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People differ in the way they respond to perceived immoral or illegal activities within their organization. One possible response in such situations is whistleblowing. Empirical research, however, shows that many individuals who observe questionable organizational practices refrain from blowing the whistle. Although previous studies have identified certain personality traits that may predict whistleblowing, we currently lack a thorough theoretical understanding of the dispositional basis of whistleblowing. To close this gap, we (1) organize the whistleblowing decision along four phases, (2) identify situational characteristics present in each of these phases, and (3) derive hypotheses regarding the effects of broad personality dimensions (i.e., Big Five/FFM and HEXACO dimensions) and narrow personality traits on whistleblowing based on these situational characteristics. We hope that this framework contributes to a more holistic understanding of how personality shapes the whistleblowing decision-making process and stimulates systematic research on the nexus of personality and whistleblowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Meat consumption has a host of serious negative consequences for nonhuman animals, underprivileged humans, and the natural environment. Several interventions have been developed to encourage meat reduction but to relatively limited effect. There is also a range of established predictors of meat consumption, but much less is known about the factors that predict intentions to reduce meat consumption. The goal of this study was to determine the roles of personality and self‐knowledge in meat reduction intentions. Method: In this set of three preregistered studies, we tested brief interventions to encourage meat reduction intentions and examined personality predictors of intentions to reduce meat consumption. Results: We found no evidence that brief interventions with or without a self‐knowledge component had a meaningful effect on changing meat reduction intentions. However, we found robust evidence for relatively small associations between intending to eat less meat and high Openness to Experience, high Emotionality, and perceiving meat reduction as moral behaviors. Conclusion: Individual differences may be a more influential predictor of meat reduction intentions than brief interventions. Implications for promoting meat reduction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective and Background Methods Results Conclusion According to a recently proposed theoretical framework, different personality traits should explain pro‐social behavior in different situations. We empirically tested the key proposition of this framework that each of four “core tendencies” (i.e., the shared variance of related traits) specifically predicts pro‐social behavior in the presence of a different situational affordance.We used a large‐scale dataset (N = 2479) including measures of various personality traits and six incentivized economic games assessing pro‐social behavior in different social situations. Using bifactor modeling, we extracted four latent core tendencies and tested their predictive validity for pro‐social behavior.We found mixed support for the theoretically derived, preregistered hypotheses. The core tendency of beliefs about others' pro‐sociality predicted pro‐social behavior in both games involving dependence under uncertainty, as expected. Unconditional concern for others' welfare predicted pro‐social behavior in only one of two games providing a possibility for exploitation. For conditional concern for others' welfare and self‐regulation, in turn, evidence relating them to pro‐social behavior in the presence of a possibility for reciprocity and temporal conflict was relatively weak.Different features of social situations may activate different personality traits to influence pro‐social behavior, but more research is needed to fully understand these person–situation interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Among basic personality traits, Honesty‐Humility yields the most consistent, negative link with dishonest behavior. The theoretical conceptualization of Honesty‐Humility, however, suggests a potential boundary condition of this relation, namely, when lying is prosocial. We therefore tested the hypothesis that the association between Honesty‐Humility and dishonesty weakens once lying benefits someone else, particularly so if this other is needy. Methods: In two online studies (Study 1: N = 775 in Germany; Study 2: N = 737 in the UK, preregistered), we measured self‐reported Honesty‐Humility and dishonest behavior in incentivized cheating paradigms in which the beneficiary of participants' dishonesty was either the participants themselves, a "non‐needy" other (e.g., another participant), or a "needy" other (e.g., a charity). Results: We found support for the robustness of the negative association between Honesty‐Humility and dishonesty, even if lying was prosocial. Conclusion: Individuals high in Honesty‐Humility largely prioritize honesty, even if there is a strong moral imperative to lie; those low in Honesty‐Humility, by contrast, tend to lie habitually and thus even if they themselves do not directly profit monetarily. This suggests that (un)truthfulness may be an absolute rather than a relative aspect of Honesty‐Humility, although further systematic tests of this proposition are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: There is an ongoing debate in personality research whether the common core of aversive ("dark") traits can be approximated by or even considered equivalent to one of the constructs that have been labeled "Agreeableness". In particular, it has been suggested that the low pole of (what we term) AG+, a broad blend of Big Five Agreeableness and the HEXACO factors Honesty‐Humility, Agreeableness, and Altruism, is essentially equivalent to the Dark Factor of Personality (D). Based on theoretical differences, we herein test empirically whether D and AG+ are isomorphic. Methods: Self‐report data on D, AG+, and eight criterion measures reflecting justifying beliefs, inflicting disutility on others, and affiliative tendencies were collected in a pre‐registered study (N = 1156) and analyzed via confirmatory factor modeling. Results: Results speak against unity of D and AG+ (35% shared variance) and support the notion that D subsumes a broader range of aversive content (i.e., justifying beliefs and inflicting disutility on others) than AG+, which, in turn, subsumes a slightly broader range of non‐aversive, affiliative tendencies. Conclusion: We conclude that AG+ is non‐equivalent to the common core of aversive traits, D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers and practitioners have long been interested in the relations of basic personality domains with health. Whereas