ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理科学进展 ›› 2026, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (12): 2361-2374.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2026.2361 cstr: 32111.14.2026.2361

• 研究前沿 • 上一篇    

亲社会决策中的直觉竞争与审慎调节

王歆睿1, 石荣2, 刘昌1   

  1. 1南京师范大学心理学院, 南京 210097;
    2山东大学基础医学院医学心理学与伦理学系, 济南 250012
  • 收稿日期:2026-04-08 出版日期:2026-12-15 发布日期:2026-09-30
  • 通讯作者: 刘昌, E-mail: liuchang@njnu.edu.cn; 石荣(山东大学仲英青年学者, Tang Scholar), E-mail: shirong2020@sdu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家社会科学基金年度项目(23CSH047)资助

Intuitive competition and deliberative regulation in prosocial decision-making

WANG Xinrui1, SHI Rong2, LIU Chang1   

  1. 1School of Psychology, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China;
    2Department of Medical Psychology and Ethics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China
  • Received:2026-04-08 Online:2026-12-15 Published:2026-09-30

摘要: 双过程理论是理解亲社会决策认知机制的重要框架。围绕直觉和审慎加工在亲社会行为中的相对作用, 早期研究形成了不同的理论取向:反思模型认为亲社会行为依赖于审慎加工对自私直觉的抑制, 而亲社会性直觉模型则主张亲社会行为主要源于直觉加工, 审慎思考反而可能引发利己计算。尽管两个模型在结论上存在分歧, 但均隐含“单一直觉激活—审慎纠正”的基本假设。社会启发式假说通过将直觉理解为社会经验规则的内化, 为直觉的来源及其情境可变性提供了重要解释, 但难以解释决策中存在的冲突体验以及审慎加工作用方向不一致等现象。基于此, 混合模型提出决策过程中可能并行激活多种直觉反应, 行为结果首先取决于不同直觉间的相对强度竞争, 而审慎加工则作为一个多功能系统的冲突调节系统, 根据直觉冲突程度灵活发挥控制、生成、合理化与调节等作用。本文整合了社会启发式假说与混合模型, 指出前者解释了直觉的经验来源, 后者刻画了直觉的动态加工机制, 从而构建一个整合“启发式形成—多重直觉竞争—审慎调节”的认知框架。该框架将研究重心从“何种加工模式占据主导”转向“多种直觉如何被激活、竞争, 以及系统间如何动态交互”, 为整合既往矛盾发现提供了更具包容性的理论框架。

关键词: 亲社会决策, 反思模型, 亲社会性直觉模型, 社会启发式假说, 混合模型

Abstract: The dual-process framework has generated two opposing accounts of prosocial decision-making. The reflective model posits that prosocial behavior requires deliberative control to override selfish intuitions, whereas the intuitive model of prosociality proposes that prosocial tendencies are themselves intuitive, with deliberation potentially triggering self-interested calculation. Despite their opposing conclusions, both models share the implicit assumption of single-intuition activation followed by deliberative correction. The Social Heuristics Hypothesis (SHH) advanced this debate by reconceptualizing intuition as the internalization of socially adaptive rules, yet it struggles to explain decisional conflict and the inconsistent direction of deliberative effects. The Hybrid Model addresses these limitations by proposing that multiple intuitive responses can be activated in parallel, with behavior initially determined by the competition among intuitions based on their relative strength, and deliberation serving as a flexible conflict-regulation system.
This review offers three interconnected contributions. First, we construct a hierarchical cognitive framework that integrates “Heuristic Formation - Multi-Intuition Competition - Deliberative Regulation”. Unlike previous reviews that treat SHH and the Hybrid Model as separate or competing accounts, we argue that they address distinct but complementary levels of explanation. SHH (alongside its extension, the Internalized Heuristics for Self-Preservation theory) answers where intuitions come from - the source layer. The Hybrid Model answers how those intuitions operate online during a decision - the processing layer. The integration forms a complete explanatory chain: long-term social experience shapes an individual's intuition library (source), which then enters real-time competition in specific decision contexts (processing), with deliberation flexibly intervening to resolve conflict (regulation). This layered framework reconciles seemingly contradictory findings - such as why time pressure promotes cooperation in some samples but not others, or why deliberation sometimes increases and sometimes decreases prosociality - by tracing behavioral differences back to variations in individuals' intuition library structures shaped by divergent social experiences.
Second, we reconceptualize the role of deliberation. Drawing on the multifunctional account of deliberation, we characterize deliberation not as a predetermined corrector of default intuitions, but as a context-sensitive cognitive “toolkit” with four dynamically configurable functions: control (suppressing inappropriate intuitive responses), generation (constructing novel responses when intuitions are absent or conflicting), justification (providing post hoc rationales for chosen responses), and regulation (monitoring and allocating cognitive resources). Crucially, these functions are not mutually exclusive; individuals may flexibly switch between or combine them within a single decision episode depending on the intensity structure of competing intuitions. This reframing moves beyond the traditional “correction” metaphor and opens new avenues for investigating when and how deliberation contributes to prosocial behavior.
Third, we translate this integrated framework into empirically testable propositions. We outline concrete experimental designs for manipulating the relative strength of prosocial versus selfish intuitions - using social distance, personal cost, identifiable victim information, and emotion induction - paired with the two-response paradigm and process-tracing measures (mouse-tracking, eye-tracking, EEG components such as N2 and P3). We further propose that the internalization of intuitions is itself plastic: brief positive or negative social interactions can update the baseline strength of cooperation versus defection heuristics, and cross-cultural variation in moral foundation network shapes which intuitions are preferentially activated. These propositions move the literature beyond post-hoc explanations toward falsifiable predictions.
In applied terms, the framework suggests a dual-pathway intervention strategy. At the immediate level, choice architecture can temporarily boost specific prosocial intuitions (e.g., highlighting victim faces to activate empathy, or using descriptive norms to trigger conformity). At the structural level, policy, education, and cultural narratives can create environments that consistently reward cooperative behaviors, gradually strengthening the baseline advantage of prosocial intuitions in future competition. Together, these pathways offer a mechanism-based approach to promoting prosocial behavior that complements existing training-focused interventions.
In sum, this review does not merely add another model to the prosocial decision-making literature; it offers a principled way to integrate the origins, online competition, and dynamic regulation of intuitions within a single framework. By shifting the research focus from “which processing mode dominates” to “how multiple intuitions are activated, compete, and interact with deliberation,” thus offering a more inclusive theoretical architecture for reconciling previously inconsistent findings and for guiding future empirical work on the cognitive mechanisms of prosocial behavior.

Key words: prosocial decision-making, reflective model, intuitive model of prosociality, social heuristics hypothesis, hybrid model