicarious state-matching., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Competing Interests: AB has served on a clinical advisory board for Beckman Coulter and was partly supported by an Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group Early Faculty Seedling Award from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (UM1AI104681). NF is the President of the non-profit Sustainable Development Response Organization. ES has received funding from a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract (75D30123P18282) and is a member of the Global Health Committee of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and a member of the Advisory Board of the Sudanese American Medical Association. All other authors declare no competing interests. ZOEB used Grammarly and OpenAI's ChatGPT to improve language and readability of this Comment; the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the manuscript's content.

Injunctive social norms are societal standards for how people are expected to behave. When individuals transgress these norms, they face social sanctions for their behavior. These sanctions can take many forms ranging from verbal or non-verbal reactions and from disapproval to ostracism. We review the stable characteristics and situational variables that affect a bystander's tendency to enact social sanctions against someone who violates an injunctive social norm. Stable characteristics include the bystander's extraversion, altruism, the belief that others can change their behavior, and their cultural background. Situational factors include the extent to which the violated norm implicates the bystander, the social hierarchies among the bystander and transgressor, the presence of additional bystanders, and (when applicable) the bystander's relationship to the victim of the norm violation. We also discuss the costs that a bystander can incur by attempting to enact social sanctions. We conclude with a discussion of the application of social sanctions to enforce pro-social social norms., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Research Question: What is the profile of women in the USA who become surrogates, and what is their power of decision and motivations?, Design: This quantitative study was performed with 231 participants in the USA, given the country's long history of surrogacy, to help clarify the profile of women who become surrogates, their power of decision and motivations., Results: Descriptive and multivariate cluster analyses showed that women who become surrogates earn above the average income for their state of residency, have a high level of education, have health insurance, are employed, and decide to become a surrogate for prosocial/altruistic reasons., Conclusions: In contrast to the premise of both radical feminism and ultra-conservative Catholicism, this study found that altruism and empathy are the primary motivations for participating in surrogacy processes, and that a woman's decision to become a surrogate is not motivated by social conditioning relating to poverty or social status., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) in our lives has brought the impact of AI-based decisions on human judgments to the forefront of academic scholarship and public debate. Despite growth in research on people's receptivity towards AI, little is known about how interacting with AI shapes subsequent interactions among people. We explore this question in the context of unfair decisions determined by AI versus humans and focus on the spillover effects of experiencing such decisions on the propensity to act prosocially. Four experiments (combined N = 2425) show that receiving an unfair allocation by an AI (versus a human) actor leads to lower rates of prosocial behavior towards other humans in a subsequent decision-an effect we term AI-induced indifference. In Experiment 1, after receiving an unfair monetary allocation by an AI (versus a human) actor, people were less likely to act prosocially, defined as punishing an unfair human actor at a personal cost in a subsequent, unrelated decision. Experiments 2a and 2b provide evidence for the underlying mechanism: People blame AI actors less than their human counterparts for unfair behavior, decreasing people's desire to subsequently sanction injustice by punishing the unfair actor. In an incentive-compatible design, Experiment 3 shows that AI-induced indifference manifests even when the initial unfair decision and subsequent interaction occur in different contexts. These findings illustrate the spillover effect of human-AI interaction on human-to-human interactions and suggest that interacting with unfair AI may desensitize people to the bad behavior of others, reducing their likelihood to act prosocially. Implications for future research are discussed. All preregistrations, data, code, statistical outputs, stimuli qsf files, and the Supplementary Appendix are posted on OSF at: https://bit.ly/OSF_unfairAI., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