previous meta-analyses have focused on the Big Five traits, we provide the first meta-analysis of the relations between the HEXACO domains, as assessed by HEXACO Personality Inventories, and various health outcomes (k = 276, N = 92,319). In general, relations of the HEXACO domains were strongest with mental health, followed by health behavior, whereas relations with physical health outcomes were weak and largely non-significant. All HEXACO domains were significantly linked to mental health and health behavior outcomes. Extraversion exhibited the strongest correlation with mental health ( ρ ¯ =.48), whereas Honesty-Humility ( ρ ¯ =.31), Agreeableness versus Anger ( ρ ¯ =.25), and Conscientiousness ( ρ ¯ =.31) were most predictive of health behavior. Physical health was only significantly associated with Emotionality ( ρ ¯ = −.14) and Conscientiousness ( ρ ¯ =.10). Honesty-Humility explained incremental variance over the Big Five in several health behavior outcomes, whereas it had little incremental validity for mental and physical health outcomes. Finally, comparing the variance that the HEXACO and the Big Five domains explained in specific health outcomes demonstrated that each personality model occasionally exhibited superior criterion-related validity. Hence, the choice of the more useful personality model could be outcome-dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

\n Despite notable progress in the study of dishonest behavior and in particular the identification of personality traits (most notably, Honesty-Humility) that are robust predictors of individual differences in dishonesty, prior research has also left several traits untested or yielded inconsistent or inconclusive findings for other traits. We herein provide corresponding evidence, testing the associations between dishonesty and six operationalizations of Big Five Agreeableness, the dark tetrad traits, impression management and lie scales, and self-control versus impulsivity. We relied on a large dataset (N = 1,916) across two incentivized measurements of dishonesty (separated by about 5 weeks) and tailored hierarchical modeling, and preregistered all hypotheses prior to data analysis. As expected, neither impression management and lie scales nor self-control versus impulsivity were related to dishonesty. By contrast, dark tetrad traits were consistently associated with dishonesty, though almost entirely due to their shared aversive core, the dark factor of personality. Finally, several (but not all) operationalizations of Big Five Agreeableness were associated with dishonesty, but none explained incremental variance above Honesty-Humility whereas the opposite was always the case. We discuss the implications of these findings for recent controversies about basic personality structure, the question of theoretical parsimony, and the dangers of jingle-fallacies.We test whether various personality traits are predictive of dishonesty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

\n Explaining prosocial behavior is a central goal in classic and contemporary behavioral science. Here, for the first time, we apply modern machine learning techniques to uncover the full predictive potential that personality traits have for prosocial behavior. We utilize a large-scale dataset (N = 2707; 81 personality traits) and state-of-the-art statistical models to predict an incentivized measure of prosocial behavior, Social Value Orientation (SVO). We conclude: (1) traits explain 13.9% of the variance in SVO; (2) linear models are sufficient to obtain good prediction; (3) trait–trait interactions do not improve prediction; (4) narrow traits improve prediction beyond basic personality (i.e., the HEXACO); (5) there is a moderate association between the univariate predictive power of a trait and its multivariate predictive power, suggesting that univariate estimates (e.g., Pearson’s correlation) can serve as a useful proxy for multivariate variable importance. We propose that the limited usefulness of nonlinear models may stem from current measurement practices in personality science, which tend to favor linearly related constructs. Overall, our study provides a benchmark for how well personality predicts SVO and charts a course toward better prediction of prosocial behavior.The importance of being kind, helpful, and cooperative—of behaving prosocially—is undeniable. And yet, not everyone is equally prosocial. In fact, research in the social and behavioral sciences consistently shows that prosociality differs between individuals and is predicted by individuals’ personalities. This research, however, typically only manages to explain a small portion of the variance in prosocial behavioral tendencies, rarely going beyond 9% (corresponding to a correlation of r = .30). One possible explanation for the lack of better prediction is the widespread use of constrained statistical models including only few personality traits as predictors at a time. Using a large set of predictors and state-of-the-art statistical models, we estimate that personality traits account for 13.9% of the variance in Social Value Orientation, an established indicator of prosocial behavior. By modeling multiple personality traits in tandem, we thereby break the 9% ceiling—a feat that single-predictor models rarely manage. However, we also find that more complex (i.e., nonlinear) statistical models only slightly increase the amount of variance explained compared to more restrictive (i.e., linear) models. This suggests that the pursuit of better personality models of prosociality does not hinge on increasing the complexity of statistical models; instead, we suggest it starts by embracing a wider range and variety of personality traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that strong situations restrict variance in behaviors has been treated as a maxim in psychology. Prior work has, however, offered inconclusive support for this proposition. We aimed to overcome the limitations of prior research to conclusively test the restricted variance hypothesis derived from the situational strength framework. Specifically, we conducted a preregistered meta-analysis ( k = 301, N = 25,670) in the context of cooperative behavior observed within the standard social dilemma paradigm. We found that strong, compared with weak, situations (theorized and validated via perception ratings) indeed restricted variance in behaviors. Moreover, ratings on perceived situational strength of specific experimental conditions ( k = 138, n studies = 41) further supported the hypothesis that higher levels of perceived situational strength were associated with less variance in behavior. Our findings have important theoretical implications for understanding the situational forces shaping social behavior and for advancing research on person-situation interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).