Mindfulness may reduce prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2109551/v1

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Mindfulness may reduce prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2109551/v1

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published 14 Mar, 2023

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This study examined the role of dispositional mindfulness in the association between intelligence and prosocial behavior (PB). A total of 759 college students (mean age is 22.03; 477 females) participated in exchange for extra credit in psychology course. The results confirmed a positive relationship between intelligence and PB as revealed by many studies, with empathy playing a mediating role. Mindfulness negatively moderated all the hypothesized pathways between research variables. Specifically, with the increase of the levels of dispositional mindfulness (1) the intelligence-PB association changed from positive to negative, (2) the intelligence-empathy association changed from positively significant to insignificant, (3) the empathy-PB association changed from stronger to weaker. These findings may suggest some limitations of mindfulness. That is, present moment awareness and acceptance of the status quo may result in reduced arousal when witnessing others suffering thereby preventing high intelligence people from helping the sufferers get rid of trouble.

prosocial behavior

intelligence

empathy

mindfulness

moderation

Prosocial behavior (PB) refers to voluntary actions aiming to benefit others (Habashi, Graziano, & Hoover, 2016), such as helping, sharing, cooperating, donating, caring, and comforting. PB requires accurate perception and understanding of the desires of the victim, and proper decisions that meet the need of the victim. In the process of prosocial engagement theory of mind abilities and general cognitive abilities are greatly needed (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011; Guo et al., 2019; Hur, 2020). The above reasoning suggests that smarter individuals are more likely to be prosocial, which has been supported by many studies. For example, verbal ability is found to be a good predictor of participation of charitable giving and the amount of donation, even after controlling for income, wealth, education, subjective health, and personality (Bekkers, 2006). Smarter people can be more generous in economic games (Millet & Dewitte, 2007). They tend to trust others, and thus are more likely to engage in prosocial actions (Hooghe et al., 2012). Aranda and Siyaranamual (2014) found that mathematical and verbal abilities were both positively associated with civic engagement (e.g., doing voluntary and charity work, engaging in political or community-related activities;Aranda & Siyaranamual, 2014). A meta-analysis of the repeated prisoner's dilemma game at multiple colleges showed that every 100-point improvement in a college's average SAT score (a proxy for cognitive abilities; Lincoln et al., 2016) averagely result in an improvement of the students' cooperation rate by 5% to 8% in that college (Jones, 2008). Millet and Dewitte (2007) argued that altruistic behavior can be considered by the participants as a costly signal of fitness. Altruistic behavior can convey desirable traits that cannot be directly observed, such as social status, generosity, kindness, and trustworthiness (Millet & Dewitte, 2007). Highly intelligence individuals are better in realizing the long-term benefits of PB, which may include good social prestige, more opportunities to be selected as a partner or mate. Therefore we propose Hypothesis 1: There is a positive correlation between intelligence and PB.

Empathy is an important driving force of prosocial engagement (Carlo & Randall, 2002). Witnessing the misfortune of victims elicit emotional responses such as pity and sympathy in the witness, which prompts helping behaviors to relieve suffering of the victims (Batson et al., 1991). Individuals with stronger theory of mind and perspective taking abilities are better in understanding the victim's thoughts and feelings and put themselves in the victim's position, and therefore tend to lend a helping hand (Hur, 2020). Empirical research shows that high intelligence individuals are sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, and are easier in generating other-centered feelings (Guo et al., 2019). The above arguments suggest that empathy can serve as a mediating mechanism in the relationship between intelligence and PB. Therefore we propose Hypothesis 2: the intelligence-prosociality association can be mediated by empathy.

