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Personality aspects and proenvironmental attitudes
Abstract
Objective:
Climate change is a serious threat. Personality psychologists can help address this threat by understanding what kind of people tend to endorse proenvironmental attitudes and engage in sustainable behavior. Previous research supports reliable associations between proenvironmental attitudes and personality traits. However, this research has generally aggregated different kinds of attitudes into a single composite and has focused on the domain level of personality traits.
Method:
This study explored how 10 lower-order aspects of the Big Five personality traits were related to eight different proenvironmental attitudes in three convenience samples from the United States (N = 1,234; 1,000) and the United Kingdom (N = 538).
Results:
All five trait domains were related to at least one proenvironmental attitude across all three samples. Seven of eight proenvironmental attitudes could be predicted by one or more traits in all three samples. We also found evidence that the Openness aspect of Openness to Experience was a more consistent predictor of proenvironmental attitudes than the Intellect aspect. In contrast, there was little benefit in distinguishing between the aspects of other trait domains. We did not find evidence that age or political orientation moderated the associations between proenvironmental attitudes and personality.
Conclusion:
Results point to the need for more fine-grained research on individual differences in proenvironmental attitudes and behavior.
... Previous research studies have indicated that openness to experience is the most influential trait on environmentallyfriendly attitudes or behaviours (Brick & Lewis, 2016;Hopwood et al., 2024;Markowitz et al., 2012;Milfont & Sibley, 2012;Soutter et al., 2020), sustainability concerns (Hirsh, 2010) and the usage of green products (Hirsh & Dolderman, 2007;Klein et al., 2019). In some studies, conscientiousness has been highly associated with environmentalism (Milfont & Sibley, 2012), and it contributes to explaining a wide range of sustainable attitudes and behaviours, such as consuming sustainable products (Luchs & Mooradian, 2012), participating in environmental protection activities (Milfont & Sibley, 2012) and pro-environmental behaviours likely to be positively predicted by self-transcendence than self-enhancement. ...
... Finally, attitude is frequently used as an indicator of environmental and sustainable outcomes because attitude is suggested to be a highly relevant predictor of behaviour in several theories used to explore environmental and sustainable outcomes (Hopwood et al., 2024;Perera et al., 2024;Steg & Vlek, 2009). However, the association between abstract individual characteristics (e.g., personality), attitudes and specific behavioural outcomes (e.g., recycling of bags) lies on a continuum of two extremes of abstraction, making the relationships complicated, non-existent, conflicted and contradicted (Lange & Dewitte, 2019;Mónus, 2021). ...
... Based on a survey sample of 600 Vietnamese consumers, the CFA results confirm the reliability and validity of the constructs. The analytical results from multiple regression models (Hair et al., 2010) are generally consistent with the diversity found in previous studies on the relationships between core values and sustainable outcomes (e.g., Agissova & Sautkina, 2020;Hansen et al., 2018;Klein et al., 2019) and the association between Big-Five and sustainable outcomes (e.g., Brick & Lewis, 2016;Hopwood et al., 2024;Klein et al., 2019;Markowitz et al., 2012;Milfont & Sibley, 2012). The analytical results from the two-step cluster and multinomial and multiple regression models (Anderson & Rutkowski, 2008;Tkaczynski, 2016) reveal four clusters that characterise the dominant features of the combination of core values and the Big-Five. ...
This study explores the interplay between Schwartz’s core values and the Big Five personality traits to investigate how individual differences contribute to sustainable outcomes in a Vietnamese context. Previous studies have largely examined values and personality traits separately, leaving an incomplete understanding of their combined influence on sustainable attitudes and behaviours. To address this, the study compares variable-centred and person-centred approaches to explain variances in both abstract and specific levels of sustainable outcomes. The results are based on a survey sample of 600 Vietnamese consumers. The variable-centred approach indicates the strongest associations of conservation and self-transcendence (values) but the weakest associations of neuroticism and extraversion (personalities) with sustainable outcomes. Core values rather than basic personality traits are more strongly associated with sustainable outcomes. A cluster analysis reveals four clusters based on the combinations of values and personalities: Resilient (20.33%), Social focus (16.00%), Balanced (39.33%) and Under-controlled (24.34%). The person-centred approach suggests Resilient and Social focus play the most positive roles but hinder the Under-controlled. The associations between individual differences and specific behavioural outcomes are more unstable than the associations between more abstract and attitudinal outcomes. The associations between the Balanced and specific behavioural outcomes suggest that individuals may also balance their environmental behavioural outcomes in different contexts. The main conclusion is that the variable-centred and person-centred approaches are complementary in generating insight on whether the combination of individual differences in values and personalities are associated with sustainable outcomes.
... Prior studies have examined the role of various individual differences and personality traits, such as the Big Five, a need for cognition, and self-monitoring, in affecting consumers' consumption reduction behavior (Armstrong Soule and Sekhon 2022;Ghorban Nejad and Hansen 2021;Hüttel et al. 2020). They have evidenced that individual differences, such as personality traits, matter when one attempts to explain and/or predict consumers' proenvironmental behaviors (e.g., Hopwood et al. 2022) and arguably EMCR. Moreover, a recent review article on individual-level consumption reduction highlights the scarcity of research on the underlying influences of cognitive processes and individual differences such as personality traits in consumers' engagement in consumption reduction practices (Nejad et al. 2024). ...
... Along this line, Haugtvedt et al. (2018) suggest investigating individual differences to extend our knowledge of existing theoretical models and employ them to deepen our insight into what drives changes in attitudes and decision-making processes. In their recent work, Hopwood et al. (2022) call for in-depth explorations of such personality traits to enhance our understanding of how individuals embrace pro-environmental behavior and to provide a deeper insight into the relationship between personality traits and individuals' pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors (Hopwood et al. 2022). Such personality traits frequently function as moderators in theoretical models (Furnham and Heaven 1999;Hansen and Sand 2008;Haugtvedt and Petty 1992). ...
... Along this line, Haugtvedt et al. (2018) suggest investigating individual differences to extend our knowledge of existing theoretical models and employ them to deepen our insight into what drives changes in attitudes and decision-making processes. In their recent work, Hopwood et al. (2022) call for in-depth explorations of such personality traits to enhance our understanding of how individuals embrace pro-environmental behavior and to provide a deeper insight into the relationship between personality traits and individuals' pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors (Hopwood et al. 2022). Such personality traits frequently function as moderators in theoretical models (Furnham and Heaven 1999;Hansen and Sand 2008;Haugtvedt and Petty 1992). ...
Limited research has focused on consumption reduction as one potential pathway to meet sustainable development goals. This paper investigates consumers’ intentions to undertake consumption reduction through the lens of an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB), where selected individual differences, namely the need for evaluation (NE) and self-referencing (SR), are given considerable attention. In total, 226 respondents participated in this web-based survey study. The results from structural equation modeling analysis confirm that the extended theory of planned behavior effectively explains consumers’ intentions to undertake consumption reduction. Notably, the individual differences of the NE and SR each uniquely moderate the relationships within the TPB model. This study provides a theoretical contribution by integrating the selected moderators (i.e., the NE and SR) into the TPB framework, increases the TPB’s predictive power, and further provides a novel understanding of the underlying influences of individual differences on consumers’ intentions to undertake consumption reduction for the benefit of the environment. Moreover, the findings offer practical implications for policymakers and social marketers in designing tailor-made interventions and consumption reduction strategies by considering the important role of individual differences.
