Blurring the Dichotomy of Good and Evil: The Idiosyncratic Helping Strategies Associated with Unmitigated–Agentic and Unmitigated–Communal Personalities

Abstract

We theorized that unmitigated–agentic personality constructs (UAPs)—prioritizing ‘getting ahead’ over ‘getting along’—and unmitigated–communal personality constructs (UCPs)—prioritizing getting along over getting ahead—are associated with distinct affect–regulatory helping strategies. In Study 1 (N = 179), UAPs, on average, related to greater negative–affect versus positive–affect induction helping tactics. In two experiments, UAPs, on average, related to a greater likelihood of selecting anger–inducing versus love–inducing or sadness–inducing songs to help a target overcome a breakup (Study 2; N = 313) and greater selection of anger–inducing and hubris–inducing messages versus authentic–pride–inducing and love–inducing messages to help a teammate struggling in a game (Study 3; N = 246). UCPs manifested the opposite patterns. Generally, these associations corresponded with helping–strategy utility beliefs and were robust to moderators of helping target (self or other; Study 2) or altruistic versus selfish motives (Study 3). Study 4 (N = 205) provided some evidence of ecological validity in contexts of recalled everyday helping. Associations between personality constructs and relative helping strategies were about moderate in size (rs ∼ .20) across these four studies. Findings suggest that UAPs are associated with helping strategies believed to promote ‘contemptuous’ self–enhancement relative to ‘innocuous’ self–enhancement and self–transcendence, and vice versa for UCPs. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology