Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Over the past decades, there has been considerable interest in individual differences in cooperative behaviour and how these can be explained. Whereas the Honesty–Humility dimension from the HEXACO model of personality has been identified as a consistent predictor of cooperation, the underlying motivational mechanisms of this association have remained unclear—especially given the confound between the temptation to exploit others and the fear of being exploited as motivational drivers of defection in social dilemmas. In a reanalysis and a new experiment, we tease apart these mechanisms by manipulating the rank order of pay–offs in a symmetric two–person game paradigm, essentially implementing the classic prisoner's dilemma, stag hunt, and chicken games. Results revealed that Honesty–Humility predicted cooperation specifically in the games in which temptation was a potential motivator of defection, whereas it did not account for cooperation in those games in which only fear implied defection. Our findings thereby shed light on the underlying motivational mechanisms of the Honesty–Humility–cooperation link and, more generally, demonstrate how economic games can be used to disentangle such mechanisms. Copyright © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology

Keywords

Honesty-Humility motivation HEXACO social dilemmas cooperation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ackermann

K. A.

, Fleiß

, & Murphy

R. O.

(2016). Reciprocity as an individual difference. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 60, 340–367. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002714541854.

Ahn

T.–K.

, Ostrom

, Schmidt

, Shupp

, & Walker

(2001). Cooperation in PD games: Fear, greed, and history of play. Public Choice, 106, 137–155. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005219123532.

Ashton

M. C.

, & Lee

(2007). Empirical, theoretical, and practical advantages of the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11, 150–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868306294907.

Ashton

M. C.

, & Lee

(2008). The HEXACO model of personality structure and the importance of the H factor. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 1952–1962. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751–9004.2008.00134.x.

Ashton

M. C.

, & Lee

(2009). The HEXACO–60: A short measure of the major dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 340–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890902935878.

Ashton

M. C.

, Lee

, & De Vries

R. E.

(2014). The HEXACO Honesty–Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality factors: A review of research and theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18, 139–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523838.

Atkinson

J. W.

(1957). Motivational determinants of risk–taking behavior. Psychological Review, 64, 359–372. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0043445.

Axelrod

, & Hamilton

W. D.

(1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211, 1390–1396. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7466396.

Balliet

, Parks

, & Joireman

(2009). Social value orientation and cooperation in social dilemmas: A meta–analysis. Group Processes Intergroup Relations, 12, 533–547. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430209105040.

10.

Bates

, Mächler

, Bolker

, & Walker

(2015). Fitting linear mixed–effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software, 67(1), 1–48.

11.

Baumeister

R. F.

, Vohs

K. D.

, & Funder

D. C.

(2007). Psychology as the science of self–reports and finger movements: Whatever happened to actual behavior? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 396–403. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745–6916.2007.00051.x.

12.

Berg

J. M.

, Lilienfeld

S. O.

, & Waldman

I. D.

(2013). Bargaining with the devil: Using economic decision–making tasks to examine the heterogeneity of psychopathic traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 472–482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.04.003.

13.

Bruins

J. J.

, Liebrand

W. B.

, & Wilke

H. A.

(1989). About the saliency of fear and greed in social dilemmas. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, 155–161. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420190207.

14.

Butler

D. J.

, Burbank

V. K.

, & Chisholm

J. S.

(2011). The frames behind the games: Player's perceptions of prisoners dilemma, chicken, dictator, and ultimatum games. The Journal of Socio–Economics, 40, 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2010.12.009.

15.

Colman

A. M.

(2003). Cooperation, psychological game theory, and limitations of rationality in social interaction. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 26, 139–198.

16.

Dawes

R. M.

(1980). Social dilemmas. Annual Review of Psychology, 31, 169–193. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.31.020180.001125.

17.

de Heus

, Hoogervorst

, & Dijk

E. v.

(2010). Framing prisoners and chickens: Valence effects in the prisoner's dilemma and the chicken game. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 736–742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.04.013.

18.