... ≤ RMSEA ≤ .09; Gallagher et al., 2023;Hopwood et al., 2024). The latter strategy was chosen because model fit of the English version can be seen as a fair benchmark for our translations. ...
Personality traits predict health, well-being, relationship success, and work-related outcomes, but most of the relevant evidence comes from English-speaking populations. The Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS) are one of the most used English-language personality questionnaires, allowing to assess Big Five domains and aspects validly and reliably. In the present study, we validated German, French, and Italian translations of the BFAS and its short-form (BFAS-S) in a representative sample of Swiss adults (N = 4’457). Across the three languages, the translations of the BFAS and the BFAS-S showed satisfactory psychometric properties in terms of their factorial validity, external validity, reliability, and convergence of short- and long-version. Furthermore, we found partial weak measurement invariance across the three languages for all aspects and domains and strong invariance for some aspects. The translations of the BFAS and the BFAS-S may thus facilitate future research on personality traits in non-English speaking samples.
... First, existing studies differ in their conceptualization of vaccination outcomes, with some measuring vaccination behavior or status, often using dichotomous yes/no questions, and others assessing people's vaccination intentions or attitudes, typically with Likert-style response scales, similar to those in personality trait measures. Intention and attitude measures are not only conceptually and methodologically more similar to personality trait measures, but they have been also theorized to mediate the links between broad traits and behavior (Ajzen et al., 2018;Hopwood et al., 2024). As such, we expected to find stronger correlations between traits with measures of vaccination attitudes and intentions than with people's actual vaccination status or behaviors . ...
Objetivo: A pesar de los beneficios comprobados de la vacunación, las personas difieren en su disposición a vacunarse. Estas diferencias son el resultado de múltiples factores, incluyendo variables sociales, culturales y psicológicas. Este metaanálisis estimó los efectos de los Cinco Grandes rasgos de personalidad de las personas en sus actitudes, intenciones y comportamientos en materia de vacunación y examinó el papel de las variables moderadoras derivadas teórica y empíricamente. Métodos: Meta analizamos datos de 28 estudios que tomaron muestras de más de 48,000 personas para estimar los efectos de los rasgos de personalidad de los Cinco Grandes en las actitudes, intenciones y comportamientos de vacunación. Además, probamos los efectos moderadores de la edad, el género, la región de la muestra, el tipo de muestra (representativa vs. conveniencia), la medida de vacunación (actitud, intención, comportamiento, compuesto), el tipo de vacunación (COVID-19, influenza u otra), y confiabilidad de la medida de los Cinco Grandes sobre los vínculos entre los rasgos de personalidad y la vacunación. Resultados: Las personas con niveles altos de afabilidad y extraversión, y niveles bajos de neuroticismo informaron actitudes más positivas hacia la vacunación, mientras que las personas abiertas informaron intenciones más fuertes de vacunarse. Las personas abiertas y afables también se mostraron más positivas con respecto a las nuevas vacunas contra el COVID-19, mientras que las personas extrovertidas fueron más positivas con respecto a las vacunas contra la influenza. No hubo efectos para la escrupulosidad. En general, los tamaños del efecto fueron pequeños pero generalizados en todas las edades. Otros efectos moderadores sugirieron una imagen más matizada según las regiones culturales, los tipos de muestras y el género. Conclusiones: Los hallazgos proporcionan una imagen convincente de los efectos significativos, aunque pequeños, de los rasgos de personalidad en la vacunación. Quedan dudas sobre los procesos a través de los cuales los rasgos de personalidad pueden afectar las actitudes, las intenciones y potencialmente también el comportamiento en materia de vacunación.
... Concerning individual differences in sustainable behavior in general, it was shown that there is a large correlation between sustainable attitudes in general and all major BIG FIVE personality traits except neuroticism (Soutter & Mõttus, 2021). Regarding the openness aspect, openness to experience instead of intellect is essential for pro-environmental attitudes (Hopwood et al., 2022). Furthermore, there seem to be differences in personality traits between omnivores and non-omnivores as one aspect of pro-environmental attitudes: Omnivores appear to be more authoritarian, socially dominant, bias-oriented, and self-centered than vegetarians and vegans (Holler et al., 2021). ...
One aspect of sustainable consumption behavior is the shift to a vegetarian diet. This study investigates if individual factors, like character strengths, are related to attitudes toward vegetarian food. Additionally, the study examines potential variations in character strengths between vegetarians/vegans and omnivores, as well as whether there are differences in explicit and implicit affective attitudes towards vegetarian and meat-based diets. A total of 210 participants filled out a demographic questionnaire, a scale measuring character strength, an explicit rating task, and an affective priming task that involved images of both vegetarian and meat-based food. The results showed that there was no difference in the explicit and implicit rating of meat-based food compared to vegetarian food for omnivore people. Vegetarians/vegans rated vegetarian food explicitly and implicitly more positively than meat-based food. Only the four character strengths of prudence, appreciation of beauty and excellence, humor, and teamwork, besides the diet type (vegetarians/vegans vs. omnivores), predicted the explicit attitudes toward vegetarian food. Vegetarians/vegans and omnivores only differed in the character strengths of love of learning and forgiveness. This study provides evidence that the explicit and implicit attitudes towards vegetarian food are concordant for vegetarians and vegans with their diet choice. Furthermore, the relationship between character strengths and explicit attitudes toward vegetarian food is weak, which hints that those individual transformative qualities (Woiwode et al., 2021) toward sustainable attitude and behavior should be investigated carefully and in-depth.
This study investigates the factors influencing older consumers’ word of mouth and intention to use meal planner applications, given that 57% of Malaysians aged 60 and above are active Internet users. The current study utilized an extended technology acceptance model and the stimulus organism response framework to examine the cognitive-affective dichotomy of usage influence. The respondents were initially selected through purposive sampling and further screened using filter questions to ensure alignment with the study objectives, resulting in data collected from 392 elderly individuals across various demographic regions of Malaysia. The analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and SmartPLS. The results indicated that cognitive factors (subjective norm, facilitating conditions, and app characteristics) positively impacted the affective components (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use), which, in turn, enhanced consumers’ attitudes toward using these applications. Furthermore, openness to change and gender were observed to moderate the relationship between affective and conative responses (word of mouth and behavioral intention). The study provides new insights into the aging population on food-related mobile applications to governments, food service-based organizations, restaurants, and app designers. Thus, focus can be on improving app characteristics and facilitating conditions to enhance perceived usefulness and ease of use while also considering how gender and openness to change may influence consumers’ attitudes and behaviors.
Objective
Eating is often a social activity that can be influenced by others, particularly in close relationships when dietary preferences reflect underlying value differences. We sought to examine the personality traits of meat‐eating couples who differ in their preferences for meat.
Method
We recruited Swiss romantic couples in which one partner typically consumed more meat than the other ( N = 272, couples = 136). At baseline, participants completed survey measures of self‐ and informant‐rated personality traits at the domain (e.g., agreeableness) and aspect level (e.g., compassion) and meat consumption. Participants then completed 28 daily meal surveys about their meat consumption.
Results
Among high‐meat eating partners, those higher in openness/intellect and compassion ate less meat. Additionally, higher intellect among low‐meat eating partners predicted lower meat consumption among high‐meat eating partners.
Conclusions
These findings replicate evidence that personality plays an important role in meat‐eating and extend this evidence to meat consumption in a relational context.