There is considerable evidence linking cognitive reflection with utilitarian judgments in dilemmas that involve sacrificing someone else for the greater good. However, the evidence is mixed on the question of whether cognitive reflection is associated with utilitarian judgments in self-sacrificial dilemmas. We employed process dissociation to extract a self-sacrificial utilitarian (SU) parameter, an altruism (A) parameter, an other-sacrificial (OU) utilitarian parameter, and a deontology (D) parameter. In Study 1, the cognitive reflection test (CRT) positively correlated with both SU and OU (replicated in Studies 2 and 4, pre-registered). In Study 2, we found that instructing participants to rely on reason increased SU and OU (replicated in Study 4, pre-registered). In Study 3, we found that SU and OU positively correlated with giving in the single-game version of the public goods game (replicated in Study 4, pre-registered), which provides behavioral validation that they are genuine moral tendencies. Together, these studies constitute strong cumulative evidence that SU and OU are both valid measures that are associated with reliance on cognitive reflection., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Accurately differentiating indeterminate pulmonary nodules remains a significant challenge in clinical practice. This challenge becomes increasingly formidable when dealing with the vast radiomic features obtained from low-dose computed tomography, a lung cancer screening technique being rolling out in many areas of the world. Consequently, this study proposed the Altruistic Seagull Optimization Algorithm (AltSOA) for the selection of radiomic features in predicting the malignancy risk of pulmonary nodules. This innovative approach incorporated altruism into the traditional seagull optimization algorithm to seek a global optimal solution. A multi-objective fitness function was designed for training the pulmonary nodule prediction model, aiming to use fewer radiomic features while ensuring prediction performance. Among global radiomic features, the AltSOA identified 11 interested features, including the gray level co-occurrence matrix. This automatically selected panel of radiomic features enabled precise prediction (area under the curve = 0.8383 (95 % confidence interval 0.7862-0.8863)) of the malignancy risk of pulmonary nodules, surpassing the proficiency of radiologists. Furthermore, the interpretability, clinical utility, and generalizability of the pulmonary nodule prediction model were thoroughly discussed. All results consistently underscore the superiority of the AltSOA in predicting the malignancy risk of pulmonary nodules. And the proposed malignant risk prediction model for pulmonary nodules holds promise for enhancing existing lung cancer screening methods. The supporting source codes of this work can be found at: https://github.com/zzl2022/PBMPN., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Children often show a positive ingroup bias in altruistic behaviors such as sharing. Insight in factors related to ethnic bias in sharing can help towards understanding the origins of inequality in the distribution of resources in society. The present study examined the effect of priming secure attachment (versus positive affect) and multiculturalism (versus color-evasiveness) on ingroup bias in dominant ethnic group children's altruistic sharing. One hundred twenty-five White Dutch children (45 % boys, 55 % girls) between 7 and 11 years old (Mage = 8.47, SDage = 0.87) participated in a Dictator game after being primed. The Dictator game was played against three same-gender children with different ethnic backgrounds (White, Black, Middle Eastern). Results support the idea that priming secure attachment and multiculturalism can decrease ingroup bias in dominant ethnic group children's altruistic sharing, although the effects do not strengthen each other and are effective in situations with different trade-offs and interaction partners. Future research is needed to disentangle the effectiveness of secure attachment and multiculturalism messages in different sharing situations and with interaction partners with different ethnic backgrounds. Results from the present study provide starting points from which to further examine which messages potentially positively impact children's interethnic relations.

Amidst the catastrophe of COVID-19, segments of the population globally experienced changes in their perspectives on life and the desire to live a more fulfilling life. The study here examines this emergent trend with secondary data available as published survey reports and personal observations using the inductive-reflective method of understanding and theorizing. The findings support the identification of five facets of this new mindset, namely, rise in altruism, growing community-mindedness, increasing focus on health and financial security, searching for work-life balance, and increasing experiences with nature. To channel this emergent mindset, this study proposes five categories of urban innovations: (1) revival of neighborhoods; (2) expansion of parks and nature; (3) investment in urban transportation and greenspaces, (4) incentivizing entrepreneurs for ecology and local “maker economy,” and (5) staging community projects for collective good. The study describes the benefits of these innovations to general population and sets an agenda for urban planners, city managers, and social agencies as citizens begin their ongoing COVID lives. The study closes by advancing ten research proposals for future social science contributions in innovation and knowledge

Objectives: The goal of this study is to examine the role of altruism and sensitivity to public shame in individuals’ willingness to pay for a COVID-19 vaccine. Study design: We apply expected utility theory to predict the role of individuals’ altruism and public shame in the willingness to pay for vaccines. Subsequently, we test the prediction by using a unique cross-sectional survey. Methods: We use online survey data collected from those aged 30–49 in Japan between June 18th and 25th, 2020 (n = 1686). The selection of respondents follows quota sampling with regard to age group, gender, and prefecture of residence. We employ an ordinary least square (OLS) model to regress respondents’ willingness to pay for a hypothetically-effective vaccine for COVID-19 on binary indicators of altruism and sensitivity to public shame, as well as socio-demographic characteristics. Results: The willingness to pay for the vaccine is higher among those with stronger altruistic concerns and sensitivity to shaming. Conclusion: Voluntary vaccinations may be inefficient, because the uptake of vaccines could be low for selfish individuals who often violate social distancing requirements. To improve the efficiency of vaccine uptake, some interventions, such as nudges and a vaccine passport, may be needed.