De Vries

R. E.

, Tybur

J. M.

, Pollet

T. V.

, & van Vugt

(2016). Evolution, situational affordances, and the HEXACO model of personality. Evolution and Human Behavior, 37, 407–421. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.04.001.

19.

Elliot

A. J.

(1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals. Educational Psychologist, 34, 169–189. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3403_3.

20.

Elliot

A. J.

, & Covington

M. V.

(2001). Approach and avoidance motivation. Educational Psychology Review, 13, 73–92. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009009018235.

21.

Faul

, Erdfelder

, Buchner

, & Lang

A.–G.

(2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149.

22.

Fischbacher

(2007). z–Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready–made economic experiments. Experimental Economics, 10, 171–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683–006–9159–4.

23.

Forsythe

, Horowitz

J. L.

, Savin

N. E.

, & Sefton

(1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic Behavior, 6, 347–369. https://doi.org/10.1006/game.1994.1021.

24.

Fox

(2003). Effect displays in R for generalised linear models. Journal of Statistical Software, 8(15), 1–27.

25.

Funder

D. C.

(2001). Personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 197–221. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.197.

26.

Funder

D. C.

(2009). Naive and obvious questions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 340–344. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745–6924.2009.01135.x.

27.

Gächter

(2004). Behavioral game theory. In Koehler

D.J.

& Harvey

(Eds.), Blackwell handbook of judgment and decision making (pp. 485–503). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470752937.ch24.

28.

Gerpott

F. H.

, Balliet

, Columbus

, Molho

, & de Vries

R. E.

(2017) (in press). How do people think about interdependence? A multidimensional model of subjective outcome interdependence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000166.

29.

Glöckner

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2012). Risk is relative: Risk aversion yields cooperation rather than defection in cooperation–friendly environments. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 546–553. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423–012–0224–z.

30.

Haesevoets

, Folmer

C. R.

, & Van Hiel

(2015). Cooperation in mixed–motive games: The role of individual differences in selfish and social orientation. European Journal of Personality, 29, 445–458. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.1992.

31.

Halevy

, Chou

E. Y.

, & Murnighan

J. K.

(2012). Mind games: The mental representation of conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 132–148. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025389.

32.

Halevy

, Cohen

T. R.

, Chou

E. Y.

, Katz

J. J.

, & Panter

A. T.

(2014). Mental models at work: Cognitive causes and consequences of conflict in organizations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 92–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213506468.

33.

Henninger

, Kieslich

P. J.

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2017). Psynteract: A flexible, cross–platform, open framework for interactive experiments. Behavior Research Methods, 49, 1605–1614. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428–016–0801–6.

34.

Henrich

, Heine

S. J.

, & Norenzayan

(2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X.

35.

Hilbig

B. E.

, Glöckner

, & Zettler

(2014). Personality and pro–social behavior: Linking basic traits and social value orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 529–539. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036074.

36.

Hilbig

B. E.

, Thielmann

, Hepp

, Klein

S. A.

, & Zettler

(2015). From personality to altruistic behavior (and back): Evidence from a double–blind dictator game. Journal of Research in Personality, 55, 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.12.004.

37.

Hilbig

B. E.

, Thielmann

, Klein

S. A.

, & Henninger

(2016). The two faces of cooperation: On the unique role of HEXACO Agreeableness for forgiveness versus retaliation. Journal of Research in Personality, 64, 69–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.08.004.

38.

Hilbig

B. E.

, Zettler

, & Heydasch

(2012). Personality, punishment, and public–goods: Strategic shifts towards cooperation as a matter of dispositional Honesty–Humility. European Journal of Personality, 26, 245–254. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.830.

39.

Kelley

H. H.

, & Thibaut

J. W.

(1978). Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence. New York, NY, US: Wiley.

40.

Kieslich

P. J.

, & Henninger

(2017). Mousetrap: An integrated, open–source mouse–tracking package. Behavior Research Methods, 49, 1652–1667. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428–017–0900–z.

41.

Kieslich

P. J.

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2014). Cognitive conflict in social dilemmas: An analysis of response dynamics. Judgment and Decision making, 9, 510–522.

