Costless and Costly Prosociality: Correspondence Among Personality Traits,Economic Preferences,and Real-World Prosociality

Abstract

Prosociality can either be costly (e.g., donating to charity) or costless (e.g., posthumous organ donation). Whereas links between personality and costly prosociality have been explored, links with costless prosociality and personality are at present unknown. We address this in two studies: Study 1 (N = 200) confirms the distinction between costless and costly prosociality based on willingness to engage with health and nonhealth prosociality. Study 2, using data from four samples (student and community; N = 733) shows, across incentivized and hypothetical economic games to assess costless (generosity game [GG]) and costly (dictator game [DG]) prosociality, that organ donor behavior was linked to greater allocations in the GG and that charity/volunteering behavior was linked to greater allocations in the DG. Costless and costly prosocialities are associated with different personality traits (e.g., costly with politeness and compassion and costless with intellect). Implications for cooperative phenotypes and recruiting organ donors are discussed.

Keywords

altruism costly personality organ donation dictator game

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Andreoni

Vesterlund

(2001). Which is the fair sex? Gender differences in altruism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116, 293–312. doi:10.1162/003355301556419

Baumeister

(1998). The self. In Gilbert

Fisk

& Lindzey

(Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (pp. 680–740). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Bekkers

(2006). Traditional and health-related philanthropy: The role of resources and personality. Social Psychology Quarterly, 69, 349–366.

Bekkers

Wiepking

(2010). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 40, 924–973.

Bem

D. J.

(1972). Self-perception theory. In Berkowitz

(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1–62). New York, NY: Academic Press.

Benabou

Tirole

. (2006). Incentives and prosocial behavior. American Economic Review, 96, 1652–1678. doi:10.1257/aer.96.5.1652

Böckler

Tusche

Singer

. (2018). The structure of human prosociality revisited: Corrigendum and addendum to Böckler, Tusche and Singer (2016). Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi:10.1177/1948550617722200

Böckler

Tusche

Singer

. (2016). The structure of human prosociality: Differentiating altruistically motivated, norm motivated, strategically motivated and self-reported prosocial behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science. doi:10.1177/1948550616639650

Bode

N. W.

Miller

O’Gorman

Codling

E. A.

(2015). Increased costs reduce reciprocal helping behaviour of humans in a virtual evacuation experiment. Scientific Reports, 5, 15896. doi:10.1038/srep15896

10.

Brocklebank

Lewis

G. J.

Bates

T. C.

(2011). Personality accounts for stable preferences and expectations across a range of simple games. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 881–886. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.07.007

11.

Department of Human Services. (2017, 12 25). Australian Organ Donor Register historical statistics. Retrieved from https://www.humanservices.gov.au/organisations/about-us/statistical-information-and-data/medicare-statistics/australian-organ-donor-register-statistics/australian-organ-donor-register

12.

DeYoung

C. G.

Quilty

L. C.

Peterson

J. B.

(2007). Between facets and domains: 10 aspects of the big five. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 880–896. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.5.880

13.

DeYoung

C. G.

Weisberg

Y. J.

Quilty

L. C.

Peterson

J. B.

(2013). Unifying the aspects of the big five, the interpersonal circumplex, and trait affiliation. Journal of Personality, 81, 465–475. doi:10.1111/jopy.12020

14.

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. doi:10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149

15.

Fehr

Bernhard

Rockenbach

(2008). Egalitarianism in young children. Nature, 454, 1079–1083. doi:10.1038/nature07155

16.

Fehr

Leibbrandt

(2011). A field study on cooperativeness and impatience in the tragedy of the commons. Journal of Public Economics, 95, 1144–1155. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.05.013

17.

Fehr

Schmidt

K. M.

(1999). A theory of fairness, competition and cooperation. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114, 817–868. doi:10.1162/003355399556151

18.

Ferguson

(2004). Conscientiousness, emotional stability, perceived control and the frequency, recency, rate and years of blood donor behaviour. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13, 293–314. doi:10.1348/1359107041557011

19.

Ferguson

(2015) Mechanisms of altruism approach to blood donor recruitment and retention: A review and future directions. Transfusion Medicine, 25, 211–226. doi:10.1111/tme.12233

20.

Ferguson

Cox

(1993). Exploratory factor analysis: A users guide. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 1, 84–94.

21.

Ferguson

Heckman

J. J.

Corr

(2011). Personality and economics: Overview and proposed framework. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 201–209. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.03.030

22.

Ferguson

Taylor

Keatley

Flynn

Lawrence

(2012). Blood donors’ helping behavior is driven by warm glow more evidence for the blood donor benevolence hypothesis. Transfusion, 52, 2189–2200. doi:10.1111/j.1537-2995.2011.03557.x

23.

Forsythe

Horowitz

J. L.

Savin

N. E.

Sefton

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

24.

Güth

(2010). The generosity game and calibration of inequity aversion. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 39, 155–157. doi:10.1016/j.socec.2009.10.012

25.

