When Prosocial Motives Matter Most: The Interactive Effects of Social Value Orientation, Message Framing, and Helping Costs on Helping Behavior

We advance prior work on prosocial behavior by examining the situations in which prosocial motives are more likely to influence helping behavior. Building on the arousal:cost-reward model and the self-discrepancy theory, we test the moderating effects of help request framing (benevolent vs. economic) and contextual costs of helping on the relationship between social value orientation (SVO) and helping behavior. In two experimental studies, we found evidence that prosocial individuals are more likely to help than proselfs especially when it is more costly to do so. Similarly, prosocial individuals help more when requests are framed in terms of benevolence but not when they are framed as an exchange. These findings suggest that prosocial motives foster helping when it is more challenging to do so—that is, when help seekers do not have much to offer in return as well as in costly situations.