Mindfulness can not only enhance well-being of the self but also benefit others (Donald et al., 2019). Meta-analysis studies found that mindfulness is positively associated with PB, regardless mindfulness was operated as a personal disposition, a state induced by experimental manipulation, or an ability enhanced by training (Donald et al., 2019). One reason is that mindfulness increases moral awareness or sensitivity to morally relevant information (Sevinc & Lazar, 2019; Shapiro et al., 2012; Xiao et al., 2020). Featured by openness and unbiased awareness, a mindful state can enhance sensitivity to morally relevant internal and external cues (Sevinc & Lazar, 2019). Mindfulness entails sustained attention, increasing the ability to be aware of the needs of others in the social environments. Another reason is that mindfulness is associated with improved emotion regulation ability, which can result in more prosocial engagement especially in situations that making a prosoical decision involves negative emotions (Donald et al., 2019). Furthermore, mindfulness facilitates more empathic responses by reducing self-referential thoughts and emotions, boosting the motivation to help the suffering others. Evidence shows that mindfulness trainees are more likely to help an ostracized stranger and socially include her/him in interpersonal interactions (Berry et al., 2020).

Previous research has suggested that mindfulness interacts with other important personal dispositions to influence psychosocial outcomes. For example, high (relative to low) trait mindfulness individuals can experience greater loss of self-control after performing surface acting (Lyddy et al., 2021). Also there is evidence showing that mindfulness and self-construal interact to influence PB (Poulin et al., 2021). Another recent study found that mindfulness intervention has a stronger effect on prosocial engagement among individuals with higher levels of moral identity (a moral disposition positively associated with intelligence; Guo et. al. 2019), suggesting that moral awareness or moral sensitivity is more likely to be enhanced by mindfulness training among Highly ethical individuals (Xiao et al., 2020). This suggests that mindfulness and intelligence may interact to influence PB. People with high intelligence can process environmental information more effectively. Therefore we propose that the association between intelligence and moral awareness can be enhanced when self-referential thoughts and emotions are reduced. That is, mindfulness can make high intelligence individuals more sensitive to moral issues and have more PB (Pandey et al., 2017). Thus we propose Hypothesis 3: the relationship between intelligence and PB can be enhanced by mindfulness.

There is no evidence in the existing literature on how the relationship between intelligence and empathy as well as between empathy and PB can be moderated by mindfulness. In this study we tentatively constructed a more complicated model (i.e., a moderated mediation model; Hayes, 2018) to make an exploration (Figure 1). Specifically, we assume that the relationships between intelligence and PB, intelligence and empathy, and empathy and PB may all be moderated by mindfulness.

2. 1 Participants

Questionnaires were administrated to students who enrolled in a psychology course. They participated in order to earn extra credit. Informed consent was obtained. The participants were told that their response to questionnaire items would be used exclusively in a research project and kept confidentially. After excluding cases with invalid or incomplete responses, totally 759 undergraduate students (N _female= 477, M age = 22.03, SD = 1.63) were included in the research sample. Eight-three percent of the students are atheists, and the percentage of students born in cities, towns, and rural areas were 16.3%, 38.6%, and 56.8%, respectively. Most of them have a monthly family income of about 3500 CNY. In the treatment of human participants, this study complies with the American Psychological Association ethical standards and the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards, and was approved by the academic committee of Shandong Normal University.

2.2 Measures

2.2.1 Self-reported PB

The Self-Report Altruism Scale Distinguished by the Recipient (SRAS-DR) was developed by Oda et al. (2013). SRAS-DR consists of 21 items measuring three dimensions: altruism to kin, altruism to friends, and altruism to strangers. SRAS-DR has showed good reliability and validity in Chinese populations (Guo, et al., 2019). Example items are "I have listened to the complaints of friends or acquaintances", "I have supported family members when they are feeling down". A 5-point scale was used, with 1 indicating complete disagreement and 5 indicating complete agreement. The total score was taken, with higher scores indicating higher levels of PB. In this study, Cronbach's alpha of the whole scale was 0.96, Cronbach's alpha of three subscales were 0.91 (altruism to kin), 0.93 (altruism to friends), and 0.88 (altruism to strangers).

2.2.2 Intelligence

The Chinese version (Guo, et al., 2019) of the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM; Raven, 2008; Hur, 2020) was used to measure fluid intelligence. SPM items were divided into 5 parts (A, B, C, D, and E), with each part containing 12 items with gradually increasing difficulty. When responding to each item, participants were asked to find the correct answer from 6 or 8 options and fill it in the missing part of the geometric figure. The possible score for each item is 1 (correct) or 0 (false). The total score was used to represent the level of fluid intelligence. In this study, only the 30 difficult items (the last 6 questions in each part) were used. Cronbach's alpha was 0.89 in this study.

