By the end of 2022, the number of people aged 60 years and above in China had risen to 280 million, while those aged 65 years and above had reached 210 million, accounting for 19.8 and 14.9% of the total population, respectively (1). With the aging population, mental health issues among older peoplesuch as increasing social loneliness and declining social engagement-have significant effects on their quality of life and subjective well-being. Notably, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines active aging as the ability of older people to continue to participate in social, economic, cultural, spiritual and civic affairs, and to keep continuing positively to their families, peers, communities, and the country, which is one of the crucial measures in actively responding to population aging (2). Accordingly, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies designed to integrate positive aging and healthy aging into the entire process of economic and social development, encouraging older people to actively participate in prosocial behavior to increase their quality of life and promote their well-being (3).

Prosocial behavior is defined as voluntary and intentional behaviors that benefit others, including family members, friends, or strangers (4), and it primarily encompasses helping behaviors, donating behaviors, volunteering behaviors, charitable giving behaviors, or sharing behaviors. A previous study indicates that as an innovative and effective measure for promoting public health and social harmony, helping behaviors can encourage older adults to engage in prosocial activities, thereby reducing social isolation, improving cognitive function, enhancing physical function, and decreasing the risk of dementia (5). Similarly, prosocial helping behaviors are closely associated with various outcomes in older people, including psychosocial benefits (e.g., decreased anxiety and depression, increased positive affect and psychological well-being, improved social support and social networks, etc.), physical outcomes (e.g., maintained functional independence and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), increased the amount of activity and physical function, reduced mortality, etc.), and cognitive benefits (e.g., enhanced learning and memory ability) (5, 6). A national longitudinal study in China revealed that helping behaviors was negatively associated with older adults’depression, and the limitation of IADL significantly influenced the association between helping behaviors and life satisfaction (7). Compared with non-participants, those who engage in helping behaviors report higher satisfaction of competence satisfaction, greater fulfillment of basic psychological needs, more positive self-perceptions of aging, and better overall well-being (8, 9). Eisenberg (10) reported that positive affect was positively associated with individuals’ engagement in helping behaviors. Notably, helping behaviors impacted by social differentiation and economic interdependence play a core role in social cohesion through transcending close-knit networks and in-group boundaries, especially in multiethnic countries, and they can also promote social connection and reduce social isolation, thereby contributing to the well-being of both individuals and society (11). Moreover, previous studies reported that both formal and informal helping behaviors could reduce the risk of incidents of cardiovascular disease (12); the mortality salience was positively associated with helping behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic, probably because a higher level of mortality salience prompted deeper reflection on death, which in turn led to a greater degree of helping behaviors (13). Additionally, both formal and informal helping were found to be beneficial for enhancing cognitive function among older adults, and the long-term postive impact of continuous helping behaviors on cognitive function among older adults had been confirmed, as goal-oriented helping behaviors could improve their problem-solving abilities and foster adaptive thinking (14). Neurobiological models (15) further revealed that the cognitive benefits of helping behaviors were mediated by the stimulation of downstream physiological pathways: the hypothalami–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and the immune system.

Helping behaviors are influenced by factors such as sex, age, and family and social context (16). Evidence has shown that women often exhibit stronger social preferences and greater situational specificity in helping than men, which may be related to moral cultivation (17). Compared with younger adults, older people tended to show stronger in-group preferences, which indicated that they were more willing to donate money to domestic charities than foreign charities (18). Furthermore, helping behaviors also was significantly associated with the family context, such as parental psychological control, warmth, and helping values (19, 20). Compared with individuals with high levels of parental warmth, those with low levels were 2.2 times less likely to engage in helping behaviors (20). Similarly, as one of the crucial factors, the high quality of sibling relationships positively affects on individuals’ sharing behavior, helping behavior, or comforting behavior (21). Interestingly, previous study found that gossip has also been shown to effectively promot personal resource allocation and increase cooperative opportunities through reputation concerns, especially by increasing patterns of helping interaction at the group level (22).

Additionally, the cultural context plays a crucial role in helping behaviors. Individuals within individualistic cultures (predominant in Western countries such as the United States) tend to prioritize personal goals, whereas those within collectivist cultures (predominant in Eastern countries such as China) tend to prioritize group or collective goals (23). Accordingly, the motivation of Chinese volunteers, influenced by collectivism, focused on collectivist value expression, patriotism, national pride, and identity, while volunteers in the United States, influenced by liberalism, mainly exhibited the motivation of individualistic values (24). Previous studies found that couples in China’s collectivist cultural context repoted higher collectivism scores and greater relationship satisfaction than those in Malaysia’ individualistic cultural context (25); parental collectivism goals showed a significant positive association with Chinese adolescents’ helping behaviors (26). The traditional Confucian virtues, such as benevolence, empathy, and prosociality, have profoundly influenced the words and actions of the Chinese people for thousands of years (27), and they emphasize the interconnectedness of individuals within an in-group, and make each person’s well-being depend on the whole group (28). In conclusion, Chinese collectivism not only cultivates stronger sociocultural ties—which are strongly linked to greater helping behavior—but also promotes group cohesion and social harmony (29, 30).

