Light in Darkness: Low Self-Control Promotes Altruism in Crises.

People struggle regularly with the selfish impulse to maximize personal benefits and the prosocial impulse to care for others. However, little is known about how people naturally react in crises. We propose that people with lowered state self-control are more inclined to help in crisis situations. Four studies showed that individuals with lower self-control (both measured and manipulated) were more likely to help, share, and volunteer in high-crisis scenarios (Studies 1, 2, and 3b) and in an earthquake simulation (Study 4). The results were not merely a semantic priming effect of crisis descriptions (Study 3a). This research suggests that people naturally have different altruistic tendencies when faced with a crisis versus everyday situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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