Honesty–humility in school: Exploring main and interaction effects on secondary school students' antisocial and prosocial behavior

Abstract

Social behavior is of high relevance in adolescence because it is associated with important outcomes such as having good relationships and academic achievement. The present study investigated the prediction of secondary school students' social behavior by personality in terms of the relatively recently introduced trait of honesty–humility and its interaction with situational school-life characteristics. To this end, 307 students provided self-reports on honesty–humility and, at a second measurement point, responded to vignettes describing realistic school situations in order to measure their antisocial and prosocial behavior. There were two main findings. First, adolescents higher on honesty–humility reported lower levels of antisocial behavior and higher levels of prosocial behavior. Second, and also in line with previous theorizing, situational characteristics had a greater influence for students low (versus high) in honesty–humility in predicting antisocial behavior.