Prosocial Traits Research Articles

Agreeableness and Conflict Management in Daily Life: The Impact of Prosocial Traits on Psychological Adaptation

This paper explores the role of agreeableness, a key personality trait characterized by prosocial behaviors such as empathy, altruism, and cooperation, in conflict management and psychological adaptation in daily life. Agreeable individuals, driven by a focus on harmony and understanding, tend to employ constructive conflict resolution strategies that prioritize relational well-being and mutual respect. These strategies reduce interpersonal tensions, promote trust, and enhance relational satisfaction. Furthermore, agreeableness contributes significantly to psychological adaptation by fostering positive social interactions, enhancing emotional regulation, and promoting adaptive coping mechanisms, which together support resilience in the face of life’s challenges. The broader implications of agreeableness extend beyond individual relationships, influencing organizational dynamics, community engagement, and societal harmony by reducing conflict, fostering inclusivity, and bridging ideological divides. This paper highlights the importance of agreeableness in shaping both personal well-being and social cohesion, emphasizing its role in promoting a more empathetic, cooperative, and resilient society.

Strategy evolution on higher-order networks.

Cooperation is key to prosperity in human societies. Population structure is well understood as a catalyst for cooperation, where research has focused on pairwise interactions. But cooperative behaviors are not simply dyadic, and they often involve coordinated behavior in larger groups. Here we develop a framework to study the evolution of behavioral strategies in higher-order population structures, which include pairwise and multi-way interactions. We provide an analytical treatment of when cooperation will be favored by higher-order interactions, accounting for arbitrary spatial heterogeneity and nonlinear rewards for cooperation in larger groups. Our results indicate that higher-order interactions can act to promote the evolution of cooperation across a broad range of networks, in public goods games. Higher-order interactions consistently provide an advantage for cooperation when interaction hyper-networks feature multiple conjoined communities. Our analysis provides a systematic account of how higher-order interactions modulate the evolution of prosocial traits.

Evolution of the Parietal Lobe in the Formation of an Enhanced “Sense of Self”

Abstract Recent neuropaleontological research suggests that the parietal lobe has increased in size as much as the frontal lobes in Homo Sapiens over the past 150,000 years, but has not provided a neuropsychological explanation for the evolution of human socialization or the development of religion. Drawing from several areas of research, (i.e., neurodevelopment, neuropsychology, paleoneurology, cognitive science, archeology, and anthropology), we argue that parietal evolution in Homo sapiens integrated sensations and mental processes into a more integrated subjective “sense of self”. This enhanced self advanced prosocial traits (e.g., increased empathy, greater social bonding, enhanced theory of mind capacities), promoting more effective socialization skills (e.g., parenting, group cooperation). Conversely, when this enhanced sense of self became inhibited, powerful experiences of self-transcendence occurred. We believe these potent selfless experiences became increasingly sought after though ritual means (e.g., music, dance, vision quests, spirit travel), providing the foundations for the development of shamanism and religion.

Examining the Moderating Effect of Parental Values on the Relationship between Conformity Interpersonal, Universalism Concern, Benevolence Dependability and Universalism Nature Using Structural Equation Modeling

This research focuses into the intricate dynamics of the relationship between Parental Values and key prosocial traits, namely Conformity-Interpersonal, Universalism-Concern, Benevolence-Dependability, and Universalism-Nature. Through the application of advanced statistical techniques, particularly Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the study aims to uncover the moderating effects of parental values on the expression and manifestation of these prosocial behaviors in individuals. Prosocial behavior, characterized by acts intended to benefit others, is a critical aspect of social interactions and interpersonal relationships. The role of parental values in shaping such behaviors has been acknowledged, yet the specific mechanisms through which these values moderate the relationship between individuals and prosocial traits remain less understood. The theoretical framework guiding this research draws on social cognitive theories, which propose that individuals learn and acquire behaviors through observation and imitation, with the family serving as a primary socialization agent. Parental values, representing the moral and ethical principles transmitted within the family unit, are posited to influence the development and expression of prosocial behaviors.

Exploring Actual and Presumed Links between Accurately Inferring Contents of Other People's Minds and Prosocial Outcomes.