Güth

Levati

M. V.

Ploner

(2012). An experimental study of the generosity game. Theory and Decision, 72, 51–63.

26.

Hubard

Harbaugh

W. T.

Srivastava

Degras

Mayr

. (2016). A general benevolenve domension tha ytlinks neural, psychological and economic, and life span data on alruitsic tendencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 1351–1358. doi:10.1037/xge0000209

27.

Kaltwasser

Hilderbrandt

Whilhelm

Sommer

(2016). Behavioral and neuronal determinants of negative reciprocity in the ultimatum game. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11, 1608–1617. doi:10.1093/scan/nsw069

28.

Lyle

III, H. F.

Smith

E. A.

Sullivan

R. J

. (2009). Blood donations as costly signals of donor quality. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 263–286. doi:10.1556/JEP.7.2009.4.1

29.

Moorlock

Ives

Draper

(2014). Altruism in organ donation: An unnecessary requirement? Journal of Medical Ethics, 40, 134–138. doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100528

30.

O’Carroll

R. E.

Foster

McGeechan

Sandford

Ferguson

(2011). The ick factor, anticipated regret and willingness to become an organ donor. Health Psychology, 30, 236–245. doi:10.1037/a0022379

31.

Ostrom

(2006). The value-added of laboratory experiments for the study of institutions and common-pool resources. Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organisation, 61, 149–163. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2005.02.008

32.

Peysakhovich

Nowak

M. A.

Rand

D. G.

(2014). Humans display a ‘cooperative phenotype’ that is domain general and temporally stable. Nature Communications, 5, 1–8. doi:10.1038/ncomms5939

33.

Raihani

N. J.

Mace

Lamba

(2013). The effect of $1, $5 and $10 stakes in an online dictator game. PLoS One, 8, e73131. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073131

34.

Saleem

Ishaque

Habib

Hussain

S. S.

Jawed

Khan

A. A.

… Jehan

. (2009). Knowledge, attitudes and practices survey on organ donation among a select adult population of Pakistan. BMC Medical Ethics, 10, 5. doi:10.1186/1472-6939-10-5

35.

Shepherd

O’Carroll

R. E.

Ferguson

(2014). An international comparison of deceased and living organ donation/transplant rates in opt-in and opt-out systems: A panel study. BMC Medicine, 12, 131. doi:1186/s12916-014-0131-4

36.

Sperling

Gurman

G. M.

(2012). Factors encouraging and inhibiting organ donation in Israel. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 9, 479–497. doi:10.1007/s11673-012-9398-3

37.

Stewart-Williams

(2007). Altruism among kin vs. nonkin: Effects of cost of help and reciprocal exchange. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 193–198. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.01.002

38.

Tonin

Vlassopoulos

(2013). Experimental evidence of self-image concerns as motivation for giving. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 90, 19–27. doi:10.1016/j/jebo.2013.03.011

39.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2017, 1 15). Organ donation statistics. Retrieved from http://www.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics.html

40.

Voors

Turley

Kontoleon

Bulte

List

(2012). Exploring whether behaviour in context-free experiments is predictive of behaviour in the field: Evidence from lab and field experiments in rural Sierra Leone. Economics Letters, 114, 308–311. doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2011.10.016

41.

Wilhelm

Kaltwasser

Hilderbrandt

. (2017 early online). Will the real factors for prosociality please stand up? A comment on Böckler, Tusche & Singer. (2016). Social Psychological and Personality Science, doi:10.1177/1948550617707021

42.

Yamagishi

Horita

Mifune

Hashimoto

Lie

Shinada

… Simunovic

. (2012). Rejection of unfair offers in the ultimatum game is no evidence of strong reciprocity. PNAS, 109, 20364–20368.

43.

Yamagishi

Horita

Takagishi

Shinda

Tanida

Cook

K. S

. (2009). The private rejection of unfair offers and emotional commitment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 106, 11520–11523. Available from http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0900636106

44.

Yamagishi

Mifune

Shinda

Hashimoto

Horita

… Simunovic

. (2013). In behavioral pro-sociality game specific pro-social preferences and expectations of pro-sociality. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 120, 260–271. doi:10.1016, j.obhdp.2012.06.002

45.

Zahavi

(1997). The handicap principle. Oxford, England: OUP.

46.

Zhao

Ferguson

Smillie

(2017a). Individual differences in good manners rather than compassion predict fair allocations in wealth in the dictator game. Journal of Personality, 85, 244–256. doi:0.1111/jopy.12237

47.

Zhao

Ferguson

Smillie

. (2017b). When fair is not equal: Compassion and politeness diverge when predicting allocations of wealth under norms of equity and need. Social Psychological and Personality Sciences, 8, 847–857.

48.

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. doi:10.1177/1088868314553709

49.

Zhao

Smillie

Ferguson

(2016). Prosocial personality traits differentially predict egalitarianism, generosity, and reciprocity in economic games. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1137. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01137

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

0.31 MB