Personality traits and prosocial behavior in economic games: A meta-analysis

• Applicant: Dr. Isabel Thielmann
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2017 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 397856671

Prosocial behavior constitutes a vital aspect of various kinds of interpersonal interactions and relationships and has therefore been heavily studied across scientific disciplines. In this regard, most disciplines have relied on economic games to measure different types of prosocial behavior in experimental settings. A consistent finding of this diverse, interdisciplinary research using economic games implies that there is substantial inter-individual variability in the tendency to behave in a prosocial manner. Correspondingly, an abundant amount of research has studied the personality traits that account for the apparent individual differences in prosocial behavior. However, attempts to summarize and integrate this diverse evidence linking personality traits to prosocial behavior in economic games are scarce, and the few meta-analytic studies that do exist bear considerable limitations. The current project aims at overcoming these limitations by providing a large-scale meta-analysis that substantially extends previous efforts. Specifically, the meta-analysis (i) takes into account various basic and specific trait dimensions, (ii) covers a broad range of different economic games, (iii) considers potential moderators of the link between personality traits and prosocial behavior, and (iv) includes published as well as unpublished data. Thereby, the project offers a fine-grained analysis of the traits underlying different types of prosocial behavior and provides vital information on the nuanced motivational differences between economic games. Overall, the project thus aims to foster an enhanced understanding of different types of prosocial behavior, to bring forth personality theory in the prosocial domain, and to set a stage for future research on human prosociality.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Netherlands
• Host: Professor Dr. Daniel Balliet