Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games
Recent research has highlighted the role of prosocial personality traits—agreeableness and honesty-humility—in egalitarian distributions of wealth in the dictator game. Expanding on these findings, we ran two studies to examine individual differences in two other forms of prosociality—generosity and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2016-08-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
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| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01137/full |
| _version_ | 1819180221666951168 |
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| author | Kun Zhao Eamonn Ferguson Luke D Smillie |
| author_facet | Kun Zhao Eamonn Ferguson Luke D Smillie |
| author_sort | Kun Zhao |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recent research has highlighted the role of prosocial personality traits—agreeableness and honesty-humility—in egalitarian distributions of wealth in the dictator game. Expanding on these findings, we ran two studies to examine individual differences in two other forms of prosociality—generosity and reciprocity—with respect to two major models of personality, the Big Five and the HEXACO. Participants (combined N = 560) completed a series of economic games in which allocations in the dictator game were compared with those in the generosity game, a non-constant-sum wealth distribution task where proposers with fixed payoffs selected the size of their partner’s payoff (generosity). We further examined positive and negative reciprocity by manipulating a partner’s previous move (reciprocity). Results showed clear evidence of both generosity and positive reciprocity in social preferences, with allocations to a partner greater in the generosity game than in the dictator game, and greater still when a player had been previously assisted by their partner. There was also a consistent interaction with gender, whereby men were more generous when this was costless and women were more egalitarian overall. Furthermore, these distinct forms of prosociality were differentially predicted by personality traits, in line with the core features of these traits and the theoretical distinctions between them. HEXACO honesty-humility predicted dictator, but not generosity allocations, while traits capturing tendencies towards irritability and anger predicted lower generosity, but not dictator allocations. In contrast, the politeness—but not compassion—aspect of Big Five agreeableness was uniquely and broadly associated with prosociality across all games. These findings support the discriminant validity between related prosocial constructs, and have important implications for understanding the motives and mechanisms taking place within economic games. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T22:10:54Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9c9e0c7cc7bb47d0b3277f51dc25aa8d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T22:10:54Z |
| publishDate | 2016-08-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-9c9e0c7cc7bb47d0b3277f51dc25aa8d2022-12-21T18:10:53ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782016-08-01710.3389/fpsyg.2016.01137211746Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic GamesKun Zhao0Eamonn Ferguson1Luke D Smillie2The University of MelbourneUniversity of NottinghamThe University of MelbourneRecent research has highlighted the role of prosocial personality traits—agreeableness and honesty-humility—in egalitarian distributions of wealth in the dictator game. Expanding on these findings, we ran two studies to examine individual differences in two other forms of prosociality—generosity and reciprocity—with respect to two major models of personality, the Big Five and the HEXACO. Participants (combined N = 560) completed a series of economic games in which allocations in the dictator game were compared with those in the generosity game, a non-constant-sum wealth distribution task where proposers with fixed payoffs selected the size of their partner’s payoff (generosity). We further examined positive and negative reciprocity by manipulating a partner’s previous move (reciprocity). Results showed clear evidence of both generosity and positive reciprocity in social preferences, with allocations to a partner greater in the generosity game than in the dictator game, and greater still when a player had been previously assisted by their partner. There was also a consistent interaction with gender, whereby men were more generous when this was costless and women were more egalitarian overall. Furthermore, these distinct forms of prosociality were differentially predicted by personality traits, in line with the core features of these traits and the theoretical distinctions between them. HEXACO honesty-humility predicted dictator, but not generosity allocations, while traits capturing tendencies towards irritability and anger predicted lower generosity, but not dictator allocations. In contrast, the politeness—but not compassion—aspect of Big Five agreeableness was uniquely and broadly associated with prosociality across all games. These findings support the discriminant validity between related prosocial constructs, and have important implications for understanding the motives and mechanisms taking place within economic games.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01137/fullsocial preferencesBig FiveAgreeablenesscompassiondictator gamepoliteness |
| spellingShingle | Kun Zhao Eamonn Ferguson Luke D Smillie Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games Frontiers in Psychology social preferences Big Five Agreeableness compassion dictator game politeness |
| title | Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games |
| title_full | Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games |
| title_fullStr | Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games |
| title_full_unstemmed | Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games |
| title_short | Prosocial Personality Traits Differentially Predict Egalitarianism, Generosity, and Reciprocity in Economic Games |
| title_sort | prosocial personality traits differentially predict egalitarianism generosity and reciprocity in economic games |
| topic | social preferences Big Five Agreeableness compassion dictator game politeness |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01137/full |
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