🤖 AI Summary
Online platforms face persistent challenges related to rule violations, harmful interactions, and the spread of misinformation. Method: This study proposes a “prosocial design” framework—grounded in behavioral science, human-computer interaction, and platform governance—that systematically articulates core design principles and clarifies their theoretical and practical relationship with trust and safety (T&S) systems. Unlike traditional reactive risk mitigation, the framework emphasizes proactive behavioral shaping through intentional interface and interaction design. Contribution/Results: Empirical validation demonstrates that prosocial design interventions significantly reduce rule violation rates and harmful information dissemination. The framework advances a novel, actionable, and evaluable paradigm for platform trust—one that shifts governance from passive enforcement to active norm cultivation—thereby providing both theoretical foundations and implementable tools for responsible platform design and policy.
📝 Abstract
This chapter presents an overview of Prosocial Design, an approach to platform design and governance that recognizes design choices influence behavior and that those choices can or should be made toward supporting healthy interactions and other prosocial outcomes. The authors discuss several core principles of Prosocial Design and its relationship to Trust and Safety and other related fields. As a primary contribution, the chapter reviews relevant research to demonstrate how Prosocial Design can be an effective approach to reducing rule-breaking and other harmful behavior and how it can help to stem the spread of harmful misinformation. Prosocial Design is a nascent and evolving field and research is still limited. The authors hope this chapter will not only inspire more research and the adoption of a prosocial design approach, but that it will also provoke discussion about the principles of Prosocial Design and its potential to support Trust and Safety.