# Threat-induced prosocial behavior: enhanced exogenous attention to protect others from harm

## TL;DR

People automatically pay more attention to protect others from harm, even when it's not required, showing that prosocial behavior can be automatic.

## Contribution

The study reveals that prosocial behavior can enhance exogenous attention automatically, similar to self-protection.

## Key findings

- Threat to others caused faster attentional responses compared to safe conditions.
- Attentional improvements were linked to arousal, indicated by pupil dilation in threat scenarios.

## Abstract

As social animals, humans tend to voluntarily engage in pro-social behavior to prevent harm to others. However, to what extent prosocial behavior can be reflected at the level of less voluntary cognitive processes remains unclear. Here, we examined how threat to others modulates exogenous attention. Fifty-four participants performed an exogenous spatial cueing task where the participant’s performance determined whether electric shocks would be delivered either to themselves or to their anonymous co-participant. Threat of shock to the co-participant elicited orienting and reorienting responses that were faster than in the safe condition and did not differ from performance when participants avoided shocks to themselves. This attentional improvement was not due to speed-accuracy trade off and was associated with arousal, i.e., increased pupil dilation in both threat conditions. Together, these findings suggest that pro-social behavior triggers automatic attentional processes which may be relevant for providing immediate help without relying on reflexive processes.