Between March 2019 and March 2020, we visited 53 school groups (classes) in 9 Hungarian schools to measure time, risk, social and competitive preferences of 1108 secondary school students using incentivized laboratory experimental tasks.We applied the unfolding brackets method to measure time preferences [1], and the bomb-risk elicitation task [2] to test risk preferences. For assessing competitive preferences, we utilized a real effort task (counting zeros) and used the three-round measure of competition [3]. We applied three different games to test social preferences: the dictator game, the trust game, and a simple public good game. We gave out vouchers for the school buffet to incentivize the experiments. We then took these anonymously measured preferences and connected them to the administrative panel of the National Assessment of Basic Competencies (NABC) using the hash codes provided by the Education Authority. We gain all additional information on gender, parental background, standardized test scores and school performance (grades) from the NABC data.The dataset provides detailed insights into how preferences of upper secondary school students associate with educational outcomes, social background and gender. The database contains rich background data on the individual level. We observe students nested in classes (groups of students having most of their courses together) nested in schools which allows the analyst to see how the background variables relate to preferences not only on the individual level, but also within schools and within classes. Moreover, as we measure nine aspects of the four most widely used preferences at once, we can assess these relationships more precisely, conditional on correlated preferences. In an accompanying paper we study gender differences in preferences of adolescents using this dataset [4].