42.

Kollock

(1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 183–214. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.183.

43.

Krueger

J. I.

(2007). From social projection to social behaviour. European Review of Social Psychology, 18, 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280701284645.

44.

Krueger

J. I.

, & Acevedo

(2007). Perceptions of self and other in the prisoner's dilemma: Outcome bias and evidential reasoning. American Journal of Psychology, 120, 593–618.

45.

Lee

, & Ashton

M. C.

(2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO Personality Inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr3902_8.

46.

Lee

, & Ashton

M. C.

(2005). Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism in the five–factor model and the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1571–1582. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.016.

47.

Lee

, & Ashton

M. C.

(2006). Further assessment of the HEXACO Personality Inventory: Two new facet scales and an observer report form. Psychological Assessment, 18, 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040–3590.18.2.182.

48.

Lilienfeld

S. O.

, & Andrews

B. P.

(1996). Development and preliminary validation of a self–report measure of psychopathic personality traits in noncriminal population. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 488–524. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa6603_3.

49.

Luce

R. D.

, & Raiffa

(1957). Games and decisions: Introduction and critical survey. New York, NY, US: John Wiley & Sons.

50.

Lüdecke

(2017). sjPlot: Data Visualization for Statistics in Social Science. https://CRAN.R–project.org/package=sjPlot

51.

Mathôt

, Schreij

, & Theeuwes

(2012). OpenSesame: An open–source, graphical experiment builder for the social sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 314–324. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428–011–0168–7.

52.

McClelland

D. C.

(1951). Personality. New York, NY: William Sloane Assoc, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/10790–000.

53.

Mischkowski

, & Glöckner

(2016). Spontaneous cooperation for prosocials, but not for proselfs: Social value orientation moderates spontaneous cooperation behavior. Scientific Reports, 6, 21555. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21555.

54.

Moshagen

, Hilbig

B. E.

, & Musch

(2011). Defection in the dark? A randomized–response investigation of cooperativeness in social dilemma games. European Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 638–644. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.793.

55.

Moshagen

, Hilbig

B. E.

, & Zettler

(in press). The dark core of personality. Psychological Review.

56.

Moshagen

, Hilbig

B. E.

, & Zettler

(2014). Faktorenstruktur, psychometrische Eigenschaften und Messinvarianz der deutschsprachigen Version des 60–Item HEXACO Persönlichkeitsinventars [Factor structure, psychometric properties, and measurement invariance of the German–language version of the 60–item HEXACO personality inventory]. Diagnostica, 60, 86–97.

57.

Muris

, Merckelbach

, Otgaar

, & Meijer

(2017). The malevolent side of human nature: A meta–analysis and critical review of the literature on the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12, 183–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616666070.

58.

Murphy

R. O.

, & Ackermann

K. A.

(2014). Social value orientation: Theoretical and measurement issues in the study of social preferences. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18, 13–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868313501745.

59.

Nowak

M. A.

(2006). Five rules for the evolution of cooperation. Science, 314, 1560–1563. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1133755.

60.

Poppe

, & Utens

(1986). Effects of greed and fear of being gypped in a social dilemma situation with changing pool size. Journal of Economic Psychology, 7, 61–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167–4870(86)90012–7.

61.

R Core Team (2017). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R–project.org/.

62.

Rapoport

, & Chammah

(1965). Prisoner's dilemma: A study in conflict and cooperation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.20269.

63.

Rapoport

, & Chammah

(1969). The game of chicken. In Buchler

I. R.

, & Nuttini

H. G.

(Eds.), Game theory in the behavioral sciences (pp. 151–175). Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press.

64.

Rapoport

, & Eshed–Levy

(1989). Provision of step–level public goods: Effects of greed and fear of being gypped. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 44, 325–344. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749–5978(89)90012–5.

65.

Rauthmann

J. F.

(2012). You say the party is dull, I say it is lively: A componential approach to how situations are perceived to disentangle perceiver, situation, and perceiver × situation variance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3, 519–528. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611427609.

