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The current study used a real-time interactive ‚Äúadvisor-decider‚Äù task, in which advice given by one participant results in an onerous workload for another participant, to show that self-conscious affect based on performance in one domain shapes decisions to engage in prosocial behavior in an unrelated domain: Advisors that performed at or worse than the norm, in terms of giving incorrect advice, made more frequent subsequent charity donations. Intriguingly, when advisors were given social information about their performance relative to the norm, this pattern was reversed, such that advisors that performed worse than the norm made less frequent donations. We interpret this finding as reflecting a shift in the emotion driving the behavior, from guilt to shame. Consistent with this interpretation, trait measures of guilt proneness but not of shame proneness predicted an increase in both the probability and magnitude of donations. 

This study explored the influence of various socio-affective factors on charitable giving, using an online task in which participants could choose to exert time and effort that was translated into monetary donations. Participants had the option of making Public Donations, Anonymous Donations, or No Donations. Moreover, some participants were given Social Information (SI) regarding the percentage of Public vs. Anonymous donations obtained in a pilot study. We found that the proportion of Public Donations increased with greater scores on the Narcissistic Entitlement & Exploitativeness scale (NPI EE), but only in the SI group. Conversely, the proportion of Anonymous Donations decreased with greater NPI EE scores, in the No Social Information group (NSI). In the absence of Social Information, Simulated Compassion scores (SCS), indicative of social approval seeking, decreased the proportion of No Donation decisions as well as the average amount donated. Finally, Social Information modulated the proportion of Public donations. 

Abstract The influences of expertise and group size on an individual’s tendency to align with a majority opinion have been attributed to informational and normative conformity, respectively: Whereas the former refers to the treatment of others’ decisions as proxies for outcomes, the latter involves positive affect elicited by group membership. In this study, using a social gambling task, we pitted alignment with a high- vs. low-expertise majority against a hypothetical monetary reward, thus relating conformity to a broader literature on valuation and choice, and probed the countering influence of a high-expertise minority opinion. We found that the expertise of a countering minority group significantly modulated alignment with a low-expertise majority, but only if such alignment did not come at a cost. Conversely, participants’ knowledge of payoff probabilities predicted the degree of majority alignment only when a high-expertise majority endorsed a more costly option. Implications for the relative influences of expertise and stakes on conformity are discussed.