Background: The successful control of the COVID-19 pandemic depends largely on the acceptance and uptake of a COVID-19 vaccine among the public. Thus, formative research aiming to understand and determine the causes of weak and/or positive vaccination intentions is vital in order to ensure the success of future and current vaccination programmes through the provision of effective, evidence-based health messaging. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was completed by a sample of Irish (N = 500) and UK (N = 579) citizens using the online platform ‘Qualtrics’. Participants completed a questionnaire battery comprised of health, attitudes/beliefs, influences, and behavioural intention measures. Demographic information was also assessed. Results: Results highlighted similar rates of vaccine intention among both samples; where a total of 76.8% Irish respondents, and 73.7% of UK respondents indicated that they intended to be immunized if the government advised them to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Overall, 23.2% of Irish respondents reported being vaccine hesitant or vaccine resistant, while a rate of 26.3% of UK respondents reported vaccine hesitancy or resistance. Univariate analysis highlighted that both gender and age played a significant role in vaccine intention, with women under age 30 reporting higher rate of vaccine hesitancy. Multivariate analysis revealed that significant correlates of vaccine acceptance included peer influence, GP influence, civic responsibility, perceived benefit, and positive vaccination attitudes. Those who reported vaccine resistance and hesitancy were more likely to have less positive vaccination attitudes and perceive higher vaccination risk. Discussion: The current sociodemographic and psychological profiles of vaccine resistant and hesitant individuals provide a useful resource for informing health practitioners in the UK and Ireland with the means of enhancing pro-vaccine attitudes and promoting vaccination uptake. The current research shows indications of associations between distrust in the vaccine itself and vaccine hesitancy and resistance. Thus, to effectively design and deliver public health messages that ensures the success of vaccination uptake, it is likely that governments and public health officials will need to take actions to garner trust in the safety of the vaccine itself. Additionally, campaigns to decrease hesitancy and resistance in the COVID-19 vaccine may benefit in targeting altruism to increase willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Explaining the evolution of cooperation in the strong altruism scenario, where a cooperator does not benefit from her contribution to the public goods, is a challenging problem that requires positive assortment among cooperators (i.e., cooperators must tend to associate with other cooperators) or punishment of defectors. The need for these drastic measures stems from the analysis of a group selection model of temporarily formed random groups introduced by Hamilton nearly fifty years ago to describe the fate of altruistic behavior in a population. Challenging conventional wisdom, we show analytically here that strong altruism evolves in Hamilton's original model in the case of biparental sexual reproduction. Moreover, when the cost of cooperation is small and the amplified contribution shared by group members is large, cooperation is the only stable strategy in equilibrium. Thus, our results provide a solution to the 'problem of origination' of strong altruism, i.e. how cooperation can take off from an initial low frequency of cooperators. We discuss a possible reassessment of cooperation in cases of viral co-infection, as cooperation may even be favored in situations where the prisoner's dilemma applies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Burns represent one of the leading causes of morbidity worldwide and disproportionately impact women, children, and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals. Syrian refugees who fled conflict to land in overcrowded informal settlements across Lebanon are a particularly vulnerable population. This study aims to assess the etiology and risk factors for burns in this population., Methods: This cross-sectional, cluster-based population study adopted the Surgeons Overseas Assessment of Surgical Need (SOSAS) version 3.0 to capture data from refugees residing in informal settlements in multiple regions across Lebanon. The tool was contextualized and used to collect detailed information on burn cases sustained by refugees during the last 12 months prior to data collection. Univariate logistic regression models were performed to assess the relationship between burns and associated risk factors., Results: From the 1468 households surveyed, a total of 223 households experienced a burn in the last 12 months. Over 63% of burns occurred in children under the age of ten years and almost 57% of burns occurred in females. More than 70% of burns resulted from hot liquid, while 17% were caused by direct heat contact. Over 3/4ths of burns occurred while preparing food (77.4%). Approximately 32% of those burned did not seek healthcare, of which almost 85% noted the cause was mainly due to financial limitations., Conclusion: Burns are a common injury in the Syrian refugee population living in Lebanon. Children and women are particularly impacted, often during cooking. Multi-level interventions are necessary to reduce burn injuries and improve care for those affected by burns. Community kitchens can be used to separate cooking and living environments and get stoves and hot liquids off the floor. Importantly, policies should allow for refugees to receive medical care when necessary without a major financial burden., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest none., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) stated that the world has two coexisting dimensions: the Will-side, which is the metaphysical, ideal, and ultimate reality where isolated creatures do not exist; and the Representational side, which Will-powered, self-centered individual phenomenon inhabits. Schopenhauer asserted that in human societies under the imperative of the Will, temporal justice may only aspire to prevent ill-natured actions towards humans and animals. Absolute freedom happens at the metaphysical level of the primeval Will, and an eternal justice exists, because victims and perpetrators belong to the same essence, and their deeds are therefore balanced. In Schopenhauerian terms, the only bridge between temporal and eternal justice is Will-denial, which leads to compassion and asceticism, and occurs after the awareness of the unity of all living beings. However, Will-denial, by being a strictly individual and unpredictable issue, led to Schopenhauer's pessimism about an enduring collective well-being. Approaching eternal and temporal justices is thus, a worthy quest, which is visible in the current worldwide concern and interest in altruism, cooperation, and compassion. Nevertheless, if this progress is devoid of compassion and asceticism (cooperation and healthy austerity in modern terms) it could lead to increased malicious social control and manipulation. Schopenhauer's thought may thus be part of the philosophical foundations of contemporary forensic psychiatry. This paper discusses these aspects of the philosopher's work, with reference to current ideas and literature in forensic psychiatry, psychology, law, and issues in contemporary physics which are pertinent to this debate.

The Covid-19 pandemic provides severe consequences of economic behavior as an increase of unemployment rates, and providing a new business creation can continue the economic activities. This study explores a functional relationship between irrational behavior, which proxied by loss aversion, the endowment effect, and herd behavior toward the morality of economic among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as well as the mediating role of altruism in the perspectives of behavioral economics. The research involved a quantitative survey and cross-sectional data with a sample of 288 SMEs in East Java of Indonesia. Using structural equation modeling, the findings reveal that the endowment effect and herd behavior have a robust relationship with economic morality. This study also notes that altruism has a positive link with economic morality, and it has successfully mediated the irrational behavior of SMEs in Indonesia. In addition, the marketing strategy also distinguishes altruism's impact on morality economic.

Abstracts: This article interrogates the necropolitical landscape of COVID-19 in Nigeria. The article explores how the landscape emerges at the intersection of COVID-19 regime and structural violence and materializes in foodscapes and waterscapes of the country. It, also, analyzes ethical quandaries arising as the brutal violence of the regime is amplified by structural violence in places and spaces of residence, recreation, leisure and labor of ordinary people. Using qualitative data derived from primary and secondary sources, the article demonstrates that the necropolitical landscape reconfigures social relationships, meanings and identities embedded in places and spaces where people interact with each other and with food and water to produce youth's violent resistance as well as varnishing foodscapes and waterscapes. These changes ultimately impose the status of a living-dead on ordinary people in Nigeria. The article concludes that without the provision of adequate palliative, devoid of food fraud, geography of corruption, gender and ethnic-biases to every citizen, the government loses its moral ground to implement its COVID-19 regime. To meet the gap between what Nigeria can afford and what is required to implement the regime, both the government and its financial elites must embrace economic justice. Finally, the government should opt for a modified regime that factors the extant material conditions of the have-nots into the arrangement.

