Altruistic motivation may not be unidimensional, but may drive dissociable patterns of behavior. Across two experiments, we examined the effects of social distance (as opposed to closeness) within and across group boundaries on three facets of altruistic behaviors: help-giving (altruistic rewarding), peer punishment (altruistic punishment), and moral courage (altruistic contingency conversion). Using real-life scenarios presented as vignettes, participants were asked to indicate their willingness to engage in the described behaviors in different social settings: a familiar low-distance ingroup, an unfamiliar high-distance ingroup, and a hostile outgroup. We used a pictorial self-other fusion scale (IOS) to measure perceived closeness to the described community. We hypothesized that help giving would be most sensitive and moral courage least sensitive to the manipulated variation of social distance. In both studies, results revealed no significant differences for help-giving, inconsistent results for peer punishment, and a greater willingness to display moral courage in the familiar/close ingroup context compared to the hostile outgroup context. Only when the three altruism facets were considered together across vignettes, ingroup favoritism became evident. Unfortunately, although IOS scores confirmed higher perceived closeness to the ingroup, as expected, it did not discriminate distinctly between the distant ingroup and the hostile outgroup. On the other hand, facet-specific altruistic trait scores were significantly correlated with vignette responses, supporting the notion of sufficiently valid measures. The studies contribute to our understanding of the social situatedness of altruistic behaviors, and call for the refinement of experimental and self-report measures in the study of altruistic motivation.