66.

Rauthmann

J. F.

, Gallardo–Pujol

, Guillaume

E. M.

, Todd

, Nave

C. S.

, Sherman

R. A.

, … Funder

D. C.

(2014). The Situational Eight DIAMONDS: A taxonomy of major dimensions of situation characteristics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 677–718. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037250.

67.

Rosenthal

J. A.

(1996). Qualitative descriptors of strength of association and effect size. Journal of Social Service Research, 21, 37–59. https://doi.org/10.1300/J079v21n04_02.

68.

Ruch

, Bruntsch

, & Wagner

(2017). The role of character traits in economic games. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 186–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.12.007.

69.

Rusch

, & Luetge

(2016). Spillovers from coordination to cooperation: Evidence for the interdependence hypothesis? Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 10, 284–296. https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000066.

70.

Sally

(1995). Conversation and cooperation in social dilemmas. A meta–analysis of experiments from 1958 to 1992. Rationality and Society, 7, 58–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/1043463195007001004.

71.

Sherman

R. A.

, Rauthmann

J. F.

, Brown

N. A.

, Serfass

D. G.

, & Jones

A. B.

(2015). The independent effects of personality and situations on real–time expressions of behavior and emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 872–888. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000036.

72.

Thibaut

J. W.

, & Kelley

H. H.

(1959). The social psychology of groups. Piscataway, NJ, US: Transaction Publishers.

73.

Thielmann

, Böhm

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2015). Different games for different motives: Comment on Haesevoets, Folmer, and Van Hiel (2015). European Journal of Personality, 29, 506–508. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2007.

74.

Thielmann

, Heck

D. W.

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2016). Anonymity and incentives: An investigation of techniques to reduce socially desirable responding in the trust game. Judgment and Decision making, 11, 527.

75.

Thielmann

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2014). Trust in me, trust in you: A social projection account of the link between personality, cooperativeness, and trustworthiness expectations. Journal of Research in Personality, 50, 61–65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.03.006.

76.

Van Lange

P. A. M.

(1999). The pursuit of joint outcomes and equality in outcomes: An integrative model of social value orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 337–349. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.77.2.337.

77.

Van Lange

P. A. M.

, De Bruin

E. M. N.

, Otten

, & Joireman

J. A.

(1997). Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientations: Theory and preliminary evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 733–746. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.73.4.733.

78.

Vlaev

, & Chater

(2006). Game relativity: How context influences strategic decision making. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 131–149.

79.

von Neumann

, & Morgenstern

(1944). Theory of games and economic behavior. Princeton, NJ, US: Princeton University Press.

80.

Yamagishi

, & Sato

(1986). Motivational bases of the public goods problem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.50.1.67.

81.

Zelmer

(2003). Linear public goods experiments: A meta–analysis. Experimental Economics, 6, 299–310. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026277420119.

82.

Zettler

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2010). Honesty–Humility and a person–situation–interaction at work. European Journal of Personality, 24, 569–582.

83.

Zettler

, & Hilbig

B. E.

(2015). Honesty–Humility. In Wright

J. D.

(Eds.), International encyclopedia of social and behavioral sciences (2nd ed.) Vol. 11, pp. 169–174). Oxford, UK: Elsevier, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978–0–08–097086–8.25068–X.

84.

Zettler

, Hilbig

B. E.

, & Heydasch

(2013). Two sides of one coin: Honesty–Humility and situational factors mutually shape social dilemma decision making. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 286–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.01.012.

85.

Zhao

, Ferguson

, & Smillie

L. D.

(2017). Individual differences in good manners rather than compassion predict fair allocations of wealth in the dictator game. Journal of Personality, 85, 244–256. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12237.

86.

Zhao

, & Smillie

L. D.

(2015). The role of interpersonal traits in social decision making exploring sources of behavioral heterogeneity in economic games. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19, 277–302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314553709.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.15 MB

Lead Us (Not) into Temptation: Testing the Motivational Mechanisms Linking Honesty–Humility to Cooperation

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material