Human behavior, such as wearing a mask in public, affects the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. A nationally representative survey of 1198 U.S. residents was used to study demographics, perceptions, and stated beliefs of residents who indicated they believe masks have a role in society in response to COVID-19 but self-reported not wearing masks in at least one public place studied. Individuals who believed wearing masks protected others were more likely to report voluntarily wearing them, providing possible evidence of altruism. Perceiving social pressure negatively impacted the probability of voluntary mask wearing amongst those who believed masks have a role in society, suggesting social shaming may not increase compliance among these individuals. Free-riding is one possible explanation for why an individual respondent may self-report belief that mask wearing has a role in society and simultaneously self-report not voluntarily wearing a mask in public locations. Alternatively, incomplete knowledge, confusion about the role of masks in controlling spread of COVID-19, or fatigue are all possible explanations for why adults who believe masks play a role demonstrate less than optimal compliance themselves with mask wearing. Promotion of altruism, rather than social shaming, is more likely to increase mask wearing based on this analysis. Tactics to improve public health initiative compliance and participation may change throughout the duration of the pandemic and/or may differ between segments of the population. Increased understanding of human behavior as it relates to mask wearing can inform public health communications and construction of incentive-aligned messaging to improve public health-related behaviors and associated outcomes.

Living kidney donations in Israel come from 2 sources: family members and individuals who volunteer to donate their kidney to patients with whom they do not have personal acquaintance. We refer to the first group as directed living donors (DLDs) and the second as semidirected living donors (SDLDs). The incidence of SDLD in Israel is ∼60%, the highest in the world. We introduce results of a survey among 749 living donors (349 SDLDs and 400 DLDs). Our data illustrate the sociodemographic profile of the 2 groups and their answers to a series of questions regarding spirituality and social tolerance. We find SDLDs to be sectorial: they are mainly married middle-class religious men who reside in small communities. However, we found no significant difference between SDLDs and DLDs in their social tolerance. Both groups ranked high and expressed tolerance toward different social groups. Semidirected living donation enables donors to express general preferences as to the sociodemographic features of their respected recipients. This stirs a heated debate on the ethics of semidirected living donation. Our study discloses a comprehensive picture of the profile and attitudes of SDLDs in Israel, which adds valuable data to the ongoing debate on the legitimacy of semidirected living donation., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Crozier's paradox suggests that genetic kin recognition will not be evolutionarily stable. The problem is that more common tags (markers) are more likely to be recognised and helped. This causes common tags to increase in frequency, eliminating the genetic variability that is required for genetic kin recognition. In recent years, theoretical models have resolved Crozier's paradox in different ways, but they are based on very complicated multi-locus population genetics. Consequently, it is hard to see exactly what is going on, and whether different theoretical resolutions of Crozier's paradox lead to different types of kin discrimination. I address this by making unrealistic simplifying assumptions to produce a more tractable and understandable model of Crozier's paradox. I use this to interpret a more complex multi-locus population genetic model where I have not made the same simplifying assumptions. I explain how Crozier's paradox can be resolved, and show that only one known theoretical resolution of Crozier's paradox - multiple social encounters - leads without restrictive assumptions to the type of highly cooperative and reliable form of kin discrimination that we observe in nature. More generally, I show how adopting a methodological approach where complex models are compared with simplified ones can lead to greater understanding and accessibility., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The question of what motivates people to participate in research is particularly salient in the HIV field. While participation in HIV research was driven by survival in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, access to novel therapies became the primary motivator with the advent of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) in the late 1990s. In the HIV cure-related research context, the concept of altruism has remained insufficiently studied. Methods: We conducted a scoping review to better contextualize and understand how altruism is or could be operationalized in HIV cure-related research. We drew from the fields of altruism in general, clinical research, cancer, and HIV clinical research–including the HIV prevention, treatment, and cure-related research fields. Discussion: Altruism as a key motivating factor for participation in clinical research has often been intertwined with the desire for personal benefit. The cancer field informs us that reasons for participation usually are multi-faceted and complex. The HIV prevention field offers ways to organize altruism–either by the types of benefits achieved (e.g., societal versus personal), or the origin of the values that motivate research participation. The HIV treatment literature reveals the critical role of clinical interactions in fostering altruism. There remains a dearth of in-depth knowledge regarding reasons surrounding research participation and the types of altruism displayed in HIV cure-related clinical research. Conclusion: Lessons learned from various research fields can guide questions which will inform the assessment of altruism in future HIV cure-related research.

