Prosocial Behavior Reframed: How Consumer Mindsets Shape Dependency-Oriented versus Autonomy-Oriented Helping

Prosocial behaviors can be autonomy-oriented, providing recipients with the means to succeed in future situations but not supplying an immediate solution, or they can be dependency-oriented, providing an immediate solution but not supplying tools for future success. Thus far, consumer research on prosocial behavior has devoted little attention to this distinction. Distinguishing between autonomy- and dependency-oriented prosocial behaviors is important as we show that not all consumers are equally likely to engage in dependency-oriented prosocial behavior. Specifically, we show that growth mindset consumers, who believe that personality is malleable, are less likely to engage in dependency-oriented prosocial behavior compared with fixed mindset consumers, who believe that personality is relatively stable over time. We further show that this relation is mediated by consumers’ autonomous-help orientation, their beliefs about the efficacy of autonomy-oriented help. We propose that more research about dependency- versus autonomy-oriented prosocial behavior is warranted and discuss future research opportunities.