Additionally, previous studies have revealed that self-construal is not only linked to socioculturs orientations (individualism versus collecivism) but also has a significant association with prosocial behavior (31). Self-construal theory revealed two types of self-construal: independent self-construal, prevalent in Western countries, which highlights the autonomous and independent individual, and interdependent self-construal, prevalent in Eastern countries, which emphasizes interpersonal relationships and social connectedness (32). Singelis (33) revelaed that the collectivist cultures exhibited a significant postive association with interdependent self-construal, whereas a negative association was observed with independent self-construal. Similarly, Zhang (34) found the interdependent self-construal among Chinses young people was linked to prosocial choices focused on benefiting others; Yaban (35) showed that within a collectivist cultural context, increasing independent self-construal could effectively promote the prosocial behavior among medical students in China. The tripartite self-construal theory by Brewer (36) further extends the self-construal theory by differentiating the interdependent self-construal into relational and collective self. At the individual level, the personal self is formed through interpersonal comparison and focuses on the self-interest; at interpersonal level, the relational self mainly arises through interpersonal feedback and emphasizes interpersonal connections with significant others; and at group level, the collective self is achieved through intergroup comparison and prioritizes the collective interests (36). Thus, this extended self-construal theory offers a more comprehensive explanation for multi-level differences in self-construa and better captures its dynamic changes across cultural contexts.

In conclusion, there are few studies on the experiences of helping behaviors among older Chinese people within a collectivist culture context. Therefore, this qualitative study was designed to explore the motivations, willingness, and gains of helping behaviors among community-dwelling older adults using the tripartite model of self-construal.

This qualitative study explored in depth the motivations, willingness and perceived gains of helping behaviors among community-dwelling older adults using tripartite self-construal theory, and six categories were extracted: the individual self, the relational self, the collective self, the beyond self, perceived gains, and barriers to and facilitators of helping behaviors, which was inconsistent with the findings of Ramezani (44). The results highlighted that the intrinsic motivations of older adults’helping behaviors were benevolence and empathy, while the self-interest motivation promotes their self- improvement. However, older people exhibited distinct motivations and willingness depending on the recipients: a strong in-group preference for their family members and friends, driven by genetic factors; prioritizing collective interests for collectives or nations, driven by a sense of responsibility and obligation; and voluntarily but discreetly offering help for strangers, driven by purely altruistic motivation. Notably, although it was repeatedly emphasized that helping behaviors were selfless, older adutls still perceived some gains, including intergenerational support, peer support and positive emotions.

Community-dwelling older adults reported that the motivations of their helping behaviors were core moral qualities of benevolence and empathy. The significant role of moral values and beliefs has been confirmed, showing that individuals with a strong moral identity more are more inclined to engage in helping, donating, volunteering, charitable giving, or sharing (45). In traditional Confucian culture, benevolence is regarded as a core virtue that profound influences individuals’ morality, ethics, and behavior (46). Influenced by this traditional cultures, older adults emphasized that they were persistently instilled with values of benevolence and helpfulness by their parents since childhood. Notably, emotional empathy was identified as a strong predictor of helping behaviors; compared with younger adults, older adults exhibited higher levels of emotional empathy and greater engagement in of helping behaviors (47). Previous studies have shown that downward social comparisons can stimulate empathy, which in turn predicts increased helping behaviors (48). In this study, older adults stated that encountering individuals with disabilities or poor economic conditions evoked their compassion and emotional empathy to offer help. Additionally, this study found that the direct self-interested motivation of older people’s helping behaviors was to enhance their own abilities, rather than to seek economic returns. This results are consistent with the results of Gaber (49), which reported that participating in volunteer activities helps older people improve their communication skills, provide more opportunities for social interaction and learning, encourage self-reflection on health behaviors, and foster positive experiences. These findings indicated that through engaging in helping behaviors, older adults can not only gain emotional satisfaction and psychological comfort but also improve their social adaptability. Future research should further explore how helping behaviors influence older adults’ social networks, relationship quality, and overall longevity.

