Enhancing Pro-Social Behavior among College Students: Exploring the Role of Abstract Mindset

Abstract

Past research highlight a clear link between abstract or higher-level processing and moral values. In the present research, we test whether activation of abstract mindset also enhances prosocial behavior. Following the tenets of Construal Level Theory (CLT) the following research examined whether abstract task versus concrete task will lead to increase in prosocial behavior. In addition, this research also tested for the effect of valence of such task and subsequent behavior. Results obtained supported the main hypothesis indicating priming with abstract construal categories lead to increase in prosocial behavior.