The US Supreme Court recently debated and upheld a significant piece of farmed animal welfare legislation, Proposition 12, which was broadly supported by Californian voters. The goal of this study was to determine how individual differences in personality are related to attitudes about this legislation. We examined how ten lower-order aspects of the Big Five personality traits were related to Proposition 12 in an American sample (n = 802). The Openness aspect of Openness to Experience, the Withdrawal aspect of Neuroticism, and trait domain Agreeableness were consistently related to support for Proposition 12. Effects were not moderated by political orientation, region, gender, or age. Our results show that personality traits are not only an important factor in general political attitudes about animal welfare, but that they can predict people’s attitudes about particular pieces of animal welfare legislation. Results also highlight the importance of considering lower-order aspects for predicting animal welfare attitudes.
A substantial rise of vote shares of Green parties across European countries suggests an increasing support of environmental issues. A critical question for researchers and policymakers alike is, who endorses Green parties? Here, we examined the Big Five personality predictors of green partisanship, voting behavior, and party switching in a nationally representative sample of more than 27,000 Germans collected over a period of 16 years. Consistent with previous research, high openness and low conscientiousness emerged as the strongest personality predictors of green partisanship and voting behavior. Critically, high openness also predicted the likelihood to switch to a Green party vote across two federal elections. These effects held when controlling for demographics and environmental concerns, suggesting that the association between personality and support for Greens reflects more than social norms or attitudes about the environment. We close with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
People vary in how they perceive, think about, and respond to moral issues. Clearly, we cannot fully understand the psychology of morality without accounting for individual differences in moral functioning. But decades of neglect of and explicit skepticism toward such individual differences has resulted in a lack of integration between moral psychology and personality psychology—the study of psychological differences between people. In recent years, these barriers to progress have started to break down. This special issue aims to celebrate and further increase the visibility of the personality psychology of morality. Here, we introduce the articles in this special issue by highlighting some important contributions a personality‐based perspective has to offer moral psychology—particularly in comparison to the currently prominent social psychological approach. We show that personality psychology is well‐placed to (a) contribute toward a rigorous empirical foundation for moral psychology, (b) tackle the conceptualization and assessment of stable moral tendencies, (c) assess the predictive validity of moral traits in relation to consequential outcomes, (d) uncover the mechanisms underlying individual differences in moral judgments and behavior, and (e) provide insights into moral development. For these reasons, we believe that moral psychology needs personality psychology to reach its full scholarly potential.
Objective:
This research examines differential responses to ethical vegetarian appeals as a fuction of individuals' personalities.
Background:
Ethical vegetarian appeals are persuasive messages promoting the adoption of a plant-based diet on moral grounds. Individuals may vary in their receptivity to such appeals, depending on their morally relevant traits (e.g., agreeableness), beliefs (e.g., speciesism), and motives (e.g., concerns about animal welfare).
Methods:
We explored (Study 1, N = 907) and then attempted to confirm (Study 2, N = 980) differential responses to three vegetarian appeals-two highlighting moral concerns (animal welfare, the environment) and a third focusing on individual health (control condition).
Results:
Both studies revealed several differential effects of our vegetarian appeals on the perceived effectiveness of the appeal and resultant intentions to reduce meat consumption. These mostly consisted of differences in receptivity to appeals focused on animal welfare. However, only one such effect observed in Study 1 was clearly replicated in Study 2: People who more strongly believed that eating meat was "normal" rated the vegetarian appeals focused on animal welfare as less effective.
Conclusion:
Ethical vegetarian appeals may elicit different responses from different people, particularly those focused on animal welfare, depending on how normative one believes meat-eating to be. Such insights can inform behavior change efforts in this area.
Objective:
This preregistered study provides robust estimates of the links between Big Five personality traits and civic engagement across different samples and life stages.
Methods:
We recruited two samples from the United States and United Kingdom (total N = 1593) and measured Big Five domains, Big Five aspects, and six civic engagement indicators: volunteerism, charitable giving, donating blood, posthumous organ donation, political voting, and vaccination. We compared the links between these measures across samples and tested moderation across life stages and several sociodemographic variables. We explored whether these links replicate between self- and peer-reports.
Results:
We found small but robust effects. Agreeable, extraverted, and open/intellectual participants reported more civic engagement, especially volunteerism and charitable giving. Neurotic and conscientious participants mainly reported less civic engagement, especially blood and organ donations. One of the two Big Five aspects often drove these links, such as Compassion in the link between Agreeableness and volunteerism. We found some differences between younger and middle-aged adults.
Conclusions:
Big Five personality traits predict civic engagement modestly but consistently, with adequate study power being critical to detecting these links. Lower-order traits, such as Big Five aspects, clarify the relationships between traits and engagement. Life stages and sociodemographic variables have limited effects.
People vary in their compassion for animals, likely due in part to more variation in more basic personality and interpersonal behavior attributes. Previous research has generally suggested that more communal and agreeable people also tend to be more compassionate to animals. However, this research is limited regarding the range and depth of individual differences used to examine this issue. The goal of this preregistered study was to extend previous research by examining associations between compassion for animals and a wider range of variables than has been previously examined. In a representative sample of American adults (n = 992), we tested associations between compassion for animals and (a) Big Five personality trait domains, (b) Big Five trait aspects, (c) maladaptive Big Five trait domains, (d) interpersonal values, and (e) interpersonal problems. Results supported our hypothesis that compassion for animals is related to communion/agreeableness and openness to experience. Consistent with our hypotheses, the compassionate aspect of agreeableness drove correlations with that trait. Contrary to our hypotheses, maladaptive antagonism was not more strongly related to compassion for animals than normal-range agreeableness. The results provide a fuller portrait of the personological foundation of compassion for animals. Specifically, people who are more communal/agreeable and open tend to be more compassionate toward animals. This suggests that personality-related patterns of behavior among humans extend to human-animal interactions. Results also provide a basis for future work examining the mechanisms underlying human compassion for animals.
The goal of this study was to identify the underlying latent dimensions that account for variation in sustainable behaviors (SBs) among American adults. Our strategy was to assess all of the SBs sampled in existing measures, as well as a number of other variables relevant to individual differences in SBs, in a community sample (N = 1234). Variation in SBs could be accounted for by four broad dimensions: (1) goods, (2) food, (3) transportation, and (4) engagement. These dimensions were related to a range of criterion variables involving values, attitudes, personality traits, and demographic characteristics. Some potentially important and unique links with outcomes supported the importance of distinguishing the dimensions that underlie SBs. This work provides an evidence-based organizational scheme for SBs in future studies and points to important new directions in research on individual differences in proenvironmental behavior.
A pro-environmental orientation is theorized to be an important predictor of public and private pro-environmental behavior. As such, measuring pro-environmental orientation is an important component in environmental psychology and politics research. In this paper, we assess two well-established scales, the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) and the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS), on how well they measure the underlying construct of pro-environmental orientation. The items of these scales offer strong face validity, but mainly from a politically left tradition, which may reduce validity among political conservatives. Previous attempts at scale validation have mostly focused on predictive validity with pro-environmental behavior and have not tested how the items measure the latent construct itself. Additionally, we present a novel measure of environmental orientation using diverse moral language to avoid ideological framing: the Moral Environmentalism Scale (MES). The MES is validated here using MTurk workers (n = 448), and a more representative sample from Survey Sampling International (n = 499). In these validation studies, the MES moderated the relationship between party identification and behavior while CNS and NEP did not. Item-level analyses of the MES scale using two measurement periods revealed robust item characteristics. Seen together, all three scales offer a more complete picture of pro-environmental orientation measurement validity and inform scale selection for future research. All study materials, data, and analysis code are available at https://osf.io/d4ume/?view_only=05d5cfb5a76a4f11b339290913da96f6.
