Agreeable people are more likely to display prosocial attitudes and helpful behavior in a broad range of situations. Here we show that this tendency interacts with the personal characteristics of interaction partners. In an online study (n = 284), participants were given the opportunity to report attitudes toward and make monetary donations to needy individuals who were described in dynamically generated biographies. Using a machine learning and multilevel modeling framework, we tested three potential explanations for the facilitatory influence of Agreeableness on charitable behavior. We find that Agreeableness preferentially increased donations and prosocial attitudes toward targets normatively rated as being more deserving, but not to targets considered less deserving. Our results advance understanding of person-by-situation interactions in the context of charitable behavior and prosocial attitudes.
Agreeable people are more likely to display prosocial attitudes and helpful behavior in a broad range of situations. Here we show that this tendency interacts with the personal characteristics of interaction partners. In an online study (n = 284), participants were given the opportunity to report attitudes toward and make monetary donations to needy individuals who were described in dynamically generated biographies. Using a machine learning and multilevel modeling framework, we tested three potential explanations for the facilitatory influence of Agreeableness on charitable behavior. We find that Agreeableness preferentially increased donations and prosocial attitudes toward targets normatively rated as being more deserving, but not to targets considered less deserving. Our results advance understanding of person-by-situation interactions in the context of charitable behavior and prosocial attitudes.
Abstract
Gilead et al. state that abstraction supports mental travel, and that mental travel critically relies on abstraction. I propose an important addition to this theoretical framework, namely that mental travel might also support abstraction. Specifically, I argue that spontaneous mental travel (mind wandering), much like data augmentation in machine learning, provides variability in mental content and context necessary for abstraction.
Interactions between donor Agreeableness and recipient characteristics in predicting charitable donation and positive social evaluation