The term "empathic accuracy" has been applied to people's ability to infer the contents of other people's minds-that is, other people's varying feelings and/or thoughts over the course of a social interaction. However, despite the ease of intuitively linking this skill to competence in helping professions such as counseling, the "empathic" prefix in its name may have contributed to overestimating its association with prosocial traits and behaviors. Accuracy in reading others' thoughts and feelings, like many other skills, can be used toward prosocial-but also malevolent or morally neutral-ends. Prosocial intentions can direct attention towards other people's thoughts and feelings, which may, in turn, increase accuracy in inferring those thoughts and feelings, but attention to others' thoughts and feelings does not necessarily heighten prosocial intentions, let alone outcomes.

Bleeding-Heart Horror Fans

Abstract: The horror genre portrays some of the most graphic and violent scenes in media. How and why some people find enjoyment in such a graphic genre is an age-old question. One hypothesis is that people lower in prosocial traits such as empathy and compassion are more likely to enjoy horror. We found evidence against this hypothesis across three studies. Study 1 demonstrated that enjoyment of horror movies was unrelated to affective empathy, negatively associated with coldheartedness, and positively associated with cognitive empathy. A preregistered follow-up study found that measures of empathy and coldheartedness were unrelated to how many horror movies a participant had seen. In Study 3, enjoyment of horror movies was unrelated to the amount of money a participant decided to donate to a less fortunate participant. These findings contradict beliefs from the public about horror fans possessing lower levels of prosocial traits such as empathy and compassion. They also put into question findings from older studies about the relationship between empathy and enjoyment of horror media.

President Biden’s personality characteristics and his success as US President: a brief analysis

The current article reviews two studies of President Biden’s personality, one conducted just before and the other following his election to the Presidency in November 2020. Both studies utilized at-a-distance assessment methods involving expert raters who completed standardized personality inventories based on reviewing President Biden’s public persona. Both studies suggested that President Biden possesses prosocial traits, including a high level of extraversion and a moderately high level of agreeableness, enabling him to be a “healer-in-chief.” Yet, despite the prosocial traits emphasized in both studies, President Biden has had low approval ratings by the American public, and most Americans, including Democrats, do not want him to run for re-election. However, public opinion polls do not necessarily reflect a president’s performance, and it may be premature to conclude whether President Biden has had a successful presidency. In this article, President Biden's personality qualities will be discussed briefly in connection with a study of 41 US presidents that focused partly on associations between presidential personality and presidential greatness or success. President Biden’s “conciliatory extravert” personality style, in conjunction with his modest levels of ambition and dominance, might not be consistent with the particularly high levels of assertiveness and achievement-striving historically characteristic of “great” presidents. This may help explain in part why most Americans have, at the present time, not perceived President Biden as a very popular or successful president. Ultimately, historians will form judgments in the future about his presidency.

Strategy evolution on dynamic networks.

Models of strategy evolution on static networks help us understand how population structure can promote the spread of traits like cooperation. One key mechanism is the formation of altruistic spatial clusters, where neighbors of a cooperative individual are likely to reciprocate, which protects prosocial traits from exploitation. However, most real-world interactions are ephemeral and subject to exogenous restructuring, so that social networks change over time. Strategic behavior on dynamic networks is difficult to study, and much less is known about the resulting evolutionary dynamics. Here we provide an analytical treatment of cooperation on dynamic networks, allowing for arbitrary spatial and temporal heterogeneity. We show that transitions among a large class of network structures can favor the spread of cooperation, even if each individual social network would inhibit cooperation when static. Furthermore, we show that spatial heterogeneity tends to inhibit cooperation, whereas temporal heterogeneity tends to promote it. Dynamic networks can have profound effects on the evolution of prosocial traits, even when individuals have no agency over network structures.

LIGHT TRIAD PERSONALITY TRAITS AND COPING STRATEGIES IN TEACHERS

Studies show that work-related stress among teachers is high. Job satisfaction and interactions with students are influenced by teachers’ coping skills with stressful situations and differences in response to stressful events can be explained by personality traits. The present study uses the Light Triad model of personality to examine whether prosocial traits such as empathy, compassion and altruism are associated with cognitive-emotional coping strategies in teachers. The prosocial orientation was measured using the Light Triad Scale (Johnson, 2018) and The Cognitive-Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski et al., 2007) was used to identify teachers’ cognitive-emotional coping strategies, in relation to negative events or situations. The participants in this study included 120 Romanian teachers from different levels of preuniversitary education. The results revealed that empathy and altruism have small negative correlations with catastrophizing; all three prosocial traits are associated with the positive reappraisal, empathy positively correlates with accepting negative events and refocusing on planning and altruism positively correlates with accepting negative events and putting into perspective. We also found a positive correlation between empathy and rumination. Our findings extend the current understanding of the relationship between teachers’ prosocial personality traits and the coping strategies they use following negative life events.