Numerous medical studies have documented vegetarian diets as having various health benefits. Studies have also compared vegetarians with other dietary groups from a socio-psychological perspective. The objective of this review is to investigate the differences between vegetarians and omnivores in terms of their personality profiles, values, and empathy skills. A search was conducted across three electronic databases. Non-randomized, observational, cross-sectional, and cohort studies were eligible. Outcomes provided information about the differences between the above-mentioned dietary groups regarding their personality profiles, values, and empathy skills. A shortened version of the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale was used to assess the risk of bias for the included studies. Of the 2,513 different studies found, 25 (total number of participants n = 23,589) were ultimately included. These studies indicate that vegetarians significantly differ from omnivores in their personalities, values, and ability to be empathetic. Omnivorism is associated with an increased orientation toward social dominance, greater right-wing authoritarianism, and, in line with this, a stronger tendency to be prejudiced. Vegetarianism is associated with greater openness and empathy. The values of vegetarians are based more on universalism, hedonism, stimulation, and self-direction, whereas the values of omnivores are based more on the idea of power. To answer a narrowly defined and clear question, issues such as animal ethics, animal rights, and environmental protection are not considered in this review. The findings of this review, showing marked differences in personality correlating to the choice of diet and the increasing influence of plant-based diets on a global level, indicate that further studies about vegetarianism are warranted.
Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009 to 2017. Individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism, openness to experience, and potentially agreeableness. These findings highlight the importance of understanding individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior.
Proenvironmental attitudes and behaviors have been increasing over the past decade. In this study, we use longitudinal panel data from a nationally representative sample of the Swiss population (N=9,106) to replicate the finding that proenvironmental attitudes are linked with proenvironmental consumer behaviors, and present novel evidence that change in proenvironmental attitudes is associated with change in proenvironmental consumer behaviors. The links between proenvironmental attitudes and proenvironmental consumer behaviors were moderated by people’s life stage but not by their perceived control. Together, these results provide important insights about the ways in which proenvironmental attitudes translate into proenvironmental consumer behaviors over time and across individuals with different demographic and psychological backgrounds.
We created a facet atlas that maps the interrelations between facet scales from 13 hierarchical personality inventories to provide a practically useful, transtheoretical description of lower-level personality traits. We generated this atlas by estimating a series of network models that visualize the correlations among 268 facet scales administered to the Eugene-Springfield Community Sample (Ns = 571–948). As expected, most facets contained a blend of content from multiple Big Five domains and were part of multiple Big Five networks. We identified core and peripheral facets for each Big Five domain. Results from this study resolve some inconsistencies in facet placement across instruments and highlight the complexity of personality structure relative to the constraints of traditional hierarchical models that impose simple structure. This facet atlas (also available as an online point-and-click app at tedschwaba.shinyapps.io/appdata/) provides a guide for researchers who wish to measure a domain with a limited set of facets as well as information about the core and periphery of each personality domain. To illustrate the value of a facet atlas in applied and theoretical settings, we examined the network structure of scales measuring impulsivity and tested structural hypotheses from the Big Five Aspect Scales inventory.
Empirical evidence suggests that self-reported prosociality and donations increase with age. The majority of this research was conducted using monetary donations as outcome measures. However, on average older adults hold a significant advantage in financial and material assets compared to younger adults, effectively lowering the subjective cost of small monetary donations. Are older adults also more prosocial when donating a non-monetary resource that is of equal or even higher value for them compared to younger age groups? A first study (N = 160, 20-74 years) combined data from self-report measures, affective responses, and hypothetical donation decisions to compute a single prosociality factor. Conceptually replicating findings from Hubbard, Harbaugh, Srivastava, Degras, and Mayr (2016) on monetary donations, results suggest that non-monetary prosociality also increases with age. However, these differences depended on the domain of the donation. Data from two further behavioral studies (Study 2: N = 156, 18-89 years; Study 3: N = 342, 19-88 years) that were analyzed using Bayesian statistics provided evidence that older adults are not more prosocial than younger and middle-aged adults when donating a small amount of their time (in service of a donation to charity). In summary, the three studies suggest that older adults are not consistently more likely to behave prosocially than younger or middle-aged adults in non-monetary domains. These findings point to the importance of moving research on prosociality and aging beyond financial donations and further explore the role of resources and perceived costs of prosociality.
Climate change mandates us to understand why individuals do (not) behave pro‐environmentally and personality traits are well suited for this purpose. Past research has mostly focused on how broad domain‐level personality traits were associated with pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors. In two datasets (N = 501 and 287), we examined whether personality facets provided a more detailed picture of how personality traits were associated with pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors. It was found that some facets were the main drivers of domain‐level associations. Furthermore, it was found that facets, collectively, predicted pro‐environmental attitudes (r = .50 to .52) and behaviors (r = .29 to .42) in holdout datasets. This predictive ability was on par with the predictive ability of domains. Therefore, facets provided a greater understanding of how personality traits were associated with pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors. Furthermore, facets provided a similar predictive ability of pro‐environmental attitudes and behaviors to that of domains.
Health, the environment, and animal rights represent the three main reasons people cite for vegetarian diet in Western societies. However, it has not been shown that these motives can be distinguished empirically, and little is known about what kind of people are likely to be compelled by these different motives. This study had three goals. First, we aimed to use construct validation to test whether develop health, environmental, and animal rights motives for a vegetarian diet could be distinguished. Second, we evaluated whether these motivations were associated with different demographic, behavioral, and personality profiles in three diverse samples. Third, we examined whether peoples’ motivations were related to responses to vegetarian advocacy materials. We created the Vegetarian Eating Motives Inventory, a 15-item measure whose structure was invariant across three samples (N = 1006, 1004, 5478) and two languages (English and Dutch). Using this measure, we found that health was the most common motive for non-vegetarians to consider vegetarian diets and it had the broadest array of correlates, which primarily involved communal and agentic values. Correlates of environmental and animal rights motives were limited, but these motives were strong and specific predictors of advocacy materials in a fourth sample (N = 739). These results provide researchers with a useful tool for identifying vegetarian motives among both vegetarian and non-vegetarian respondents, offer useful insights into the nomological net of vegetarian motivations, and provide advocates with guidance about how to best target campaigns promoting a vegetarian diet.
Having children is a transformative experience and may change the way people think about the future. Parents invest time, energy and resources to ensure the survival and reproductive success of offspring. Having children may also induce environmental concerns and investments in actions aimed at guaranteeing the quality of natural resources available to offspring. However, there is limited empirical support for this parenthood effect, and little is known about how environmental attitudes and behaviour change over time following the birth of a child. This pre-registered study uses data from the first seven waves (2009–2015) of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study—a longitudinal national probability study of social attitudes, personality, and health outcomes—with multilevel interrupted time series analysis. Respondents’ belief in the reality and causes of climate change, sacrifices to standard of living to protect the environment, and changes in daily routine to protect the environment did not change significantly following the birth of a child; and nor were there changes in the underlying trends of attitudes or pre-birth anticipation effects. The study further found no gender differences in the attitudinal effects of childbirth. Additional exploratory analyses suggest that becoming a parent for the first time may increase beliefs in the reality of climate change but does not appear to change other environmental attitudes. Overall, our findings provide little empirical evidence for parenthood effects on environmentalism.
