The core tendencies underlying individual differences in prosocial behavior

• Applicant: Dr. Isabel Thielmann
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 466142385

Prosocial behaviors such as helping, cooperation, and reciprocity are vital ingredients of all kinds of interpersonal relationships and the functioning of societies at large. Given this vital significance, understanding the underlying determinants of prosocial behaviors is of critical importance. Crucially, numerous studies consistently show that there are substantial individual differences in prosocial behavior: Whereas some individuals are inherently prosocial, others are primarily self-interested. To account for this apparent interindividual variation, research in psychology and beyond has considered a plethora of different personality traits and studied their influence on prosocial actions in different classes of social situations. However, studies have mostly examined the relation of single trait characteristics with prosocial behavior in single situations, thus preventing a more comprehensive and systematic understanding of which personality traits affect prosocial behavior in which classes of situations, and why. The current project aims to overcome this limitation by identifying the “core tendencies” (i.e., the shared, underlying dispositional cores of conceptually related traits) that can account for individual variation in prosocial behavior across various situations. To this end, the project builds on the concept of situational affordances and the idea that social situations provide four key situational affordances – (i) a possibility for exploitation, (ii) a possibility for reciprocity, (iii) temporal conflict, and (iv) dependence under uncertainty – all of which allow distinct (classes of) personality traits to become expressed in prosocial behavior. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that four core tendencies can account for individual differences in prosocial behavior in different classes of situations providing different affordances for behavior. The project tests this hypothesis in a set of nine studies (separated in three work packages) using diverse methodology (e.g., correlational vs. experimental designs, prosocial behavior in economic games vs. real life, self- vs. observer reports of personality). Taken together, the project provides a strong theoretical basis for future research on individual differences in prosocial behavior and advances the understanding of human prosociality in various ways.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Benjamin E. Hilbig, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Morten Moshagen