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Popov N, Thielmann I. The core tendencies underlying prosocial behavior: Testing a person-situation framework. J Pers 2024. [PMID: 38952280 DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12957] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2023] [Revised: 05/15/2024] [Accepted: 06/03/2024] [Indexed: 07/03/2024]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND According to a recently proposed theoretical framework, different personality traits should explain pro-social behavior in different situations. We empirically tested the key proposition of this framework that each of four "core tendencies" (i.e., the shared variance of related traits) specifically predicts pro-social behavior in the presence of a different situational affordance. METHODS We used a large-scale dataset (N = 2479) including measures of various personality traits and six incentivized economic games assessing pro-social behavior in different social situations. Using bifactor modeling, we extracted four latent core tendencies and tested their predictive validity for pro-social behavior. RESULTS We found mixed support for the theoretically derived, preregistered hypotheses. The core tendency of beliefs about others' pro-sociality predicted pro-social behavior in both games involving dependence under uncertainty, as expected. Unconditional concern for others' welfare predicted pro-social behavior in only one of two games providing a possibility for exploitation. For conditional concern for others' welfare and self-regulation, in turn, evidence relating them to pro-social behavior in the presence of a possibility for reciprocity and temporal conflict was relatively weak. CONCLUSION Different features of social situations may activate different personality traits to influence pro-social behavior, but more research is needed to fully understand these person-situation interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalie Popov
- Department of Criminology, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Isabel Thielmann
- Department of Criminology, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg, Germany
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Hilbig BE, Thielmann I, Zettler I, Moshagen M. The Dispositional Essence of Proactive Social Preferences: The Dark Core of Personality vis-à-vis 58 Traits. Psychol Sci 2023; 34:201-220. [PMID: 36442081 DOI: 10.1177/09567976221116893] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Individuals differ in how they weigh their own utility versus others'. This tendency codefines the dark factor of personality (D), which is conceptualized as the underlying disposition from which all socially and ethically aversive (dark) traits arise as specific, flavored manifestations. We scrutinize this unique theoretical notion by testing, for a broad set of 58 different traits and related constructs, whether any predict how individuals weigh their own versus others' utility in proactive allocation decisions (i.e., social value orientations) beyond D. These traits and constructs range from broad dimensions (e.g., agreeableness), to aversive traits (e.g., sadism) and beliefs (e.g., normlessness), to prosocial tendencies (e.g., compassion). In a large-scale longitudinal study involving the assessment of consequential choices (median N = 2,270; a heterogeneous adult community sample from Germany), results from several hundred latent model comparisons revealed that no meaningful incremental variance was explained beyond D. Thus, D alone is sufficient to represent the social preferences inherent in socially and ethically aversive personality traits.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Isabel Thielmann
- Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Ingo Zettler
- Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen.,Copenhagen Personality and Social Psychology (CoPSY) Research Group, and Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS)
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Who incurs a cost for their group and when? The effects of dispositional and situational factors regarding equality in the volunteer's dilemma. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111236] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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Haesevoets T, Reinders Folmer C, Van Hiel A. Improving the measurement of prosociality through aggregation of game behavior. Curr Opin Psychol 2021; 44:237-244. [PMID: 34749241 DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.09.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2021] [Revised: 09/20/2021] [Accepted: 09/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Prior research has found that people's choices in economic games are often only modestly related to their prosocial personality traits and to mundane prosocial behaviors. The present article reviews the recent literature showing that the strength of these relationships depends on the level of aggregation. Specifically, we demonstrate an increase in behavioral consistency after horizontal aggregation (across multiple game types), vertical aggregation (across multiple game variants), and a combination thereof. Moreover, we show that aggregation increases the magnitude of the relationships of game behavior with prosocial personality and mundane prosocial behavior. These findings illustrate that economic games can genuinely capture a core facet of human prosociality - but that their capacity for doing so is greater when multiple game behaviors are considered.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tessa Haesevoets
- Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium.