2.2.3 Empathy

The Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Indicator Scale (Davis, 1983) was used (C-IRI; Guo, et al., 2019). C-IRI contains 22 items, measuring four dimensions of empathy, namely perspective taking (PT), fantasy (FS), empathic concern (EC), personal distress (PD). PT measures the ability to recognize and appreciate the perspectives of others; FS measures empathic responses to characters in movies, novels, plays, and other fictional situations; EC measures other-oriented emotions (e.g., tenderness, sympathy, compassion) in response to the person in need; PD measures self-oriented negative emotional responses (e.g., anxiety, uneasiness) when witnessing other people’s distress. PT and FS reflect cognitive responses; while EC and PD reflect emotional sharing competence (Fuochi & Voci, 2020). The four components of empathy showed different function in predicting PB (Davis, 1983; Fuochi & Voci, 2020), but only the total score was used in this study for conciseness. Cronbach's alpha of the whole scale was 0.82, Cronbach's alpha of the four subscales were 0.77 (PT), 0.59 (FS), 0.66 (EC), and 0.78 (PD), respectively.

2.2.4 Trait mindfulness

Trait mindfulness was measured using the Chinese version of the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003). The scale includes 15 items, such as "When a bad mood occurs, you should not avoid it, but let it go away slowly", "I always pay attention to my physical feeling and mental state". The participants are asked to respond to each item on a 6-point scale (1 = almost never, 6 = almost always) according to their own experiences. A total score was taken, with higher scores indicating higher levels of mindfulness. In this study Cronbach's alpha was 0.77.

SPSS (version 20) was used for descriptive statistical analysis of the data, Model 4 of the PROCESS micro in SPSS was employed for mediation analysis, and Model 59 was employed for moderated mediation analysis (Hayes, 2018). Hypothetical models were tested by estimating 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for mediation and moderation effects using 5000 bootstrap samples.

3.1 Correlations between intelligence, PB, empathy, and mindfulness

Descriptive statistics and correlations of key variables are presented in Table 1. The results showed that intelligence, empathy, PB, and mindfulness are significantly and positive correlated with each other. Mindfulness and other variables are also correlated, which confirmed the positive association between mindfulness and empathy (Fuochi & Voci, 2020). But the correlation coefficients are not very large, suggesting moderation analyses can be conducted (Hayes, 2018).

Table 1

Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis (n = 759)
	M	SD	1	2	3	4
1. Intelligence	17.10	6.14	0.89
2. Empathy	72.45	11.63	0.30^**	0.82
3. PB	82.57	16.03	0.29^**	0.34^**	0.96
4. Mindfulness	56.85	7.62	0.28^**	0.21^**	0.38^**	0.69
Note: ^** p༜0.01; PB = prosocial behavior

3. 2 Mediating Effect Of Empathy And The Moderating Effect Of Mindfulness

3.2.1 Mediation analysis

Mediation analysis regarding the role of empathy is conducted (Tables 2 and 3). In Eq. 1, intelligence positively predicted PB (B = -1.05, t = 8.46, P < 0.001); in Eq. 2, intelligence positively predicted empathy (B = 0.89, t = 9.97, P < 0.001); in Eq. 3, intelligence (B = -0.76, t = 0.16, P < 0.001) and empathy (B = 0.33, t = 0.07, P < 0.001) both positively predicted PB (Table 2). As a result, the 95% Bootstrap CIs for the direct and indirect effects of intelligence on PB did not contain 0. The relationship of intelligence and PB was partially mediated by empathy with an effect of 0.069, accounting for 28.16% of the total effect (Table 3).

