Methods for identifying cognitive patterns of prosocial behavior

Chernov Alexander

Prosocial behavior is rarely studied in terms of the content and structure of a person's cognitive organization. Therefore, the article proposes a tool for identifying cognitive patterns of prosocial behavior. It was assumed that cognitive schemas contain various aspects of the experience of a person's prosocial activity. They concentrate knowledge, strategy and decision-making rules in pro-social situations, expectations about potential consequences, about the differentiation of areas, points of view, time parameters that are individual for a person. The aim of the study was to develop, validate and standardize an original technique for diagnosing the severity of cognitive patterns of prosocial behavior. The study sample consisted of 200 people (50% of men, 50% of women aged 18 to 57). In the process of constructing the methodology, the retest reliability, obvious and meaningful validity were checked, which allows us to consider it a tool that adequately establishes individual differences in the severity of cognitive schemes of prosocial behavior. The developed methodology describes four factors corresponding to differentiated cognitive schemes of prosocial behavior: normative-situational scheme, dispositional scheme, affective-altruistic scheme, affective-normative scheme.

Keywords:prosocial behavior, cognitive schemes, normative-situational scheme, dispositional scheme, affective-altruistic scheme, affective-normative scheme.