Who is willing to help Ukrainian refugees and why? Individual prosocial dispositions and superordinate European identity related to intergroup helping intentions

In 2022, Europe experienced unprecedented citizen mobilizations to help Ukrainian
refugees. Based on two parallel scholarship lines, we examined individual prosocial
dispositions and superordinate identities related to intentions to help Ukrainians. Employing a
French-speaking student sample in Belgium (N = 374), in Study 1 we showed that
dispositional prosociality and European identification were both positively related to
intentions to help Ukrainians. An interaction qualified these main effects, so that highly
prosocial European identifiers were particularly willing to help. With a nationwide quota
sample of the French-speaking population in Belgium (N = 371), in Study 2 we identified two
processes mediating the relationship of dispositional prosociality and European identification
with intentions to help Ukrainians. On the one hand, dispositional prosociality was positively
related to empathy towards Ukrainians, which in turn predicted participants’ helping
intentions. On the other hand, European identification was positively related to both empathy
and identity fusion with Ukrainians, which in turn predicted participants’ helping intentions.
Overall, these findings suggest that individual prosocial dispositions and superordinate
identities represent two cumulative pathways to intergroup helping. Concluding, we discuss
common and specific processes related to intentions to help Ukrainians, as compared to other
refugee groups.