With climate change and its consequences believed to be among the most vital challenges for humanity and the Earth’s ecosystem, it is important to understand why individuals (do not) adopt pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Personality traits are well suited for this purpose. Because no recent work has systematically combined the accumulating evidence on this topic, we aimed to meta-analyze the associations of the Big Five and HEXACO personality domains with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Meta-analysis of 38 sources (N = 44,993) implicated Openness and Honesty-Humility as the strongest correlates of pro-environmental attitudes (r = .22 and .20) and behaviors (r = .21 and .25). Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and to a lesser extent Extraversion, were also associated with pro-environmental attitudes (r = .15, .12, and .09) and behaviors (r = .10, .11, and .10). Heterogeneity among effect sizes was partly explained by samples’ gender ratio, age, and country of origin, and by personality model. P-curve analysis, funnel plots, and Egger’s tests indicated significant, but sporadic and small publication bias. As a validity test, the meta-analytic associations collectively provided substantial predictive accuracy for pro-environmental attitudes (r = .44 to .45) and behaviors (r = .28 to .43) in independent hold-out samples.
Personality traits are powerful predictors of outcomes in the domains of education, work, relationships, health, and well-being. The recognized importance of personality traits has raised questions about their policy relevance, that is, their potential to inform policy actions designed to improve human welfare. Traditionally, the use of personality traits in applied settings has been predicated on their ability to predict valued outcomes, typically under the assumption that traits are functionally unchanging. This assumption, however, is both untrue and a limiting factor on using personality traits more widely in applied settings. In this article, we present the case that traits can serve both as relatively stable predictors of success and actionable targets for policy changes and interventions. Though trait change will likely prove a more difficult target than typical targets in applied interventions, it also may be a more fruitful one given the variety of life domains affected by personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Decades of research document individual differences in prosocial behavior using controlled experiments that model social interactions in situations of interdependence. However, theoretical and empirical integration of the vast literature on the predictive validity of personality traits to account for these individual differences is missing. Here, we present a theoretical framework that identifies four broad situational affordances across interdependent situations (i.e., exploitation, reciprocity, temporal conflict, and dependence under uncertainty) and more specific sub-affordances within certain types of interdependent situations (e.g., possibility to increase equality in outcomes) that can determine when, which, and how personality traits should be expressed in prosocial behavior. To test this framework, we meta-analyzed 770 studies reporting on 3,523 effects of 8 broad and 43 narrow personality traits on prosocial behavior in interdependent situations modelled in six commonly studied economic games (Dictator Game, Ultimatum Game, Trust Game, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Public Goods Game, and Commons Dilemma). Overall, meta-analytic correlations ranged between -.18 ≤ r ≤ .26 and most traits yielding a significant relation to prosocial behavior had conceptual links to the affordances provided in interdependent situations, most prominently the possibility for exploitation. Moreover, for several traits, correlations within games followed the predicted pattern derived from a theoretical analysis of affordances. On the level of traits, we found that narrow and broad traits alike can account for prosocial behavior, informing the bandwidth-fidelity problem. In sum, the meta-analysis provides a theoretical foundation that can guide future research on prosocial behavior and advance our understanding of individual differences in human prosociality.
Research has shown that social influence can be leveraged as a persuasive strategy to elicit beneficial behaviors, especially if it is tailored to the target audience. However, research on the impact of personality traits on users’ susceptibility to social influence is scarce. To bridge this gap, using a sample of 350 participants, we investigate: (1) the personality-based determinants of users’ susceptibility to three social influence strategies—Social Learning, Social Proof and Social Comparison—which are currently being employed in persuasive applications to motivate users to engage in beneficial behaviors; and (2) the moderating effect of gender. Our results reveal that Neuroticism is the most consistent determinant of users’ susceptibility to social influence, followed by Openness and Conscientiousness. Specifically, we found that: (1) individuals who are high in Neuroticism are more likely to be susceptible to all three social influence strategies than individuals who are low in Neuroticism; (2) individuals who are low in Openness are more likely to be susceptible to Social Proof and Social Comparison than individuals who are high in Openness; and (3) individuals who are low in Conscientiousness are more likely to be susceptible to Social Learning and Social Poof than individuals who are high in Conscientiousness. Finally, based on our findings, we provide a number of design guidelines for personalizing persuasive applications to users who are high in Neuroticism, low in Conscientiousness and/or low in Openness.
Given the relationship between attitudes and behaviors (Frymier and Nadler 2007), perceptions toward the environment are of concern in shaping environmental behaviors. Accordingly, understanding how to improve people’s connection to nature may be a vital research area linked to sustainability efforts. To further this understanding, the present study examined the contribution of empathy in mediating the relationship between personality traits and connectedness to nature. The Big Five Questionnaire, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Connectedness to Nature Scale were administered to 230 Italian workers. The results indicated that the relationship between the personality traits of agreeableness and openness and connectedness to nature is mediated by empathy, in particular by perspective taking and empathic concern. Given that empathy is amenable to training, compared to more stable personality traits, the results suggest that empathy may be a promising area for further research and intervention with the goal of increasing connectedness to nature and valuing of the environment among adults in the workplace.
The integration of anticancer drugs and inorganic nanocrystals in polymer nanocapsules is a widely used strategy to improve their functionality, stability and sustained release. However, the complexity in the preparation of functional nanocapsules and their reproducibility still challenge these promising drug carriers in clinical application. Here we introduce a simple one-step self-assembly strategy to prepare multifunctional nanocapsules based on simultaneous poly (DL-lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) encapsulation of antitumor drug doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) and NaYF4:Yb,Er@NaGdF4 upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) for cancer cell imaging and drug delivery. The obtained PLGA(UCNPs/DOX) nanocapsules with a small size of ≈150 nm possessed bright upconversion fluorescence and could act as T 1- weighted contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Moreover, the PLGA(UCNPs/DOX) nanocapsules exhibited pH-responsive drug releasing behavior, causing the loaded DOX easily releasing at cancer cells, and an obvious cytotoxicity via MTT assay. The endocytosis process of PLGA (UCNPs/DOX) nanocapsules is evaluated using optical microscopy and upconversion fluorescence microscopy. These results demonstrated that the developed PLGA nanocapsules could serve as multifunctional drug delivery systems for cancer imaging and therapy.
Significance
Building on recent advancements in the assessment of psychological traits from digital footprints, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of psychological mass persuasion—that is, the adaptation of persuasive appeals to the psychological characteristics of large groups of individuals with the goal of influencing their behavior. On the one hand, this form of psychological mass persuasion could be used to help people make better decisions and lead healthier and happier lives. On the other hand, it could be used to covertly exploit weaknesses in their character and persuade them to take action against their own best interest, highlighting the potential need for policy interventions.
Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours.
It has been argued that facets do not represent the bottom of the personality hierarchy—even more specific personality characteristics, nuances, could be useful for describing and understanding individuals and their differences. Combining two samples of German twins, we assessed the consensual validity (correlations across different observers), rank-order stability, and heritability of nuances. Personality nuances were operationalized as the 240 items of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Their attributes were examined by analyzing item residuals, controlling for the variance of the facet the item had been assigned to and all other facets. Most nuances demonstrated significant (p < .0002) cross-method agreement and rank-order stability. A substantial proportion of them (48% in self-reports, 20% in informant ratings, and 50% in combined ratings) demonstrated a significant (p < .0002) component of additive genetic variance, whereas evidence for environmental influences shared by twins was modest. Applying a procedure to estimate stability and heritability of true scores of item residuals yielded estimates comparable to those of higher-order personality traits, with median estimates of rank-order stability and heritability being .77 and .52, respectively. Few nuances demonstrated robust associations with age and gender, but many showed incremental, conceptually meaningful, and replicable (across methods and/or samples) predictive validity for a range of interest domains and body mass index. We argue that these narrow personality characteristics constitute a valid level of the personality hierarchy. They may be especially useful for providing a deep and contextualized description of the individual, but also for the prediction of specific outcomes.
