Honesty-humility predicts humanitarian prosocial behavior via social connectedness: A parallel mediation examining connectedness to community, nation, humanity, and nature

Abundant psychological research demonstrates bivariate relationships between individual prosocial propensity, intrinsic connectedness to various social domains, and the enactment of prosocial behavior. More recently, "connectedness" has been positioned as a necessary domain-specific motivator for enacting prosocial propensity in relevant domains of concern. Our study offers novel contributions to this theory by examining the role of connectedness in driving prosocial behavior within a humanitarian domain in which behavior is enacted in the interest of the global community. Additionally, our research uniquely considers connectedness to multiple social domains concurrently, in order to disentangle any covariance that may be impacting research findings. A parallel mediation model with four mediators (connectedness to community, nation, humanity, and nature) was applied to better understand the effect of prosocial propensity (honesty-humility) on humanitarian prosocial behavior. The cross-sectional survey was completed by 715 Australian adults, and support was found for mediation via each of the mediators. Specifically, connectedness to community, to humanity, and to nature each positively affected the relationship between prosocial propensity and prosocial behavior, with the largest effect via connectedness to humanity. Contrastingly, connectedness to nation negatively mediated this relationship, despite being positively correlated with these constructs. These findings highlight the individual difference underpinnings of humanitarian prosocial behaviors and the role of connection to relevant domains in behavior actualization. Fostering connectedness to humanity remains desirable to promote global prosocial outcomes, with future research needed on the interplay between these related levels of connectedness and between connectedness to one's nation and global humanitarian engagement.

Personality traits that associate with sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals

INTRODUCTION

There is relatively little research on the association between personality traits and sustainable behaviors. So, this research was designed to differentiate associations between the six personality traits and sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals.

METHODS

A total of 1420 residents in a community of Nanjing participated in this survey. With the help of HEXACO-60 and SBPI-9, participants' personality traits and the performance of sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals were measured. Subsequently, assisted by regression analysis, the quantitive relationship between HEXACO and sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals was explored.

RESULTS

Honesty-humility (H-H), extraversion (X), consciousness (C), and openness to experience (O) are positively associated with sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals, whereas emotionality (E) and agreeableness (A) are negatively associated with it.

CONCLUSIONS

HEXACO have a significant association with sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals. Additionally, H-H, E, X, A, C, and O could explain 44.2% of changes in sustainable behaviors perceived by individuals.

Childhood Environmental Unpredictability and Prosocial Behavior in Adults: The Effect of Life-History Strategy and Dark Personalities

Purpose

Childhood environments have an impact on an individuals’ behavior and cognition. We explored the relationship and possible mechanisms between childhood environmental unpredictability (CEU) and prosocial behavior (PSB) in adults.

Participants and Methods

We recruited Chinese college students (N = 1035) and adopted a questionnaire survey and structural equation modeling.

Results

The results showed that CEU negatively predicted PSB in adults. Life-history strategy and dark personality chains mediated this relationship. Higher CEU facilitated faster development of life-history strategies in individuals, and dark personalities, via fast life-history strategies, further influenced PSB in adults. The mediating pathways of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and sadism were significant, while psychopathy was not. Women were more prosocial than men, and there was no sex difference in the influence mechanism of CEU on PSB.

Conclusion

This study has practical significance as it emphasizes the importance of shaping a stable childhood environment and that individuals’ prosociality can be improved by intervening in the mediation.

Altruism and the Dark Triad

BACKGROUND

The Dark Triad literature examining pro-social behaviours is minimal, with mixed results.

PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE

This study investigates the relationships between the Dark Triad and altruistic behaviours based on self-report data from 286 adults. Altruism was assessed using two scales: a general measure as well as a more recent scale measuring compassionate altruism towards family, friends, and strangers.

RESULTS

Machiavellianism negatively correlated with general altruism; however, when controlling for the other dark variables plus age and gender in a regression, narcissism was the only Dark Triad trait that significantly predicted altruism. None of the Dark Triad traits were significantly related to or predictive of compassionate altruism.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that the Dark Triad and altruism relationships are not straightforward, and that, surprisingly, strong negative relationships between the traits and altruism are not found. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.