Pro-social behaviour: acts which help others Cross-cultural differences: variations in patterns of helping behaviour in different cultures
Individualistic societies are less helpful than collectivist societies because people in individualistic societies are taught to be responsible for themselves and immediate family only whereas there is obligation to the community in collectivist societies. Also commonality is celebrated in collectivist and theories such as social identity theory (Tajfel) suggest people are favourable to their ingroup and collectivist cultures promote large ingroups.
From Madsen’s 2007 study, we know that cross-cultural pro-social behaviour is not consistent because people from individualistic cultures are likely to help close family members the most and people from collectivist cultures help close and distant family members almost equally. This is because collectivist cultures feel part of a group and want to help the community. Individualistic societies live in nuclear families and collectivist live in extended families which impacts our behaviour.