| | | | - Alain Van Hiel
- Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium
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van Baar JM, Klaassen FH, Ricci F, Chang LJ, Sanfey AG. Stable distribution of reciprocity motives in a population. Sci Rep 2020; 10:18164. [PMID: 33097738 PMCID: PMC7584663 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-74818-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2020] [Accepted: 10/05/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Evolutionary models show that human cooperation can arise through direct reciprocity relationships. However, it remains unclear which psychological mechanisms proximally motivate individuals to reciprocate. Recent evidence suggests that the psychological motives for choosing to reciprocate trust differ between individuals, which raises the question whether these differences have a stable distribution in a population or are rather an artifact of the experimental task. Here, we combine data from three independent trust game studies to find that the relative prevalence of different reciprocity motives is highly stable across participant samples. Furthermore, the distribution of motives is relatively unaffected by changes to the salient features of the experimental paradigm. Finally, the motive classification assigned by our computational modeling analysis corresponds to the participants' own subjective experience of their psychological decision process, and no existing models of social preference can account for the observed individual differences in reciprocity motives. These findings support the view that reciprocal decision-making is not just regulated by individual differences in 'pro-social' versus 'pro-self' tendencies, but also by trait-like differences across several alternative pro-social motives, whose distribution in a population is stable.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeroen M van Baar
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Felix H Klaassen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Filippo Ricci
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Luke J Chang
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
| | - Alan G Sanfey
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Behavioral Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Rau R, Thielmann I, Breil SM, Geukes K, Krause S, Nikoleizig L, Back MD, Nestler S. Do Perceiver Effects in Interpersonal Perception Predict Cooperation in Social Dilemmas? COLLABRA: PSYCHOLOGY 2020. [DOI: 10.1525/collabra.332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
People’s general tendencies to view others as cold-hearted and manipulative (rather than affectionate and trustworthy) may explain defection in social dilemma situations. To capture idiosyncratic tendencies in other-perceptions, we collected mutual judgments in groups of unacquainted individuals in two studies (N1 = 83, N2 = 413) and extracted perceiver effect scores using the Social Relations Model. In both studies, participants later played a public goods game. In Study 1, perceiver effects predicted cooperation beyond self-reported and group-related control variables. However, results were not replicated in a preregistered second study with higher power and a more diverse sample. We discuss implicit group norms as a likely explanation for the inconsistent findings and suggest future directions for addressing generalized expectations in social dilemmas.
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Sun B, Xiao W, Feng X, Shao Y, Zhang W, Li W. Behavioral and brain synchronization differences between expert and novice teachers when collaborating with students. Brain Cogn 2019; 139:105513. [PMID: 31887711 DOI: 10.1016/j.bandc.2019.105513] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2019] [Revised: 12/16/2019] [Accepted: 12/18/2019] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Differences in behavior and neural mechanisms between expert and novice teachers when collaborating with students are poorly understood. This study investigated whether expert teachers do better in collaborating with students than novice teachers and explored the neural basis of such differences. Novice teacher and student (NT-S) dyads and expert teacher and student (ET-S) dyads were recruited to complete an interactive task consisting of a cooperation and an independent condition. During the experiment, neural activity in the prefrontal cortex of the participants was recorded with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results show higher accuracy for the ET-S dyads than the NT-S dyads in the cooperation condition; however, no difference was found in the independent condition. Increased interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) was detected in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of participants in ET-S dyads, but not in NT-S dyads in the cooperation condition. Moreover, an interaction effect of dyad type and conditions on IBS was observed, revealing IBS was stronger in ET-S dyads than in NT-S dyads. In ET-S dyads, IBS was positively correlated with the teachers' perspective-taking ability and accuracy. These findings suggest that expert teachers collaborate better with students than novice teachers, and IBS might be the neural marker for this difference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Binghai Sun
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China
| | - Weilong Xiao
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China
| | - Xiaodan Feng
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China
| | - Yuting Shao
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China
| | - Wenhai Zhang
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China.
| | - Weijian Li
- School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China; Research Center of Tin Ka Ping Moral Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China.
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An exploration of the motivational basis of take-some and give-some games. JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING 2019. [DOI: 10.1017/s1930297500004836] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
AbstractSurprisingly little research has investigated the particular motives that underlie choice behavior in social dilemma situations. The main aim of the present research was to ask whether behavior in take-some games (such as the multiple-person Commons Dilemma Game and the two-person Bandit Game) and give-some games (such as the multiple-person Public Goods Dilemma Game and the two-person Dictator Game) is differently affected by proself and prosocial motives. Two experimental studies were conducted. Our first experiment used a trait-based assessment of the motives, whereas in our second experiment the motives were measured as state variables. The results of both experiments revealed that proself and prosocial motives did not explain much difference between taking and giving when comparing the Commons Dilemma Game and the Public Goods Dilemma Game. Yet, our second experiment revealed that these motives did differentiate choices in the Bandit Game and the Dictator Game. More specifically, prosocial motives are more strongly related to giving behavior in the Dictator Game than to taking behavior in the Bandit Game. As such, it can be concluded that in dyadic games (but not in multiple-person games) prosocial motives (but not proself motives) predict choice behavior in a game-specific way.
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