WELCOME
PROSOCIAL is a practical method for helping people work together in groups and for groups to work together to create cooperative multi-group ecosystems. PROSOCIAL represents a fusion of scientific disciplines, including evolutionary theory, economics and political science, and the applied behavioral sciences. We have boiled these down to a set of core design principles that can be applied at all social scales to improve efficacy and wellbeing.
HOW DOES PROSOCIAL WORK?
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PROSOCIAL takes groups through three steps.
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1. Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT)
This step helps group members strengthen their identity as a group, clarify their common purpose, and become more flexible in overcoming obstacles to reach their valued goals.
​2. The Core Design Principles. This step introduces group members to the Nobel prize-winning work of Elinor Ostrom, which provides a functional blueprint for any group to coordinate its activities, avoid disruptive behaviors from within, and to cultivate collaborative relationships with other groups.
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3. Short-Term Measurable Goals. This step helps group members formulate and carry out short-term goals that take them in the direction of their long-term goals.
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PROSOCIAL groups learn to take these steps recurrently as part of their culture and are encouraged to join a growing family of other groups that share best practices and work together to create multi-group PROSOCIAL ecosystems.
ANY GROUP, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
A practical method suitable for any group might seem too good to be true, but PROSOCIAL rests upon a solid scientific foundation and is proving its worth in the diverse groups that are starting to become involved, including businesses, government agencies, nonprofits, schools, churches, neighborhoods, and rural villages. This video reports on an application in the African nation of Sierra Leone, where PROSOCIAL was used to combat the ebola epidemic. Please visit PROSOCIAL Magazine for other examples.
ORGANIZATION AND SUPPORT
PROSOCIAL has been developed under the auspices of the Evolution Institute, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to understanding and improving the human condition from an evolutionary perspective. Eventually, PROSOCIAL will become its own nonprofit organization that maintains a collaborative relationship with the Evolution Institute. Our plan is to develop an Internet platform and social network that can accommodate an unlimited number of groups and their facilitators worldwide.
Once established, we expect PROSOCIAL to be well supported from a variety of sources, including:
• Groups in a position to pay for the service (e.g., businesses).
• Individuals receiving training to become PROSOCIAL facilitators.
• Private foundations and State, Federal, and International Agencies representing diverse sectors.
• Individual donors who see PROSOCIAL as the most effective way to make a positive difference in the world.
Donations from individuals and private foundations are especially important at this stage of our development, as we develop our Internet platform and otherwise develop an infrastructure that enables us to work with a large number of groups. To make a donation, contact us here.
ORIGINS
PROSOCIAL began as a collaboration among scientists who wanted to use their knowledge to increase prosociality in the real world. They included David Sloan Wilson, an evolutionary biologist, Elinor Ostrom, a political scientist who received the Nobel prize in economics in 2009, and Steven C. Hayes, a clinical psychologist and founder of Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT). Their collaboration brought very different branches of scientific knowledge together in a way that can help any group improve its efficacy and wellbeing of its members, such as a business, a neighborhood, a school, a government agency, a church, or a volunteer organization.