This personal historical article traces the development of the Big-Five factor structure, whose growing acceptance by personality researchers has profoundly influenced the scientific study of individual differences. The roots of this taxonomy lie in the lexical hypothesis and the insights of Sir Francis Galton, the prescience of L. L. Thurstone, the legacy of Raymond B. Cattell, and the seminal analyses of Tupes and Christal. Paradoxically, the present popularity of this model owes much to its many critics, each of whom tried to replace it, but failed. In reaction, there have been a number of attempts to assimilate other models into the five-factor structure. Lately, some practical implications of the emerging consensus can be seen in such contexts as personnel selection and classification.
Human behaviour is integral not only to causing global climate change but also to responding and adapting to it. Here, we argue that psychological research should inform efforts to address climate change, to avoid misunderstandings about human behaviour and motivations that can lead to ineffective or misguided policies. We review three key research areas: describing human perceptions of climate change; understanding and changing individual and household behaviour that drives climate change; and examining the human impacts of climate change and adaptation responses. Although much has been learned in these areas, we suggest important directions for further research.
Facebook is rapidly gaining recognition as a powerful research tool for the social sciences. It constitutes a large and diverse pool of participants, who can be selectively recruited for both online and offline studies. Additionally, it facilitates data collection by storing detailed records of its users' demographic profiles, social interactions, and behaviors. With participants' consent, these data can be recorded retrospectively in a convenient, accurate, and inexpensive way. Based on our experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining multiple Facebook-based psychological studies that attracted over 10 million participants, we demonstrate how to recruit participants using Facebook, incentivize them effectively, and maximize their engagement. We also outline the most important opportunities and challenges associated with using Facebook for research, provide several practical guidelines on how to successfully implement studies on Facebook, and finally, discuss ethical considerations. (PsycINFO Database Record
Dunlap and Van Liere's New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale, published in 1978, has become a widely used measure of proenvironmental orientation. This article develops a revised NEP Scale designed to improve upon the original one in several respects: ( 1 ) It taps a wider range of facets of an ecological worldview, ( 2 ) It offers a balanced set of pro- and anti-NEP items, and ( 3 ) It avoids outmoded terminology. The new scale, termed the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, consists of 15 items. Results of a 1990 Washington State survey suggest that the items can be treated as an internally consistent summated rating scale and also indicate a modest growth in pro-NEP responses among Washington residents over the 14 years since the original study.
Creativity has been acknowledged as one of the most predominant factors contributing to individual performance in various domains of work, and both researchers and practitioners have been devoting increasing attention to creative performance. In this study, we examined the potential trait-trait interaction between the Big Five personality factors (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the motivational orientations of individuals in shaping their creative performance. Our hypotheses were empirically tested using longitudinal data collected from 304 undergraduate students at a North American business school. Results showed that extraversion and openness to experience had significant positive effects on creative performance. Analysis also revealed that the positive relationship between openness to experience and creativity was stronger when the person possessed strong extrinsic motivation. Agreeableness was a positive predictor of creative performance only when the person's extrinsic motivation was low. Patterns found relating to personality-motivation interaction as an explanatory factor of individuals' creative performance are described.
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a vast field and widely used by many applied researchers in the social and behavioral sciences. Over the years, many software pack-ages for structural equation modeling have been developed, both free and commercial. However, perhaps the best state-of-the-art software packages in this field are still closed-source and/or commercial. The R package lavaan has been developed to provide applied researchers, teachers, and statisticians, a free, fully open-source, but commercial-quality package for latent variable modeling. This paper explains the aims behind the develop-ment of the package, gives an overview of its most important features, and provides some examples to illustrate how lavaan works in practice.
Objective:
This preregistered study provides robust estimates of the links between Big Five personality traits and civic engagement across different samples and life stages.
Methods:
We recruited two samples from the United States and United Kingdom (total N = 1593) and measured Big Five domains, Big Five aspects, and six civic engagement indicators: volunteerism, charitable giving, donating blood, posthumous organ donation, political voting, and vaccination. We compared the links between these measures across samples and tested moderation across life stages and several sociodemographic variables. We explored whether these links replicate between self- and peer-reports.
Results:
We found small but robust effects. Agreeable, extraverted, and open/intellectual participants reported more civic engagement, especially volunteerism and charitable giving. Neurotic and conscientious participants mainly reported less civic engagement, especially blood and organ donations. One of the two Big Five aspects often drove these links, such as Compassion in the link between Agreeableness and volunteerism. We found some differences between younger and middle-aged adults.
Conclusions:
Big Five personality traits predict civic engagement modestly but consistently, with adequate study power being critical to detecting these links. Lower-order traits, such as Big Five aspects, clarify the relationships between traits and engagement. Life stages and sociodemographic variables have limited effects.
Background. The categorical classification system for personality disorder (PD) has been frequently criticized and several alternative dimensional models have been proposed. Method. Antecedent, concurrent and predictive markers of construct validity were examined for three models of PDs: the Five-Factor Model (FFM), the Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP) model and the DSM-IV in the Collaborative Study of Personality Disorders (CLPS) sample. Results. All models showed substantial validity across a variety of marker variables over time. Dimensional models (including dimensionalized DSM-IV) consistently outperformed the conventional categorical diagnosis in predicting external variables, such as subsequent suicidal gestures and hospitalizations. FFM facets failed to improve upon the validity of higher-order factors upon cross-validation. Data demonstrated the importance of both stable trait and dynamic psychopathological influences in predicting external criteria over time. Conclusions. The results support a dimensional representation of PDs that assesses both stable traits and dynamic processes.
Objective
The present study investigated how much variability in moral identity scores is attributable to individual differences that are stable over time and how much variability reflects daily fluctuations.
Method
Participants (N = 138, M age = 25.11 years, SD = 10.77; 82% female) were asked to report the self-importance of three moral attributes (being honest, fair, and caring) once a day for 50 consecutive days. Ratings were decomposed into between- and within-person variability and analyzed in relation to individuals' self-reported feelings of integrity and compassion using hierarchical linear modelling.
Results
Daily measures of moral identity exhibited more between- than within-person variability (64% vs. 36%). Furthermore, feelings of integrity and compassion were more strongly positively correlated with moral identity on the interindividual level than the intraindividual level.
Conclusion
Overall, findings suggest that moral identity has both trait- and state-like characteristics and might be best conceptualized as a characteristic adaptation evidencing both stability and change.
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.
Research in unethical behaviour has highlighted the role of moral disengagement as one of its main predictors. Even though extant research has studied trait moral disengagement in the context of Big Five personality domains, no studies have explored the contribution of within- domain aspects. In three studies (N = 663) we found associations between Big Five personality factors and moral disengagement that highlight the primary role of Agreeableness (and its aspects politeness and compassion), but also implicate assertiveness and volatility. Furthermore, we found that moral disengagement significantly accounted for the effects of domains Agreeableness and Openness/Intellect, and aspects politeness, compassion, volatility, enthusiasm, assertiveness, and openness on unethical decision-making. In sum, these findings provide valuable insight into the role that Big Five personality domains and aspects play in the deployment of moral disengagement and help us to understand how the latter may account for the relationships between Big Five personality traits and unethical decision- making.
