Global challenges necessitate cooperation beyond national borders. Prosociality—the tendency to share with and value the outcomes of others—can help achieve this objective. While it is well-established that people favor their own compatriots, people also display substantial prosociality toward individuals from other nations, though not all foreigners are treated equally.
Vanessa Clemens and colleagues invited 6,182 participants from 25 nations to take part in a sharing game with individuals from each of the participating nations. Each person received 150 “Talers” — a made-up currency — and chose between different ways of sharing the Talers between themselves and another person from a specific nation. For each participant, one decision was randomly selected to be paid out in local currency, so the stakes were real. Almost 90% of people shared more with people from their own country rather than with people from other countries. People also shared more with those from culturally similar nations than from less culturally similar nations. People shared less than average with people from nations with which their own country had a present or past national conflict. People from countries with stable institutions shared more than average. People from wealthy nations shared more with individuals from less wealthy nations than average, possibly reflecting a desire to decrease inequality between nations. Overall, people were most likely to be generous toward people from Ghana and Kenya and least likely to give lots of Talers to people from the United Sates or China. According to the authors, cross-national prosociality may have broad implications for geopolitical relations and provide insights for those aiming to increase international cooperation.
The data can be explored at https://dlc-studies.uni-koeln.de/research/cross-national-social-preferences/ .
PNAS Nexus
Beyond ingroup favoritism: Investigating cross-national social preferences across 25 nations
25-Nov-2025