Psychological Development and Education ›› 2022, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (3): 437-446.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2022.03.15

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The Cognitive Processes and Neural Bases of Prosocial Behavior

TANG Lei1,2, LIU Yanling1, YANG Yingkai1   

  1. 1. Research Center of Mental Health Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715;
    2. Nanshan Experimental Educational Group Yuanding School, Shenzhen 518000
  • Published:2022-05-17

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Abstract: Prosocial behavior refers to the behaviors that bring benefits to other individuals or society. They include cooperation, sharing, helping others, and comforting others. When people are performing prosocial behaviors, the following cognitive processes are ongoing: paying attention to others' behaviors and emotions, social information processing, expecting rewards for the result, the representation of social norm, self-control, social information integration, calculating values, etc. Based on these cognitive processes, the studies found that prosocial behaviors are mainly linked to the following neural regions: anterior insula, anterior cingulate cortex, the dorsal medial subsystem of default mode network, reward system and the prefrontal cortex. Therefore, we proposed a cognitive-neural circuitry for prosocial behaviors. The commonalities, functional connections, and cross-cultural research of the neural basis of prosocial behaviors can be further explored in the future.

Key words: prosocial behavior, cognitive process, neural basis

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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