Generalization and Maintenance of Prosocial Skills: A Literature Review of Strategies and Tactics

Prosocial skills, a subset of social skills, are voluntary behaviors intended to benefit others that do not produce a direct benefit for the individual (e.g., sharing). In contrast to social skills broadly, the reinforcing properties of prosocial skills can be obscured by the immediate contingencies (e.g., sharing requires relinquishing access to preferred items). Nonetheless, the benefits of prosocial behavior underscore the need for behavior analysts to establish these skills and promote their generalization and maintenance. We conducted a scoping review of behavior analytic articles targeting prosocial skills to identify (a) how often generalization and maintenance were assessed and (b) what strategies were typically programmed. Our findings indicate that generalization and maintenance are not consistently assessed, and response generalization is evaluated less often than stimulus generalization. Program Common Stimuli and Introduce to Natural Maintaining Contingencies were the most frequently used strategies. Train and Hope was also frequently observed when programming for maintenance. Our results underscore the need for more systematic programming and evaluation of generalization and maintenance to promote durable prosocial behavior.