Feeling Good, Doing Good, and Getting Ahead: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Outcomes of Prosocial Motivation at Work

Public Significance Statement This meta-analysis suggests that prosocially motivated individuals overall experience greater well-being at work, engage in more prosocial work behaviors, achieve higher job performance, and acquire more career advancements. These positive effects, varying from small to moderate, are the most pronounced in certain contexts. Prosocial motivation also has incremental validity over and above other important individual differences constructs-underscoring the importance of having a desire to benefit others in the workplace. In recent years, a rapidly growing literature has shed light on important costs and benefits of prosocial motivation in the workplace. However, researchers have studied prosocial motivation using various labels, conceptualizations, and operationalizations, leaving this body of knowledge fragmented. In this study, we contribute to the literature by providing an integrated framework that organizes extant constructs and measures of prosocial motives along two dimensions: level of autonomy (discretionary/obligatory) and level of generality (global/contextual/positional). Drawing upon this framework, we conducted a meta-analysis with 252 samples and 666 effect sizes to examine the effects of prosocial motivation on workplace outcomes. Moderator analyses were performed to resolve inconsistencies in the empirical literature and understand the context under which prosocial motivation had the strongest or weakest effect. We found that prosocial motivation, in general, was beneficial for employee well-being ( rho over bar <^> = .23), prosocial behavior ( rho over bar <^> = .35), job performance ( rho over bar <^> = .20), and career success ( rho over bar <^> = .06). The direction and magnitude of these effects depended on the autonomy, generality, and measurement of prosocial motivation, the nature of the outcome (i.e., type of prosocial behavior, subjectivity of performance measures, and forms of career success), as well as the cultural context. Importantly, prosocial motivation had incremental validity above and beyond general cognitive ability and Big Five personality traits for predicting all four outcomes. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings and offer a guiding framework for future research efforts.