Research Feed

Using latent profile analysis across 3,600+ men from 103 countries, this study challenges the prototype of the extraverted, confrontational ally. "Well-Adjusted" men (high on all Big Five traits, low neuroticism) rated both committed and relationship-building allyship strategies as best-fitting. Character strengths (especially bravery, kindness, and social intelligence) explained additional variance beyond Big Five traits, suggesting allyship training should leverage diverse personalities and strengths.

This cross-sectional study of 291 Chinese dental students examined how Big Five traits relate to empathy, with resilience as a mediator. Extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness positively predicted empathic concern and perspective-taking, while neuroticism was associated with personal distress. Resilience fully mediated links between empathy and agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, and partially mediated its relationships with extraversion and neuroticism, suggesting resilience-building as a lever for empathy training.

This opinion piece argues that personality traits function as compressed social information, allowing humans to efficiently evaluate cooperative partners. The Big Five personality framework is reframed not merely as a psychometric taxonomy, but as a cognitive shortcut that condenses complex behavioral observations into low-dimensional, easily communicable representations. The author highlights Agreeableness as especially central to cooperative partner selection, signaling reliability through both stable cost structures and heightened sensitivity to social norms.

Hilbig and Moshagen identify four problems with Big Five Agreeableness (B5A): it fails to adequately predict prosocial and ethical behavior despite emphasizing both in its definitions; the HEXACO model's Honesty-Humility dimension covers these gaps more effectively; the dark factor of personality (D), a single broad trait, also outperforms B5A on these outcomes; and different B5A scales measure inconsistent constructs, meaning researchers using different tools are effectively measuring different things while calling it the same trait.

This meta-analysis establishes a theoretical framework linking personality traits to prosocial behavior through situational affordances. By analyzing 770 studies involving economic games like the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Dictator Game, the researchers identified four key situational factors (exploitation, reciprocity, temporal conflict, and dependence) that determine which traits are expressed. The findings show that traits are most predictive when they align with these specific situational opportunities, particularly the possibility for exploitation. Both broad and narrow traits proved effective at accounting for individual differences, providing a robust foundation for predicting how personality drives cooperation and fairness in interdependent social interactions.

This research examines the volunteer process across three distinct stages: antecedents (what motivates a person to serve), experiences (the actual period of service), and consequences (the outcomes for all involved). By analyzing volunteerism through multiple lenses, the study addresses the impacts on the individual, the service recipients, the host organizations, and the broader community. These findings highlight how specific motivations and environmental factors influence long-term commitment and the overall social utility of volunteer work.

The development of the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS) highlights forgiveness as a multidimensional trait involving the self, others, and uncontrollable situations. Research shows that high levels of dispositional forgiveness correlate with cognitive flexibility and positive affect, while serving as a powerful buffer against rumination and hostility. Notably, forgiveness of situations (accepting circumstances beyond one's control) uniquely predicts improvements in life satisfaction and reductions in anxiety and depression. Within relationships, forgiveness is as critical as trust, accounting for unique variance in long-term satisfaction and reflecting a measurable shift from past negativity to present-tense healing.

This study examines how personality traits and internal motives interact to drive volunteerism. Researchers found that 'prosocial value motivation' (the desire to help others) is the bridge that links Agreeableness and Extraversion to actual volunteering. Interestingly, as Agreeableness decreases, Extraversion becomes a stronger driver of the motivation to volunteer, suggesting that social energy can compensate for a lack of natural altruism in fostering community service.

This study investigated the link between our ability to forgive others and the Big Five personality traits. The findings show that people who are more Agreeable tend to forgive more easily, while those higher in Neuroticism may find it more difficult to let go of grudges. Interestingly, the research suggests that your personality profile predicts your level of forgiveness even after accounting for factors like religiousness or empathy.

Volunteerism is defined as long-term, planned prosocial behavior that benefits strangers within an organizational context. This research highlights that sustained service is driven by both dispositional variables (such as specific personality traits and religiosity) and organizational factors, such as the volunteer environment and management style. By presenting a theoretical model of these combined influences, the study suggests that the most effective way to foster community service is to understand how an individual's internal motivations interact with the structural support of the organization.

Research across four studies identifies gratitude as a distinct disposition strongly linked to higher well-being, prosociality, and spirituality. Notably, the grateful disposition is negatively associated with envy and materialism. These relationships remain significant even when controlling for Big Five traits like Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Agreeableness, proving that gratitude offers unique psychological insights beyond general personality. To facilitate future research, the authors developed the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6), a highly reliable unidimensional scale.

This research clarifies that altruism and antisocial behavior are independent dimensions rather than opposite ends of one spectrum. Altruism is primarily shaped by familial environments and positive emotionality, while antisocial behavior stems from genetics and negative emotionality combined with low constraint. Because these tendencies arise from distinct etiologies, they can coexist within an individual, functioning as uncorrelated personality expressions rather than mutually exclusive traits.