Summary: A new analysis of over 90,000 participants shows that personality traits influence how people engage in volunteering and charitable giving. Researchers found that extraverts are more likely to volunteer, while agreeable individuals are more inclined to donate money.
Other traits like conscientiousness, openness, and neuroticism showed little consistent effect on prosocial behavior. These findings could help organizations and policymakers create more personalized strategies to promote community engagement.
Key Facts:
- Extraversion and Volunteering: Sociable and assertive individuals are more likely to volunteer their time.
- Agreeableness and Giving: Compassionate, considerate individuals are more likely to donate money to charity.
- Targeted Strategies
Source: University of Zurich
People’s willingness to do volunteer work or give to charity differs greatly.
Besides financial and social incentives, individual differences in people’s personality can explain why some of us are more likely to contribute to community welfare than others.
Researchers at the Department of Psychology of the University of Zurich have examined the links between the so-called Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism) and people’s willingness to engage in prosocial behavior.
Their analysis was based on 29 international studies comprising more than 90,000 participants. It included different methods to describe people’s personality and covered various forms of philanthropic engagement.
Personality traits matter
The study findings show that two personality traits in particular are linked to philanthropic engagement. Sociability and assertiveness (extraversion) positively correlate with volunteering. In other words, extraverts are more likely to do volunteer work.
Meanwhile, agreeableness correlates more closely with a willingness to give money to charity. This behavior may be explained by the fact that agreeable people tend to be more compassionate and considerate of other people’s feelings.
Research on the other personality traits, however, yielded mixed results. For example, there was no clear link between conscientiousness and philanthropic engagement. Openness and neuroticism also appeared to have little effect on people’s prosocial behavior.
New strategies to promote volunteering and donating
“Our findings confirm that individual differences in personality play a role in whether and how much people engage in prosocial behavior,” says Wiebke Bleidorn, first author and professor of psychology at the University of Zurich.
She believes that a better understanding of these links can help to encourage people to contribute to the common welfare based on their individual strengths and motivations.
The study thus not only provides valuable scientific insights but also practical guidance for organizations and policymakers wishing to promote volunteering and charitable giving.
“This knowledge can be used to develop more targeted strategies aimed at promoting volunteering and charitable giving,” says Christopher J. Hopwood, last author and professor of psychology.
About this personality and altruism research news
Author: Melanie Nyfeler
Source: University of Zurich
Contact: Melanie Nyfeler – University of Zurich
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Personality Traits and Traditional Philanthropy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” by Christopher J. Hopwood et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Abstract
Personality Traits and Traditional Philanthropy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Volunteering and charitable giving are core examples of traditional philanthropy that contribute to the health of democratic societies and individual well-being.
Differences in people’s willingness to engage in these behaviors hint at a role of psychological factors that foster or hinder these types of philanthropic engagement.
Theory and empirical research suggest that broad personality traits may shape volunteering and charitable giving.
However, existing evidence for links between specific traits and philanthropic engagement has been mixed, in part because of insufficient statistical power and methodological variation across studies.
In this preregistered meta-analysis, we integrated data from 29 studies to estimate the associations between the Big Five personality traits with volunteering (N = 91,241, Median age = 34 years, 61% female, 36% U.S. samples) and charitable giving (N = 3559, Median age = 39 years, 52% female, 40% U.S. samples).
We further examined potential moderators, including the types of personality and philanthropic behavior measures used, gender, age, and sample region, to begin to explain the substantial heterogeneity of effect sizes across studies.
Results indicated modest but robust correlations between the Big Five personality traits, volunteering, and charitable giving, with the largest effect sizes emerging for the links between extraversion and volunteering (r = .09, 95% CI [.05, .12]) and for agreeableness and charitable giving (r = .14, 95% CI [.04, .25]). There was little evidence for systematic moderator effects.
We describe the theoretical implications of these results for future research, discuss practical applications, and highlight gaps in this body of literature.