Is there a cost to caring? Dispositional affective empathy interacts with depressive symptoms to predict higher C-reactive protein 8 years later

Affective empathy, including the tendency to vicariously experience the emotions of others, is a highly-valued prosocial trait, but has been previously found to be associated with higher chronic inflammation cross-sectionally and to interact with the levels of depressive symptoms in important social partners. The current study utilized prospective longitudinal data from a nationally representative study of adults in the United States to assess whether dispositional affective empathy interacted with one’s own depressive symptoms to predict C-reactive protein (CRP) approximately eight years later. Results revealed that higher ratings of empathy predicted higher CRP, but only among individuals with lower levels of depressive symptoms. Higher depressive symptoms related to greater inflammation regardless of dispositional empathy and perceived stress did not account for observed associations. Taken together, these findings suggest that vicariously experiencing others’ emotions may come at a biological cost, which, if sustained, may place individuals at greater risk for inflammatory diseases.

The relationship of trait-like compassion with epigenetic aging: The population-based prospective Young Finns Study.

Helping others within and beyond the family has been related to living a healthy and long life. Compassion is a prosocial personality trait characterized by concern for another person who is suffering and the motivation to help. The current study examines whether epigenetic aging is a potential biological mechanism that explains the link between prosociality and longevity. We used data from the Young Finns Study that follows six birth-cohorts from age 3-18 to 19-49. Trait-like compassion for others was measured with the Temperament and Character Inventory in the years 1997 and 2001. Epigenetic age acceleration and telomere length were measured with five DNA methylation (DNAm) indicators (DNAmAgeHorvath, IEAA_Hannum, EEAA_Hannum, DNAmPhenoAge, and DNAmTL) based on blood drawn in 2011. We controlled for sex, socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood, and body-mass index. An association between higher compassion in 1997 and a less accelerated DNAmPhenoAge, which builds on previous work on phenotypic aging, approached statistical significance in a sex-adjusted model (n = 1,030; b = -0.34; p = 0.050). Compassion in 1997 predicted less accelerated epigenetic aging over and above the control variables (n = 843; b = -0.47; p = 0.016). There was no relationship between compassion in 2001 (n = 1108/910) and any of the other four studied epigenetic aging indicators. High compassion for others might indeed influence whether an individual's biological age is lower than their chronological age. The conducted robustness checks partially support this conclusion, yet cannot rule out that there might be a broader prosocial trait behind the findings. The observed associations are interesting but should be interpreted as weak requiring replication.

Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment

AbstractIn two pre-registered studies, we investigated the relationship of left-wing authoritarianism with the ego-focused trait of narcissism. Based on existing research, we expected individuals with higher levels of left-wing authoritarianism to also report higher levels of narcissism. Further, as individuals with leftist political attitudes can be assumed to be striving for social equality, we expected left-wing authoritarianism to also be positively related to prosocial traits, but narcissism to remain a significant predictor of left-wing authoritarianism above and beyond those prosocial dispositions. We investigated our hypotheses in two studies using cross-sectional correlational designs. Two nearly representative US samples (Study 1: N = 391; Study 2: N = 377) completed online measures of left-wing authoritarianism, the Dark Triad personality traits, and two variables with a prosocial focus (i.e., altruism and social justice commitment). In addition, we assessed relevant covariates (i.e., age, gender, socially desirable responding, and virtue signaling). The results of multiple regression analyses showed that a strong ideological view, according to which a violent revolution against existing societal structures is legitimate (i.e., anti-hierarchical aggression), was associated with antagonistic narcissism (Study 1) and psychopathy (Study 2). However, neither dispositional altruism nor social justice commitment was related to left-wing anti-hierarchical aggression. Considering these results, we assume that some leftist political activists do not actually strive for social justice and equality but rather use political activism to endorse or exercise violence against others to satisfy their own ego-focused needs. We discuss these results in relation to the dark-ego-vehicle principle.