Individual variation in attitudes is hindering our efforts to address global anthropogenic climate change. To better understand climate change deniers, we considered the relationship between climate change denial and environmentalism constructs through an individual differences perspective. We aimed to identify the personality traits associated with climate change denial, environmental self-concept, and pro-environmental behaviours. We measured personality using the Big Five Aspect Scales. Using hierarchical multiple regressions, we determined the personality profile that predicts climate change denial, ecological self-concept, and pro-environmental behaviour. At the domain level, the Openness/Intellect domain significantly predicted each of the environmental constructs, and the Agreeableness domain was predictive of ecological self-concept and climate change acceptance. At the aspect level, the Openness aspect was the primary personality predictor for each construct. Our results demonstrate that aspect level analyses could be more efficacious than domain level analysis, as they have greater specificity and explanatory power.
Associations between personality traits and life outcomes are usually studied using the Big Five domains and, occasionally, their facets. But recent research suggests these associations may be driven by the items (reflecting nuances) chosen to measure these traits. Using a large dataset (N = 6,126), we examined associations with 53 self‐reported outcomes using domains, facets and items (markers for nuances), training and validating models in different sample partitions. Facets better predicted outcomes than domains (on average, 18.0% vs 16.6% of variance explained), but items provided the most accurate predictions (on average 20.9%). Removing domain and facet variance from items had no effect on their predictive validity, suggesting that outcome‐related information was often in items’ unique variances (i.e., nuance‐specific). Item‐based prediction also showed the highest discriminant validity. These observations, replicating previous findings, suggest that personality traits’ associations with outcomes are often driven by narrow personality nuances.
Withstanding the climate crisis will depend in part on individuals behaving in a more environmentally sustainable manner. However, relatively little is known about the individual factors that promote sustainable attitudes and behaviors (SABs). Although there are established cross-sectional associations between personality traits and SABs, it is unclear whether changes in personality are related to increases in SABs over time, and how personality is differentially related to specific SABs. Using data from 61,479 participants in New Zealand, we tested preregistered hypotheses about how personality codevelops with valuing the environment, believing in climate change, concern about climate change, personal environmental efficacy, personal environmental sacrifice, and support for the Green Party. We found that SABs generally increased from 2009 to 2017, although there was variation across age cohorts, SAB variables, and samples. We replicated concurrent correlations between broad personality traits—particularly Agreeableness, Openness, and Honesty/Humility—and SABs and present novel evidence that increases in SAB are related to changes in traits, particularly Agreeableness. These findings have implications for both understanding the factors associated with changes in SABs over time and understanding the factors that drive personality change.
With rates of vegetarianism and veganism (i.e., veg*nism) rising around the world, a growing body of research has begun to explore psychological characteristics that distinguish vegetarians and vegans from omnivores. However, relatively few studies have examined how veg*nism is related to differences in basic personality traits such as the “Big Five”, with those that have tending to yield conflicting results. Moreover, none of these studies have examined personality at the lower levels of the personality trait hierarchy (i.e., aspects and facets of the Big Five). Thus, we sought to clarify how personality traits are related to veg*nism. In Study 1, comprising two samples (S1a: N=797, S1b: N=1,534), participants were categorised as Veg*n vs Restricted-omnivore vs Omnivore, and completed personality questionnaires at the domain and aspect levels of the Big Five. In Study 2, participants (N=562) completed both categorical and continuous measures of veg*nism, along with personality questionnaires at the domain, aspect, and facet levels. Across both studies, we found that people who scored higher on traits within the openness/intellect and agreeableness domains most consistently reported higher levels of veg*nism. Patterns in the data also suggested that the relation between personality and veg*nism might depend on the way veg*nism is measured. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
How can we alleviate the political divide on environmental issues such as climate change? Baldwin and Lammers (2016, Study 1) found that an environmental message with a past temporal focus attenuated the negative association between participants’ conservatism and their pro-environmental attitudes, compared with a future-focused environmental message. To confirm the temporal comparison effect on conservatives’ environmentalism, we directly replicated Baldwin and Lammers (2016, Study 1) in two pre-registered and high-powered studies (Study 1: 538 American adults, 55% female, 98.6% of statistical power; Study 2: 541 American adults, 51% female, 98.8% of statistical power). Results from both studies failed to replicate the temporal comparison effect: The past-focused environmental message was ineffective in promoting pro-environmental outcomes to more conservative people. Meta-analytic and Bayesian analyses on the integrated data of the original and replication studies corroborated the failed replication. This research highlights the importance of direct replications and emphasises the need for further work on overcoming the political divide on environmental problems.
How are basic personality traits linked with individual differences in competitiveness? We examined extraversion and agreeableness, as well as their lower-level aspects (i.e., assertiveness, enthusiasm; compassion, politeness), in relation to both self-reported competitiveness and competitive bidding within two auction games. Participants (N = 304, 56% female) completed comprehensive assessments of personality and competitiveness, along with two hypothetical auction games (a standard “Winner-Pay” auction, and a riskier “All-Pay” auction). Extraversion positively predicted self-reported competitiveness whereas agreeableness was a negative predictor, and also predicted less competitive auction bidding. At the aspect-level, assertiveness (but not enthusiasm) positively predicted self-reported competitiveness as well as escalation in bidding within both auctions. Compassion (but not politeness) predicted less competitive auction bidding whereas politeness (but not compassion) predicted lower self-reported competitiveness. Future research is needed to determine whether these findings generalise beyond the lab to competitive behaviour as it occurs in the wild.
Most people want to change some aspects of their personality, but does this phenomenon extend to moral character and to close others? Targets ( n = 800) rated their personality traits and reported how much they wanted to change on each trait; well-acquainted informants ( n = 958) rated targets’ personality traits and how much they wanted the targets to change on those same traits. Targets and informants reported a lower desire to change on more morally relevant traits (e.g., honesty, compassion, fairness) compared with less morally relevant traits (e.g., anxiety, sociability, productiveness)—even after we controlled for current trait levels. Moreover, although targets generally wanted to improve more on traits that they had less desirable levels of, and informants wanted their targets to improve more on those traits as well, targets’ moral change goals were less calibrated to their current trait levels. Finally, informants wanted targets to change in similar ways, but to a lesser extent, than targets themselves did. These findings suggest that moral considerations take a back seat when it comes to self-improvement.
Objective: Without a supply of blood, health services could not meet their clinical needs. Similarly, organs for transplantation save and transform lives. Donations are acts of generosity that are traditionally seen as altruistic, and accordingly, interventions to recruit and retain blood and organ donors have focused on altruism. We review the predictors, prevalence and correlates of these two behaviours, how effective interventions have been, and draw common themes.
Design: Narrative review.
Results: We highlight that both recipients and donors benefit, and as such neither blood nor organ donation is purely altruistic. We also highlight health problems associated with both types of donation. In evaluating interventions, we highlight that a move to an opt-out policy for organ donation may not be the simple fix it is believed to be, and propose interventions to enhance the effectiveness of an opt-in policy (e.g. social media updates). We show that incentives, text messaging, feedback and a focus on prosocial emotions (e.g. ‘warm-glow’, ‘gratitude’) may be effective interventions for both blood and organ donation. Interventions designed to reduce fainting (e.g. water pre-loading) are also effective for blood donation.