Safety citizenship behaviors (SCB) have never been classified following the intended beneficiary of these behaviors. The first aim of this study was to examine Hofmann et al. (2003)'s SCB items in an attempt to identify two dimensions: SCB oriented towards individuals (SCB-I) and SCB oriented towards the organization (SCB-O). Further, by drawing on Christian et al. (2009)'s model of safety performance, we examined how distal (i.e. personality) and proximal (i.e. safety motivation and knowledge) person-related factors are associated with these behaviors. Structural equation modelling realized on a sample of 290 workers from a Belgian pharmaceutical company showed that the broader conscientiousness trait was related to both SCB-I and SCB-O, indirectly through safety motivation and knowledge, as would be predicted by Christian et al. In contrast, the altruism facet was directly related to SCB-I only. Results are discussed and practical implications considered.

A growing body of research suggests that prosocial behavior increases across adulthood. Yet, whether these age differences reflect "pure altruistic" or selfish motives, or the developmental mechanisms that underlie them, are largely unknown. Within a value-based decision framework, pure altruistic tendencies can be measured and distinguished from impure altruistic motives through neural-level information. Indeed, age differences in donations appear to be driven by a genuine concern for the well-being of others. Candidate mechanisms behind such pure altruistic changes need to show documented age differences and evidence of causal links to prosocial behavior. As examples, we discuss how three factors that meet these criteria--social norms, mood, and cognitive functioning--might explain age differences in pure altruistic tendencies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Fisher's geometric model provides a powerful tool for making predictions about key properties of Darwinian adaptation. Here, I apply the geometric model to predict differences between the evolution of altruistic versus nonsocial phenotypes. I recover Kimura's prediction that probability of fixation is greater for mutations of intermediate size, but I find that the effect size that maximises probability of fixation is relatively small in the context of altruism and relatively large in the context of nonsocial phenotypes, and that the overall probability of fixation is lower for altruism and is higher for nonsocial phenotypes. Accordingly, the first selective substitution is expected to be smaller, and to take longer, in the context of the evolution of altruism. These results strengthen the justification for employing streamlined social evolutionary methodologies that assume adaptations are underpinned by many genes of small effect., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The author declares that he has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: The present study sought to investigate whether the relationship between childhood trauma, childhood socioeconomic (SES), and adolescents' altruism were mediated by their life history strategies and different adverse childhood experiences may function diversely on altruism, with two waves of data collected 6 months apart in a longitudinal design among Chinese adolescents., Methods: A total of 658 adolescents (M age  = 13.51, SD = 0.73 at T1) were recruited and completed the online survey; their life history strategies were measured by the Mini-K, the Delayed of Gratification Questionnaire (DOG), and the Chinese version of the Adolescent Risk-Taking Questionnaire (ARQ-RB) together, and their altruism was collected again after six months., Results: After controlling for gender and their altruism at T1, the results showed that childhood trauma (i.e., emotional maltreatment, physical maltreatment), as well as low SES and fast life history strategy, were significantly negatively correlated with adolescents' altruism at T2. Importantly, life history strategy at T1 mediated the relationship between T1 emotional maltreatment, T1 low SES, and adolescents' altruism at T2. However, the effect of physical maltreatment on altruism was not mediated by life history strategy., Conclusions: This study indicated that emotional maltreatment and low SES can affect adolescents' altruism by influencing the formation of adolescents' life history strategies. The findings revealed the different influences of adverse childhood experiences on adolescents' altruism, which supplied new empirical evidence for the life history theory and provided certain reference values for cultivating adolescents' altruism., (© 2023 Foundation for Professionals in Services to Adolescents.)

