The “Bright Side” of Identity Fusion: Promoting Intentions to Engage in Intergroup Prosocial Behavior

In increasingly diverse societies, intergroup prosocial behavior is crucial for improving intergroup relations and facilitating cross-group cooperation. Guided by the Fusion–Secure Base Hypothesis, the present research uses the North–South cultural divide in China as a meaningful intergroup boundary and examines whether identity fusion among Southern Chinese young adults is associated with intergroup prosocial behavior and through which psychological pathways. Study 1 employed a cross-sectional survey (N = 609) and showed that identity fusion was positively associated with intergroup prosocial behavior; group efficacy and empathy displayed parallel indirect effects linking identity fusion to intergroup prosocial behavior. Study 2 used a one-factor, three-level between-subjects experiment (N = 72) in which participants completed a Southern regional social self-reflection task, a personal self-reflection task, or a control task describing the laboratory setting. Results indicated that both activation groups reported higher intergroup prosocial intention than the control group, whereas the difference between the two activation groups was not significant. Exploratory mediation analyses suggested that group efficacy showed relatively more consistent preliminary evidence than empathy. Overall, the findings offer preliminary evidence that identity fusion is associated with intergroup prosocial behavior, while also suggesting that the underlying psychological pathways require further investigation.