Dispositional employability and self-regulation in antisocial and prosocial personalities: different contributions to employability

The manuscript is based on the dispositional approach of employability, dispositional personality trait theories (dark triad, light triad, HEXACO honesty-humility), and reinforcement sensitivity theory. The facet-focused analysis allowed a more targeted interpretation of the results about the contribution of dark/light personalities and self-regulation for employability and a deeper understanding of practical implications. We analyzed the mediating effect of the behavioral activating system (BAS drive) on antisocial and prosocial traits in predicting employability. The convenient research sample consisted of 343 students. Participants completed: The short dark triad, light triad, honesty-humility, dispositional employability, and BIS/BAS. Dark traits explained 17.5% of work/career resilience, 12% of work identity, 6.4% of career motivation, and 6.6% of openness to changes at work. Narcissism explained 20% of work/career resilience. Prosocial traits explained 19.7% of work/career resilience, 16.8% of work identity, 11.8% of career motivation, and 5.3% of openness to changes at work. Modesty explained 10% of career motivation variance. BAS drive mediates predictions of employability by prosocial and antisocial traits. Demanding attention from others and focusing on making a good impression are effective tools for employability. Prosocial traits significant for BAS drive-activated participants (believing in the goodness of people and avoiding fraud and corruption) can be supported in organizations by providing career growth opportunities.

Communal narcissism, self-motives, and work effort

Communal narcissists amplify their prosocial traits and consider themselves saintly individuals. However, communal narcissistic self-enhancement can foster or block one’s willingness to be actively involved in the workplace or in solving tasks by making a systematic effort. The present study explored the relationship between communal narcissistic features (i.e., present, and future-related thoughts), self-motives (i.e., self-leadership, power-seeking, and desire for fame), and work effort among a convenience sample composed of university students (N = 489). We analyzed three parallel mediation models to assess the indirect effect of communal narcissistic features on work effort via self-motives. Results indicated that communal narcissism positively correlated with self-motives and work effort. Moreover, communal narcissistic and present-future-related thoughts had similar indirect associations with work effort through self-leadership strategies, desire for power, and fame. The relationship between communal narcissistic features, self-motives, and work effort can have important implications for organizations, which were discussed.

Trait mindful awareness predicts inter-brain coupling but not individual brain responses during naturalistic face-to-face interactions.

In recent years, the possible benefits of mindfulness meditation have sparked much public and academic interest. Mindfulness emphasizes cultivating awareness of our immediate experience and has been associated with compassion, empathy, and various other prosocial traits. However, neurobiological evidence pertaining to the prosocial benefits of mindfulness in social settings is sparse. In this study, we investigate neural correlates of trait mindful awareness during naturalistic dyadic interactions, using both intra-brain and inter-brain measures. We used the Muse headset, a portable electroencephalogram (EEG) device often used to support mindfulness meditation, to record brain activity from dyads as they engaged in naturalistic face-to-face interactions in a museum setting. While we did not replicate prior laboratory-based findings linking trait mindfulness to individual brain responses (N = 379 individuals), self-reported mindful awareness did predict dyadic inter-brain synchrony, in theta (~5–8 Hz) and beta frequencies (~26-27 Hz; N = 62 dyads). These findings underscore the importance of conducting social neuroscience research in ecological settings to enrich our understanding of how (multi-brain) neural correlates of social traits such as mindful awareness manifest during social interaction, while raising critical practical considerations regarding the viability of commercially available EEG systems.

Honesty-humility and criminal behavior among imprisoned criminal offenders

Does the basic prosocial trait of Honesty-Humility predict crime? We test whether Honesty-Humility (1) differentiates between imprisoned criminal offenders and the national population, (2) predicts the frequency of criminal behavior (the number of reported crimes), and (3) predicts the type of crime leading to imprisonment (violent, non-violent, and sexual). We found that imprisoned criminal offenders had lower levels of Honesty-Humility than the national population, but Honesty-Humility did not predict the number of reported crimes and the type of crime leading to imprisonment in this group. Additionally, we examined if Honesty-Humility predicts violent (defensive and sadistic aggression) and non-violent (cheating) lab antisocial behavior among imprisoned criminal offenders. We found that Honesty-Humility negatively predicted violent, but it did not significantly relate to non-violent antisocial behavior in this group.