Background/purpose: The motivations of dental students for their studies have largely been investigated in numerous countries using psychometric questionnaires. This is not the case in France since validated tools are still lacking. The aim of the present work was dedicated to the psychometric validation of a motivation questionnaire adapted for predoctoral French dental students. Material and methods: The design corresponded to a monocentric study realized at the dental school of Nantes University, France. A 14-item questionnaire was translated into French and adapted for dental studies. It was autoadministered by the students between March 2014 and May 2014. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses were used to investigate the psychometric properties of the French version. Results: The rate of reply was 88.7% with a sex allocation consisting of 44.4% men and 55.6% women. The internal reliability and the item-sampling adequacy of the questionnaire reached acceptance thresholds. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses established a four-factor structure with good internal reliability. The factors consisted in “altruism,” “status and incomes,” “scientific curiosity,” and “educational advantages.” Factors correlated well with the overall questionnaire. The overall motivation score did not differ between male and female students, although “altruism” was best scored by female students while “status and incomes” obtained a higher score in the population of male students. Both male and female students displayed similar “scientific curiosity” and “educational advantages” scorings. Conclusion: Our data establish that the French motivation questionnaire has good psychometric properties and that it is relevant for further studies.

The health, economic, and social consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have highlighted the need for collaboration among all agents to face a scenario that we have not before seen. The aims of this paper are to analyze the involvement that large Spanish companies have shown during the toughest moments of the epidemic and to determine the objectives these companies have pursued with them. The results show that several firms have shown a great commitment with society, developing actions that alleviate the consequences of the COVID-19 like others have developed several strategies with different objectives. More concretely, three clusters of responsibility have been identified: (i) protecting only the interests of shareholders and investors; (ii) favoring the wellbeing of the Spanish society in general and vulnerable groups in particular; and (iii) combining the previous altruistic actions with commercial interests.

Introduction: Relative to antiretroviral treatment (ART), early HIV cure-related trials (HCRTs) carry limited therapeutic benefits and unknown risks. In HCRTs requiring treatment interruption (TI) the health risks and burdens may create a barrier to study enrolment and increase the possibility for unintentional ethical violations in recruitment. Methods: An online survey was administered to over 2,000 HIV-positive ART users in the US. Using multivariable ordinal regression we assessed effects of research participation attitudes, health and demographic traits on willingness to participate in treatment interruption studies (WtP-TI). Results: WtP-TI was greatest among those who were highly motivated to participate in research studies for the benefit of science, society and, to a lesser extent, personal benefit. Personal benefit was less of an influence on WtP-TI among persons with higher viral loads or a history of multiple ART regimens. WtP-TI was greater among respondents who were more likely to consider personal health in making decisions about trial participation. WtP-TI had no association with perceptions of the importance of compensation to research participation. After accounting for attitudes, health status and demographic traits were generally not significantly related to WtP-TI. Notable exceptions included viral suppression status and race/ethnicity. Conclusion: Recruitment strategies in TI studies can benefit from a focus on the long-term scientific and social benefits of study participation. Strategies targeted to particular demographic groups may have little impact on accrual, and in some cases will need to be accompanied by strategies to improve the quality of researcher–community relationships. Findings also suggest that informing communities about the health impacts of trial participation may positively impact participation decisions. However, more research is needed to interpret the impact of health messaging on recruitment and therapeutic expectations. Future work should explore the implications of altruism-based expectations on the strategic and ethical appropriateness of TI study recruitment efforts.

One of the foremost report of apoptosis-like programmed cell death (PCD) came from Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. glycines (Xag), which displayed rapid post-exponential cell death in PCD inducing media (PIM) but not in a non-inducing media (PNIM). The current study aims to decipher for the first time, the advantages of the existence of PCD in this phytopathogenic microorganism. Analysis of RNA-seq under inducing and non-inducing conditions, revealed differential expression of a number of genes related to key physiology of Xag, such as, motility, xanthan biosynthesis and export as well as virulence. A PCD negative mutant Xag M42 displayed diminished virulence and a contrasting transcriptome pattern. In vitro experiments revealed that under PCD inducing condition, Xag produced negligible xanthan gum as well as extracellular amylase, displayed enhanced swarming motility, released copious e-DNA and formed scanty biofilm. Lack of 'diffusible signalling factor' production was eliminated as possible reason for PCD-induction. Altogether, it appears that, in planta existence of the pathogen metabolically resembles PNIM, and on being transferred to PIM, the cells experience oxidative stress and circumvents it by adopting PCD as an altruistic response. Survival of the remaining population is encouraged by upregulating motility, detachment from the fragile biofilm to achieve dispersal., (Copyright © 2023 Institut Pasteur. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Adolescents are particularly attuned to popularity within peer groups, which impacts behaviors such as risk-taking and prosocial behavior. Neurodevelopmental changes orient adolescents toward salient social cues in their environment. We examined whether neural regions that track popularity are associated with longitudinal changes in risk-taking and prosocial behavior. During an fMRI scan, adolescents (n = 109, M age =13.59, SD=0.59) viewed pictures of their popular and unpopular classmates based on sociometric nominations from their social networks. Neural tracking of high popularity in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was associated with increases in risk-taking behavior, whereas tracking of low popularity in the right insula was associated with increases in prosocial behavior. Results suggest that individual differences in neural tracking of popularity relate to longitudinal changes in adolescents' social behaviors., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

