Our research examines the association between perceived physical vulnerability and prosocial behavior. Studies 1 to 4 establish a positive association between individuals’ vulnerability and their prosociality. To increase generality, these studies looked at different behaviors (volunteering vs. monetary donations), various physical harms (e.g., war vs. illness), and different samples (students vs. MTurk workers). Study 4 also provides initial evidence of a partial mediating effect of closeness on the observed association. In Study 5, perceived vulnerability is experimentally manipulated, demonstrating a causal link between vulnerability and willingness to donate. Study 6 further demonstrates that closeness partially mediates the association between vulnerability and donation, while ruling out an alternative explanation of the effect—such as that vulnerable people donate in expectation of future reciprocity. Together, our research demonstrates a consistent positive association between perceived physical vulnerability and prosociality. This effect appears small when considering daily threats and stronger when vulnerability becomes more salient.

我们的研究考察了感知到的身体脆弱性与亲社会行为之间的关联。研究 1 至 4 建立了个体的脆弱性与其亲社会性之间的正相关。为了增加普遍性，这些研究着眼于不同的行为（志愿服务与金钱捐赠）、各种身体伤害（例如，战争与疾病）和不同的样本（学生与 MTurk 工人）。研究 4 还提供了亲密度对观察到的关联的部分中介作用的初步证据。在研究 5 中，感知到的脆弱性是通过实验操纵的，证明了脆弱性和捐赠意愿之间存在因果关系。研究 6 进一步表明，亲密度在一定程度上调节了脆弱性和捐赠之间的关联，同时排除了对这种影响的另一种解释——例如弱势群体捐赠以期待未来的互惠。总之，我们的研究表明感知的身体脆弱性和亲社会性之间存在一致的正相关关系。这种影响在考虑日常威胁时显得很小，而当脆弱性变得更加突出时，这种影响会更大。