Table 2

Mediating effect of empathy in intelligence-PB association (n = 759)
predictors	Equation 1: PB			Equation 2: empathy			Equation 3: PB
	B	bootstrap SE	t	B	bootstrap SE	t	B	bootstrap SE	t
Intelligence	0.29	0.05	8.26^***	0.30	0.03	8.51^***	0.20	0.03	5.85^***
Empathy							0.28	0.01	7.99^***
R²	0.08			0.87			0.15
F	68.18^***			72.45^***			68.80^***
Note: ^*** p < 0.001; PB = prosocial behavior

Table 3

Bootstrap analysis of mediation effects (n = 759)
Effect type	Effect	Bootstrap SE	% of total effect	Bootstrap 95% CI lower limit upper limit
Total effect	0.29	0.05		0.19	0.38
Direct effects	0.20	0.03	71.08%	0.14	0.27
Indirect effects	0.08	0.02	28.57%	0.05	0.12

3.2.2 Moderated mediation analysis

We further tested whether the effect of intelligence on empathy and PB, and the effect of empathy on PB are moderated by mindfulness (Table 4). In Eq. 1, the product term of mindfulness and intelligence has a significance influence on empathy, indicating that mindfulness plays a moderating role in the intelligence-empathy association. In Eq. 2, the product term of empathy and mindfulness, and the product term of intelligence and mindfulness both have a significance influence on PB, indicating that mindfulness can play a moderating role in the association of empathy and PB, and the association of intelligence and PB.

Table 4

The moderating effect of mindfulness (n = 759)
Variable	Equation 1: empathy			Equation 2: PB
Variable	B	SE	t	B	SE	t
Intelligence	0.21	0.04	5.79^***	0.08	0.03	2.25^***
Empathy				0.19	0.03	5.82^***
Mindfulness	0.15	0.04	4.21^***	0.31	0.03	9.45^***
Intelligence × mindfulness	-0.17	0.03	-4.91^***	-0.20	0.03	-5.91^***
Empathy × mindfulness				-0.08	0.03	-2.70^**
R square	0.13			0.29
F	38.31^***			61.53^***
Note: ^*** p < 0.001; PB = prosocial behavior

Simple slopes analysis is conducted to elaborate the moderating effect of mindfulness. Specifically, slopes are computed and compared when mindfulness is high (1 standard deviation above the mean) and when mindfulness is low (1 standard deviation below the mean).

First, we use mindfulness as a moderator in the intelligence-PB association (Fig. 2). The results show that intelligence is positively associated with PB (B = 0.28, t = 6.32, p < 0.001) when mindfulness is low. However, when mindfulness is high the intelligence-PB association turn out to be negative (B = -0.12, t = -2.37, p < 0.001). This suggests that the intelligence-PB prosocial behavior association can be weakened by mindfulness.

Second, we use mindfulness as a moderator in the intelligence-empathy association (Fig. 3). The results show that intelligence can positively predicts empathy at lower levels of mindfulness (B = 0.38, t = 8.80, p < 0.001); when mindfulness is high, the intelligence-empathy association turn out to be insignificant (B = 0.05, t = 0.84, p > 0.05).

Third, we use mindfulness as a moderator in the empathy-PB association (Fig. 4). The results show that though empathy is positively associated with PB regardless of the mindfulness levels of the participants, the association is stronger among participants with low (B = 0.27, t = 6.34, p < 0.001) relative to high (B = 0.12, t = 2.65, p < 0.001) dispositional mindfulness. This suggests that mindfulness may reduce the link between prosocial emotions and behavior.

The above simple slopes analyses suggest that the mindfulness may prevent high intelligence individuals from generating prosocial emotions and behavior.

This study intends to confirm the relationship between intelligence and PB and the mediating role of empathy. More importantly, we introduce mindfulness as a moderator to explore how mindfulness interacts with intelligence to influence prosocial emotions and behavior.

