A Prosocial Purpose Intervention Unleashes the Learning Potential of Hungarian First-Generation Learners

Prior research shows that giving U.S. students an opportunity to reflect on their prosocial purposes for learning can motivate them to persist on challenging but tedious learning tasks and, in turn, improve academic performance. This “prosocial purpose” intervention was designed to be robust for diverse people and communities, including by letting people consider various purposes they might have that could motivate schoolwork. But it has not been tested broadly. Here, we test this intervention among university students in Hungary (N=296). In this Eastern European country, people focus mainly on close relationships, not broader societal goals. The intervention caused significant academic benefits, particularly for first-generation college students: it raised grades among these students in the semester of the intervention relative to the active randomized control condition, and students sustained this level of performance through the next two semesters. The results suggest that the potential of the prosocial purpose intervention can resonate with interdependent values rooted in families and communities beyond U.S. cultural contexts and enhance academic outcomes for underprivileged students.