In this study, the findings revealed that community-dwelling older adults exhibited different motivations and willingness of helping behaviors depending on recipients. Driven by genetic bonds and kinship, they expressed a stronger willingness to help family members, especially their grandchildren. In addition to formal helping (e.g., donating, volunteering), it also included informal helping behaviors, such as helping a fallen older people, assisting individuals with disabilities, and engaging in housework or grandparenting (50). A systematic review by Danielsbacka (51) revealed that grandparenting could not only reduce family burdens and maintain family harmony, but also enable older people to obtain enough intergenerational support and improve their health outcomes, including improving sleep quality, reducing loneliness, and increasing social support and well-being (52, 53). Notably, influenced by reduced social networks, older people tend to withdraw from social relationships and devote themselves to family network at the core, which mainly includes housework, grandparenting tasks, and spouses support. The socioemotional selectivity theory explains that with advancing age, older adults narrow their social scope to prioritize social interaction quality, and prefer interactions with spouses, siblings, relatives, and close friends, who also become their primary targets of their helping behaviors (54). Moreover, they exhibited a stronger kin-selection orientation in their monetary and time donations, which may reflect an expectation of the reciprocity, as they also relied on and hoped to receive family support, and they also showed greater in-group favoritism, which predicted a tendency to help and cooperate with in-group members (55). Additionally, community-dwelling older people also expressed that they prioritized collective interests, viewing them as a personal responsibility and obligation. Jiao (56) reported that individuals consistently influenced by collectivist culture and values displayed more altruistic behavior and greater tolerance for unfair behavior than those influenced by individualistic culture. Yu (57) revealed that social responsibility, as a universal social attribute, stimulated people to transcend self-interest, prioritized collective or group interests, and increase their willingness to engage in helping behaviors. Therefore, policymakers should actively build communities guided by collective values and promote collectivist cultural education to strengthen older people’s sense of collective and social responsibility, thereby improving their motivation to engage in helping behaviors.

In addition, in this study, older adults also engaged in altruistic behavior-voluntarily helping others without expectation of reward, but even so, during these helping behaviors, they also perceived positive emotions and peer support. Previous studies (58, 59) have shown that prosocial behavior has a significant positive effectiveness on participants’ psychological benefits and social connectedness, especially in terms of positive affect, a postive association being observed among them. Huang (60) reported that social support is a strong positive predictor of prosocial behaviors with positive emotions mediating this relationship. These findings could be explained by that higher perceived social support foster a more positive cognition and understanding of the external environment and a more positive response to others’ needs, thereby promoting greater engagement in helping behaviors (61). However, older adults often acted with discretion toward strangers, showing caution in donating money or other helping behaviors, which probably be explained by lack of social trust and fear of being deceived. Ramezani (44) also confirmed that a lack of social trust was an important factor for older people engaging in informal spontaneous helping behaviors. Decreasing physical function and mental capacity result in a reduced ability to process complex information, to distinguish truth from falsehood, and to engage in self-protection, which make older adutls easy target for fraud and deception, especially online deception. Therefore, providing enough social support and enhancing their capacity to cope with deceptive behaviors were important for improving their social trust and promoting their motivation and willingness to engage in helping behaviors.

Notably, the results revealed that helping behaviors among community-dwelling older adults were limited mainly by their declining physical condition and heavy family care burden. Specifically, advancing age is associated with a progressive decline in physical function, including reduced muscle strength, diminished hearing and vision function, wear of bones and joints, impaired mobility and balance ability, and an increased prevalence of chronic diseases (62). Previous studies found that perceived physical vulnerability was positively associated with willingness to donate (63); regular physical exercise can enhance not only older people’s physical function (e.g., mobility, balance, and muscle strength) but also their social skills, interpersonal communication ability, and willingness to engage in social activities and helping behaviors (64). In addition, caregiver burden is significantly associated with adverse physical, psychological, emotional, social and financial outcomes, as well as reduced quality of life (65). Compared with male caregivers, older female caregivers are more likely to experience such burden, especially physical burden (66). Therefore, with the population aging, policymakers shoud pay more attention to the physical and mental health of older caregivers and establish an intelligent social support system to provide enough psychological and emotional support for them.

There study has several limitations. First, the sample was drawn from a single urban area in Chongqing, which may restrict the generalizability and transferability of the findings to other populations (e.g., rural, institutionalized, or hospitalized older adults). Second, although a risk of selection bias could been carried from purposive sampling, it could be controlled by the principle of maximum diversity across participants’ demographic characteristics, to some extent. Finally, as the quality of the semistructured interviews dependents mainly on the researcher, the results may have be impacted by several potential confounding factors.

Based on the tripartite self-construal theory, this qualitative study was designed to explore in depth the motivations, willingness and perceived gains of helping behaviors among community-dwelling older adults, and the findings provided new insights into how and why older adults engage in helping behaviors in their daily lives. The results emphasized that the intrinsic motivations of helping behaviors were mainly originated from benevolence and empathy. However, older people exhibited distinct motivations and willingness depending on the recipient: (i) For family and friends, a typical in-group preference was observed, driven by genetic and relational bonds; (ii) For collectives or the nation, helping behaviors were motivated by a sense of responsibility and obligation, and (iii) For strangers, helping was voluntarily and discreetly offered, driven by purely altruistic cognition. Notably, although the selflessness of helping behaviors was repeatedly emphasized, older adutls still perceived intergenerational support, peer support and positive emotions through these behaviors. Therefore, policymakers should formulate some policies and provide financial support to encourage older adutls to actively participate in helping behaviors, which was play crucial roles in increasing their quality of life and overall well-being.