4.1 Intelligence and PB mediated by empathy

Consistent with Hypothesis 1, we found a positive correlation between intelligence and PB. This is in line with many previous studies (e.g., Aranda & Siyaranamual, 2014; Guo et al. 2019; Hur, 2020; Millet & Dewitte, 2007) which have afforded several explanations. First, altruism may serve as a coping strategy to enhance overall fitness. Altruistic behavior signals trustworthiness, which helps the actors gain more coalition partners and potential mates (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011; Lohse & Johannes, 2016). Second, high intelligence people are more aware of the long-term benefits of PB (Guo et al. 2019). They realize that a good reputation is associated with better access to resources and can enhance overall fitness in the long run (Barclay, 2004). Therefore they are less likely to engage in unethical behavior that may damage their reputation (Abeler et al., 2014). Third, high intelligence people have more resources thus PB is relatively less costly for them. And they are more competent in regaining the sacrificed resources (Jones & Schneider, 2010). Fourth, high intelligence people are competent in perceiving and recognizing the needs of the victims and coming up with effective ways to help the victims (Jones & Schneider, 2010).

Consistent with Hypothesis 2, this study found that empathy played a mediating role in the intelligence-PB association. This shows that high-intelligence people are more sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, and are more likely to have other-centered feelings (Guo, et al., 2019). High intelligence people have stronger executive function and theory of mind abilities, therefore it easier for them to put themselves in other people's situations and lend a helping hand when witnessing others suffering.

4.3 The negative moderating effect of mindfulness

This study found that mindfulness moderates the direct pathway between intelligence and PB, but the direction is contradictory to Hypothesis 3. We found that the intelligence and PB is positive in low mindfulness condition and negatively in high mindfulness condition (Fig. 1). Recent studies suggest that mindfulness does not enhance PB in all people. For example, a study finds that for those with a dependent self-construal, experimentally induced mindfulness increases PB. However, for those with an independent self-construal, mindfulness reduced PB (Poulin et al., 2021). A possible explanation is that mindfulness facilitates people to focus attention on the present rather than the future, and thus result in reduced arousal and lower motivation to take actions (Hafenbrack et al., 2021). Mindfulness entails non-judgment and non-reactivity to inner and outer experiences, which may lead to neutral and emotionless responses to the needs of others (Schindler et al. 2019). Another explanation is that emotional regulation abilities cultivated by mindfulness practice may also undermine prosocial engagement in some situations. Negative emotions such as guilt are important drivers of PB (Hafenbrack et al., 2021). Many helpful behaviors are implemented in order to eliminate the helper’s own negative emotions, such as personal distress and guilt (Batson et al., 1991; Hafenbrack et al., 2021). Mindfulness can enhance awareness or sensitivity to moral issues (e.g., Sevinc, & Lazar, 2019; Shapiro, Jazaieri, & Goldin, 2012; Xiao, Hu, & Wang, 2020), but this may not be true in some occasions, or for all individuals.

We also found that the relationship between intelligence and empathy declines with increasing levels of mindfulness (Fig. 2). That is, the intelligence-empathy association is positively significant when mindfulness is low, and is insignificant when mindfulness is high. This is consistent with the findings that focused breathing mindfulness practice leads to reduced future focus and thus low arousal, hindering the generation of prosocial emotions (e.g., guilt; Hafenbrack, LaPalme, & Solal, 2021).

Furthermore, mindfulness significantly reduced the association between empathy and PB. Empathy can significantly predict PB both among participants with high and low dispositional mindfulness (Fig. 3), but the predictive power significantly weakened as the level of mindfulness increased. This is consistent with the findings that mindfulness attenuates behavioral responses to external cues (Papies et al., 2015). This can also be explained by the fact that mindfulness reduces the motivation to take action to change the status quo (Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018), because such actions may interfere with their peaceful and relaxed state. Mindfulness favors focused attention on the present moment and acceptance of the status quo, thereby preventing people from taking action to reach a desired state. In social situations when seeing a victim suffering the witness will automatically generate empathic responses (e.g., empathic concern, personal distress). The desired state is that the victim being get rid of trouble otherwise the witness will experience negative emotions such as guilt, remorse, and distress (Batson et al., 1991; Habashi, Graziano, & Hoover, 2016). The above reasoning suggests that some features of mindfulness (e.g., reduced future focus and acceptance of the status quo) may to some extent prevent prosocial emotions turning into PB (Hafenbrack & Vohs, 2018).