Prosociality moderates outcome evaluation in competition tasks

The current study investigated the effect of prosociality on outcome evaluation without involving social comparison and reward processing in face-to-face competition tasks. The results showed that when faced with medium and large outcome feedback, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) amplitude induced in high-prosocial individuals was significantly more negative than that of low-prosocial individuals. In addition, the P300 amplitude induced in high-prosocial individuals was smaller than that in low-prosocial individuals in the face of large outcome feedback; hence, the prosociality score was significantly correlated with FRN amplitude. However, there was no significant difference in FRN between high-and low-prosocial individuals in the face of small outcome feedback. It was concluded that individual prosocial traits can moderate outcome evaluation.

Trait Empathy Modulates Patterns of Personal and Social Emotions During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused profound consequences on people’s personal and social feelings worldwide. However, little is known about whether individual differences in empathy, a prosocial trait, may affect the emotional feelings under such threat. To address this, we measured 345 Chinese participants’ personal emotions (e.g., active, nervous), social emotions (i.e., fearful and empathetic feelings about various social groups), and their empathy traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the representational similarity analysis (RSA), we calculated the pattern similarity of personal emotions and found the similarity between the positive and negative emotions was less in the high vs. low empathy groups. In addition, people with high (vs. low) empathy traits were more likely to have fearful and sympathetic feelings about the disease-related people (i.e., depression patients, suspected COVID-19 patients, COVID-19 patients, flu patients, SARS patients, AIDS patients, schizophrenic patients) and showed more pattern dissimilarity in the two social feelings toward the disease-related people. These findings suggest a prominent role of trait empathy in modulating emotions across different domains, strengthening the polarization of personal emotions as well as enlarging social feelings toward a set of stigmatized groups when facing a pandemic threat.

Imagination and the prosocial personality: Mapping the effect of episodic simulation on helping across prosocial traits

AbstractPrior work suggests that imagining helping others increases prosocial intentions and behavior toward those individuals. But is this true for everyone, or only for those who tend toward—or away from—helping more generally? The current study (N = 283) used an imagined helping paradigm and a battery of behavioral and self‐report measures of trait prosociality to determine whether the prosocial benefits of imagination depend upon an individual's general tendency to help others. Replicating prior work, we found links between imagination and prosociality and support for a three‐factor model of prosociality comprising altruistically, norm‐motivated, and self‐reported prosocial behaviors. Centrally, the effects of imagination on prosociality were slightly larger for less altruistic individuals but independent of norm‐motivated and self‐reported prosociality. These results suggest leveraging people's abilities for episodic simulation as a promising strategy for increasing prosociality in general, and perhaps particularly for those least likely to help otherwise.

Towards positive organization. The evolution of gratitude

Purpose: Establishing the way the life history (LH) strategies and gratitude are related to each other. Design/methodology/approach: Life History Theory provides an evolutionary framework for understanding specific developmental paths of species and individuals. There are certain trade- offs during a lifespan of an individual, they must face (for instance, somatic or reproductive effort, quality or quantity of offspring, mating or parenting). Depending on the choices a person makes, they exhibit a slow or a fast life history (LH) strategy. A latent variable underlying a set of solutions (strategy) is called K-Factor and is used to measure individual differences with regard to the pace of one’s LH. People with a slow LH exhibit greater prosociality, tend to form long-term sexual relationships and their sexual maturation is slowed down. On the other hand, gratitude facilitates prosociality and altruism, builds social resources and acts as a moral barometer. In recent years we observe an increasing attention to the issue of gratitude both in academic publications and popular press in various fields including economics, management and organizational sciences. All these disciplines draw from relatively new and contemporarily flourishing field of psychology – positive psychology. We deployed the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6) for the measurement of gratitude and the Mini-K Short Form for the measurement of LH strategies. 197 students took part in the study (138 females, 59 males). Findings: A positive correlation between slow LH strategy and gratitude was found in women. Originality/value: Investigations on the relationship between gratitude and LH strategies show a fragment of the landscape of human personality. Slow LH people seem to be more grateful and thus display more prosocial traits while restraining selfishness which can lead to achieving the delayed social benefits. On the other hand, low-K individuals in organizational context have smaller willingness/ability to reciprocate to their benefactors and to build social bonds. Such individuals presenting exploitative interpersonal style should be detected at the beginning of a selection process by HR specialists. Keywords: life history theory, life history strategies, gratitude, positive psychology, positive psychology interventions in organizations. Category of the paper: research paper.