How Do Basic Personality Traits Map Onto Moral Judgments of Fairness-Related Actions?

Abstract

Reliance on fairness norms is a core feature of moral behavior and judgment, and is conceptually and empirically linked with basic personality dimensions. However, the specific nature of these links is poorly understood. In this study (N = 313, 68% female), we employed a novel third-party judgment paradigm, in which participants made moral judgments of various sharing actions of virtual others. This allowed us to capture individual variation in the relative importance of several fairness norms. We correlated these norm profiles with Big Five personality traits. We observed distinct associations between agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion and estimates of the importance of generosity, selfishness, relative generosity, and relative selfishness norms. Comparisons of these associations at the domain- versus facet-level of personality traits suggested these relations are specific to domain-level traits. These findings are an important step toward unraveling the complex links between fairness norms and basic personality traits.