In recent years, some scholars have begun to pay attention to the limitations of mindfulness (Lambert et al., 2021). Focused breathing mindfulness does not promote psycho-social development under all conditions, and bring benefit to everyone (Poulin et al., 2021). For example, mindfulness training can lead to false memories (Meeks et al., 2019). Mindfulness reduces people's prosocial reparatory behaviors after committing an ethical transgression (Schindler et al., 2019). These limitations may be overcome when loving kindness mediation that cultivates other focused emotions is practiced (Hafenbrack, LaPalme, & Solal, 2021). Findings of this study suggest that mindfulness may reduce prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals, and it may further weaken the association between intelligence and empathy, and the association between empathy and PB. This is consistent with the findings that mindfulness may prevent the generation of prosocial emotions, and undermine the influence of prosocial emotions on PB (Hafenbrack, LaPalme, & Solal, 2021). This may be especially true for high intelligence individuals because taking actions that may interfere with the peaceful and relaxed state to change the status quo can be more costly.

Several limitations have to be addressed. First, the self-report measure (i.e., MAAS) used in this study may not be adequate in capturing Buddhist conceptions of mindfulness. MAAS mainly assesses individual difference in attention to and awareness of the present experiences, ignoring other dimensions of mindfulness (e.g., acceptance, non-judgment, non-reactivity) that influence psycho-social functioning (Baer, 2019). Second, the use of self-report measure may introduce social desirability and other response biases that can ruin relationships among research variables (Baer, 2019). Previous studies show that high mindfulness individuals tend to act in an honest, modest, and harmless way, suggesting that they make less socially desirable responding (Lakey, Kernis, Heppner, & Lance, 2008; Shapiro, Siegel, & Neff, 2018). This may be one reason why mindfulness has a negative moderating effect in the intelligence-PB association. But this problem has not been solved (e.g., by using social desirability as a statistical control) in this study. Another limitation is that there may be a ceiling effect when gathering data using a prosocial measure that comprises items having only five options (Austin, & Brunner, 2003). Furthermore, intelligence and mindfulness both contribute to prosocial emotions and behaviors, leading to the fact that the effect of one variable interfered by the other. Finally, a cross-sectional design limits the power of this study in revealing causal relationships among research variables. Future studies are encouraged to operationalize mindfulness in laboratory settings to engender more sound findings.

This study finds that intelligence is positively associated with PB via empathy, providing more evidence on role of cognitive ability in psychosocial development. This study may have revealed the limitations of mindfulness. That is, the intelligence-PB association is weakened by mindfulness, suggesting that mindfulness may deter prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals. Furthermore, the intelligence-empathy association and the empathy-PB association can also be weakened by mindfulness. The reason may be that present moment awareness and acceptance of the status quo can result in reduced arousal thereby preventing high intelligence people from taking action to reach a desired state (e.g., help a victim get rid of trouble). In other words, high intelligence individuals are more likely to reach a peaceful and relaxed state by focusing on the present moment, thus they are reluctant to take action to reach a desired state.

Acknowledgement

This study was funded mainly by the Postgraduate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Project 2019 of GuangXi Normal University (SA1900000403).

Data Availability Statements

The raw data that support the findings of this study are publicly available from the corresponding author.

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No competing interests reported.

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published 14 Mar, 2023

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Mindfulness may reduce prosocial engagement among high intelligence individuals

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Journal Publication

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Abstract

Figures

1 Introduction

2 Methods

2. 1 Participants

2.2 Measures

2.2.1 Self-reported PB

2.2.2 Intelligence

2.2.3 Empathy

2.2.4 Trait mindfulness

3 Result

3.1 Correlations between intelligence, PB, empathy, and mindfulness

3. 2 Mediating Effect Of Empathy And The Moderating Effect Of Mindfulness

3.2.1 Mediation analysis

3.2.2 Moderated mediation analysis

4 Discussion

4.1 Intelligence and PB mediated by empathy

4.3 The negative moderating effect of mindfulness

5. Limitations And Future Directions

6. Conclusion

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Status:

Journal Publication

Version 1