A growing body of research shows that the universal capacity for music perception and production emerges early in development. Possibly building on this predisposition, caregivers around the world often communicate with infants using songs or speech entailing song-like characteristics. This suggests that music might be one of the earliest developing and most accessible forms of interpersonal communication, providing a platform for studying early communicative behavior. However, little research has examined music in truly communicative contexts. The current work aims to facilitate the development of experimental approaches that rely on dynamic and naturalistic social interactions. We first review two longstanding lines of research that examine musical interactions by focusing either on the caregiver or the infant. These include defining the acoustic and non-acoustic features that characterize infant-directed (ID) music, as well as behavioral and neurophysiological research examining infants' processing of musical timing and pitch. Next, we review recent studies looking at early musical interactions holistically. This research focuses on how caregivers and infants interact using music to achieve co-regulation, mutual engagement, and increase affiliation and prosocial behavior. We conclude by discussing methodological, technological, and analytical advances that might empower a comprehensive study of musical communication in early childhood., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

The evolution of altruism and spite is facilitated by positive and negative assortments, respectively. Animals repeatedly meet the same opponents and can choose to keep or terminate the interaction. Previous studies have showed that if the probability that the interaction stops depends on how the pairs are, then a positive assortment can emerge, encouraging the evolution of altruism in dyadic interactions and in interactions involving more than two individuals. In contrast, according to another previous study if the probability that the interaction stops depends on how the pairs are, then a negative assortment can emerge, encouraging the evolution of spite in dyadic interactions. Is the evolution of spite facilitated by interactions involving more than two individuals, in addition to dyadic interactions? The present study shows that the evolution of spite in interactions involving many individuals is possible by studying the repeated n-player game played using spiteful and nonspiteful strategies with opting-out options. These results suggest that spite in large groups may evolve through an opt-out mechanism. It also promotes the investigation about whether there are any examples of spiteful behavior in large groups that have evolved through negative assortment in opt-out options in nature., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Reputation and reciprocity are key mechanisms for cooperation in human societies, often going hand in hand to favor prosocial behavior over selfish actions. Here we review recent researches at the interface of physics and evolutionary game theory that explored these two mechanisms. We focus on image scoring as the bearer of reputation, as well as on various types of reciprocity, including direct, indirect, and network reciprocity. We review different definitions of reputation and reciprocity dynamics, and we show how these affect the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. We consider first-order, second-order, as well as higher-order models in well-mixed and structured populations, and we review experimental works that support and inform the results of mathematical modeling and simulations. We also provide a synthesis of the reviewed researches along with an outlook in terms of six directions that seem particularly promising to explore in the future., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Life-saving transfusions and numerous other medical treatments are enabled by a minority of people that donate blood. But why do some people repeatedly engage in such prosocial behaviour, especially when it is costly to themselves? This study examines to what extent social contagion within neighbourhoods - changing behaviour in response to the behaviour of others - affects repeated blood donation behaviour. We draw on longitudinal survey and register data from a representative sample of blood donors in the Netherlands from 2007 to 2014 (N = 15,090). Using a panel data model and an instrumental variable approach, we find that donors are positively affected by donations made by other donors living in their neighbourhood. This effect does not seem to be mediated by normative or informational social influence. Exploratory analysis further attributes this finding to social contagion within donor couples. Our study contributes to the literature on repeated blood donation behaviour, and can inform retention strategies of blood banks., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)