Personality and Prosocial Behavior A Theoretical Framework and

PersonalityandProsocialBehavior:ATheoreticalFrameworkandMeta-AnalysisIsabelThielmannUniversityofKoblenz-LandauandVUAmsterdamGiulianaSpadaroandDanielBallietVUAmsterdamDecadesofresearchdocumentindividualdifferencesinprosocialbehaviorusingcontrolledexperimentsthatmodelsocialinteractionsinsituationsofinterdependence.However,theoreticalandempiricalintegrationofthevastliteratureonthepredictivevalidityofpersonalitytraitstoaccountfortheseindividualdifferencesismissing.Here,wepresentatheoreticalframeworkthatidentifies4broadsituationalaffordancesacrossinterdependentsituations(i.e.,exploitation,reciprocity,temporalconflict,anddependenceunderuncertainty)andmorespecificsubaffordanceswithincertaintypesofinterdepen-dentsituations(e.g.,possibilitytoincreaseequalityinoutcomes)thatcandeterminewhen,which,andhowpersonalitytraitsshouldbeexpressedinprosocialbehavior.Totestthisframework,wemeta-analyzed770studiesreportingon3,523effectsof8broadand43narrowpersonalitytraitsonprosocialbehaviorininterdependentsituationsmodeledin6commonlystudiedeconomicgames(DictatorGame,UltimatumGame,TrustGame,Prisoner’sDilemma,PublicGoodsGame,andCommonsDilemma).Overall,meta-analyticcorrelationsrangedbetween�.18��ˆ�.26,andmosttraitsyieldingasignificantrelationtoprosocialbehaviorhadconceptuallinkstotheaffordancesprovidedininterdependentsituations,mostprominentlythepossibilityforexploitation.Moreover,forseveraltraits,correlationswithingamesfollowedthepredictedpatternderivedfromatheoreticalanalysisofaffordances.Onthelevelo