Social ecology of concealing prosocial behaviours: The role of relational mobility

Individuals who have done good deeds sometimes try to conceal them. However, it has been understudied what factors shape individuals' concealment of prosociality. We address this question by adopting a socio-ecological perspective to investigate what societal factors may facilitate or hinder concealment of prosociality. We hypothesize that lower relational mobility, or less freedom of relational choice in society, will be associated with less positive and more negative expected reputations when one's prosociality is publicized, which, in turn, will predict a higher tendency among individuals to conceal prosociality. Across a cross-sectional survey (Study 1) and an experiment (Study 2) (N = 531), although the total effect of relational mobility was not significant, mediation analyses consistently showed that lower relational mobility was associated with a more negative expected reputation and, in turn, a higher likelihood of concealing prosociality. These findings underscore the significant role of social ecology in shaping individuals' decisions to actively hide their prosocial acts via the expected cost of its publicity, offering insights into the complexities of reputation management and human behaviour.