Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prosocial behavior


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   no consensus. Has been substantially edited since nomination. Stubbing and/or rewriting to improve the article remains always possible.  Sandstein  05:36, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Prosocial behavior

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There's certainly a topic here, as can be seen through book and journal searches, but the article is such a mess of original research that it would be better to blow it up - there's pretty much nothing here that belongs in an encyclopedia article on prosocial behavior, and "replace all the content" is not substantially different from "delete and start over." It would also be helpful to decide whether or not a separate article should (eventually) exist or whether it should just be a redirect to Altruism. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 17:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree that, at very least, the article here is pretty weak. There may be some value in merging to altruism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.91.76.222 (talk) 18:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 20:52, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete This is a good school essay, but not really encyclopedia material. An article on the topic might be possible, it's not exactly the same as altruism. Borock (talk) 21:42, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions.  — Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 00:17, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep, either prune or rewrite. Notable topic of a Cambridge U. Press book, with an "extensive literature" according to this journal article. WP:GNG Needs a more scholarly but readable tone-- PsychWiki.com Prosocial Behavior Article is a little too academic. References were not adequate (popular examples), so I've added appropriate refs to the "Further reading" and "External links" section. Started trimming, asked for help at WP Psychology, Sociology, and Education. Prune back to a stub, with references, if immediate rewrite isn't possible. Trilliumz (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: This article has been nominated for rescue. Trilliumz (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete "Pro-social behaviour" is virtually synonymous with "altruism". Altruism is in pretty good shape. Nothing that can be said here can't be said at Altruism. We don't have two articles for the same topic . --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Allegedly, altruism is not motivated by reciprocity. Pro-social behavior may have reciprocity as a motivation. The idea behind promoting pro-social traits in children isn't cultivating selflessness so much as simply having them get along in groups, and not grow up to be mean, nasty, or criminal (i.e., exhibit "antisocial" behavior). US Health and Human Services does not use "altruism" as a keyword for encouraging desirable social traits in children, they say "prosocial behavior"-- most likely because we just need acceptable behaviors from kids, regardless of selfish or altruistic motivation. It appears the point behind making a distinction between "prosocial behavior" and "altruism" is something on the order of "We want you to be the kind of person who does the right thing for others, even if you're not altruistic at all and only do it because you want something back." Trilliumz (talk) 01:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow. Nicely put. I was becoming vaguely aware of the distinction, hence "virtually", but you've clarified it beautifully. Replacing the existing content with a few sentences saying what you just said would justify keeping this, I think. I'm reading de Waal, Frans (2009) Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved just now, which makes the distinction but I don't think it's an appropriate source for this ... more philosophical ramble than rigorous social science.


 * I cringed at the first line:"Prosocial behavior is caring about the welfare and rights of others, feeling concern and empathy for them, and acting in ways that benefit others."A behaviour is not a feeling and, anyway, it contradicts you and de Wall. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:41, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said in my nomination, I certainly don't discount the possibility of a separate article existing, and my confusion over whether it is or is not the same as altruism is my own uncertainty, not a statement that they should definitely be only one article. I just think the article is currently bad enough that there's nothing worth saving and it should be blown up and re-written from scratch - the material is available. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 19:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Trilliumz has made it worth keeping. Thank you. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Until someone actually reads the books from further reading, and writes the article based on those instead of basing it on Wiktionary. Fails WP:RS. FuFoFuEd (talk) 01:47, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, didn't know Wiktionary was unacceptable when I added it; replaced it. That's one book and the rest are articles-- aren't articles acceptable sources? Other books are available, but may take a day to get them. Why not add your RS and improve this? Trilliumz (talk) 12:13, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, do not merge to altruism. There can be several causes for prosocial behavior, altruism is only one of them. See a WP:RS . FuFoFuEd (talk) 02:02, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Very surprised to be reading this. But it appears that a deletionist has suggested it, wasting a lot of people's time that could be devoted to writing better text... lets' just all get on with that job. Tim bates (talk) 20:05, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the last comment entirely. This is an important topic in psychology, and it should not be too difficult to improve it with citations - such as the book by Daniel Bar-Tal on this subject. So, I would be in favour of keeping this article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:23, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep and fix. Poor quality articles get edited, not removed. As a hint, it is possible to delete most or even all the content and replace it without actually deleting the article. The effect of deletion is to make the history invisible, which we would certainly do if it were actually harmful, but otherwise we don't use deletion to make errors invisible, or we'd be deleting 90% of the revisions in Wikipedia.    DGG ( talk ) 20:07, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.