Conclusions: We conclude that affect is key to understanding both types of donation and in designing effective interventions.
Corrupted collaboration, that is, gaining personal profits through collaborative immoral acts, is a common and destructive phenomenon in societies. Despite the societal relevance of corrupted collaboration, the role of one’s own as well as one’s partner’s characteristics has hitherto remained unexplained. In the present study, we test these roles using the sequential dyadic die-rolling paradigm (N = 499 across five conditions). Our results indicate that interacting with a fully dishonest partner leads to higher cheating rates than interacting with a fully honest partner, although being paired with a fully honest partner does not eliminate dishonesty completely. Furthermore, we found that the basic personality dimension of Honesty–Humility is consistently negatively related to collaborative dishonesty irrespective of whether participants interact with fully honest or fully dishonest partners. Overall, our investigation provides new insights on the role of interaction partner’s characteristics in settings allowing for corrupted collaboration.
Prosociality and morality are critical to the functioning and flourishing of society. There is, however, great variation in the degree to which individuals help or hinder one another, or adhere to ethical standards of “rightness.” One way to understand this variation is by drawing on theories and models within personality psychology, which may illuminate the basic individual characteristics that drive a wide range of other‐regarding tendencies. In this review, we provide a snapshot of three research strands addressing these themes. The first concerns how personality traits map onto prosocial preferences for fairness and cooperation, as studied using classic social decision‐making tasks called economic games. The second concerns the robust associations between personality traits and indicators of inter‐group prejudice (e.g., authoritarian ideology). The third concerns the emerging concept of moral exceptionality, and the personality traits that may characterise individuals at the forefront of moral progress. These examples demonstrate the core role that personality psychology is playing in the study of prosocial and moral behaviour, as well as the critical mass emerging in the Australian context around these themes.
An increasing proportion of people choose to follow a vegetarian diet. To date, however, little is known about if and how individual differences in personality relate to following a vegetarian diet. In the two studies presented here, we aimed to (1) estimate the prevalence of self-defined vegetarians in two waves of a German representative sample (N = 4496 and 5,125, respectively), (2) analyze the effect of socio-demographic variables on dietary behavior, and (3) examine individual differences between vegetarians and meat eaters in personality traits, political attitudes, and health-related variables. In Study 1, a strict definition of vegetarians was used, while in Study 2 the definition was laxer, to include also individuals who only predominantly followed a vegetarian diet. The prevalence of self-defined vegetarians was 2.74% in Study 1, and 5.97% in Study 2. Participants who were female, younger, and more educated were more likely to report following a vegetarian diet in both studies, and vegetarians had higher income as compared to meat eaters in Study 2. We also found differences between vegetarians and meat eaters with regard to personality traits, political attitudes, and health-related variables. Stepwise logistic regression analyses showed a unique effect beyond socio-demographic variables for openness (Studies 1 and 2), conscientiousness (Study 1), trust (Study 2), conservatism (Studies 1 and 2), and level of interest in politics (Study 1) on diet: Individuals with higher scores in openness and political interest had a higher probability of being vegetarian, whereas people with higher scores in conscientiousness and conservatism had a smaller likelihood of being vegetarian. We conclude that there are individual differences between vegetarians and meat eaters in socio-demographics, personality traits, and political attitudes.
Growing evidence has highlighted the importance of social norms in promoting prosocial behaviors in economic games. Specifically, individual differences in norm adherence—captured by the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness—has been found to predict fair allocations of wealth to one’s partner in the dictator game. Yet most studies have used neutrally-framed paradigms, where players may default to norms of equality in the absence of contextual cues. In this study (N = 707), we examined prosocial personality traits and dictator allocations under salient real-world norms of equity and need. Extending on previous research, we found that—in addition to politeness—the compassion aspect of agreeableness predicted greater allocations of wealth when they were embedded in real-world norms. These results represent an important step in understanding the real-world implications of laboratory-based research, demonstrating the importance of both normative context and prosocial traits.
Facebook is rapidly gaining recognition as a powerful research tool for the social sciences. It
constitutes a large and diverse pool of participants, who can be selectively recruited for both
online and offline studies. Additionally, it facilitates data collection by storing detailed records of
its users’ demographic profiles, social interactions, and behaviors. With participants’ consent,
these data can be recorded retrospectively in a convenient, accurate, and inexpensive way. Based
on our experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining multiple Facebook-based
psychological studies that attracted over 10 million participants, we demonstrate how to recruit
participants using Facebook, incentivize them effectively, and maximize their engagement. We
also outline the most important opportunities and challenges associated with using Facebook for
research; provide several practical guidelines on how to successfully implement studies on
Facebook; and finally, discuss ethical considerations.
Based upon Erikson's theory of psychological development, the concept of environmental generativity has recently been proposed to explain the association between parental status and concern about environmental issues. The present study further explored this issue by examining the relationships between a direct measure of generativity concern and environmentally-related constructs. As hypothesized, generativity predicted preservation attitudes and self-reported ecological behaviour, even after controlling for socio-demographic variables and participants' future orientation and humanitarian values. Theoretical implications of the findings and the environmental generativity concept are discussed.
Climate change is a threat to human societies and natural ecosystems, yet public opinion research finds that public awareness and concern vary greatly. Here, using an unprecedented survey of 119 countries, we determine the relative influence of socio-demographic characteristics, geography, perceived well-being, and beliefs on public climate change awareness and risk perceptions at national scales. Worldwide, educational attainment is the single strongest predictor of climate change awareness. Understanding the anthropogenic cause of climate change is the strongest predictor of climate change risk perceptions, particularly in Latin America and Europe, whereas perception of local temperature change is the strongest predictor in many African and Asian countries. However, other key factors associated with public awareness and risk perceptions highlight the need to develop tailored climate communication strategies for individual nations. The results suggest that improving basic education, climate literacy, and public understanding of the local dimensions of climate change are vital to public engagement and support for climate action.
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Despite the wealth of information which exists concerning environmental behavior, it is not known which variable or variables appear to be most influential in motivating individuals to take responsible environmental action. A meta-analysis of environmental behavior research was undertaken in an attempt to determine this. An exhaustive search of the empirically based environmental behavior research conducted over the past decade yielded a substantial number of studies representative of a broad academic base. The characteristics and findings of these studies served as the data for the meta-analysis. As a result of the meta-analysis, the following variables were found to be associated with responsible environmental behavior: knowledge of issues, knowledge of action strategies, locus of control, attitudes, verbal commitment, and an individual's sense of responsibility. A model of predictors of environmental behavior is proposed.
Research consistently shows that personality development is a life-long phenomenon, with mean-level and rank-order changes occurring in all life phases. What happens during specific life phases that can explain these developmental patterns? In the present paper, we review literature linking personality development in different phases of adulthood to developmental tasks associated with these phases. Building on previous work, we describe several categories of developmental tasks that are present in all phases of adulthood. However, the specific tasks within these categories change across adulthood from establishing new social roles in early adulthood to maintaining them in middle adulthood and preventing losses in old age. This trajectory is reflected in mean-level changes in personality, which indicates development towards greater maturity (increases in social dominance, conscientiousness, and emotional stability) in early and middle adulthood, but less so at the end of life. Importantly, developmental tasks are not only associated with mean-level changes, but the way in which people deal with these tasks is also related to rank-order changes in personality. We provide an outlook for future research on how the influence of historical time on the normativeness of developmental tasks might be reflected in personality development.