In the study of altruistic behavior, certain personality traits have emerged as key indicators of extraordinary acts of selflessness.
One such trait is honesty-humility, encompassing values such as honesty, trustworthiness, and fairness. Individuals high in honesty-humility are more likely to engage in large acts of altruism, prioritizing truthfulness and adherence to rules. Conversely, those low in honesty-humility display a greater willingness to bend rules or deceive for personal gain, making them less likely to exhibit extraordinary altruism.
Additionally, social discounting, the tendency to treat close and distant others differently, plays a role in extraordinary altruism. Extraordinary altruists engage in less social discounting, demonstrating a greater willingness to help strangers in need.
Moreover, personal distress, the degree of emotional upset experienced in emergencies, has been found to be inversely related to extraordinary altruism. Those scoring low in personal distress remain composed and rise to the occasion when needed.
These findings, from a study conducted by Shawn Rhoads and colleagues, shed light on the traits that unveil the keys to heroic altruism.
Personality Traits and Extraordinary Altruism
Personality traits are really important when it comes to figuring out why some people do really kind things without thinking of themselves. One big trait that makes people do these kind of things is called honesty-humility. This means that people who are really honest, who you can trust a lot, and who think being fair is super important are the ones who are more likely to do big, kind things for others.
But if someone doesn’t care much about being honest or fair, they might not be as willing to help others in a big way because they might rather lie or cheat to get what they want.
Also, just because someone is super friendly and likes to talk a lot doesn’t mean they’ll always be the ones doing kind stuff. Quiet and shy people can do really kind and big things for others, too. So, we should remember that it’s not just how loud or quiet someone is but what kind of person they are on the inside that can make them do amazing things for others.
Social Discounting and Altruistic Behavior
Social discounting is all about how we treat our friends and family compared to people we don’t know when we’re helping out. If someone does a lot of social discounting, it means they mostly help their buddies and family but not so much strangers. But if someone doesn’t do much social discounting, they’re cool with helping just about anybody, even folks they’ve never met before.
Now, when we talk about people who are super kind and do really big kind things for others, these folks don’t really care if they’re helping a best friend or someone they’ve just seen for the first time. They help strangers just the same as they would help their own family. This tells us that these super kind people think everyone should be helped, no matter if they know them well or not.
Personal Distress and Heroic Altruism
When we look at how people who don’t get too upset handle emergencies, we can see they are really good at keeping calm and helping out. The bravest helpers, who do amazing things to help others without thinking of themselves, usually don’t get too upset easily. They keep their heads clear and can do a lot to help people when there’s an emergency. This shows us that being able to control your feelings is super important when you want to be a hero and help others.
Personal distress is when you feel really bad because something isn’t going right. If you get super stressed and upset when things go wrong, that means you have high personal distress. But, if you can stay cool and not get too worked up, that’s low personal distress.
Traits Unrelated to Extraordinary Altruism
So, we talked about how feeling really upset when others are in trouble can make some people do super brave and kind things for others. Now let’s chat about stuff that doesn’t really have much to do with being super generous and brave for others.
For example, just because someone is really chatty and makes friends easily doesn’t mean they’re the kind of person who will go out of their way to do something huge for someone else. That’s what being an extravert is like, but it doesn’t mean they’re always going to be the ones helping others in amazing ways.
Even quiet or shy people can do really big, kind things for others.
Being an extravert might make you more likely to hang out with lots of people, but it doesn’t mean you’ll definitely be the one to step up in a big way to help. This isn’t just something I’m guessing about, either. There was this study by a guy named Shawn Rhoads and his team, and they looked at six bunches of people who did really kind things without thinking of themselves and compared them to other people who maybe haven’t done those big kind things. And guess what? How outgoing someone was didn’t really have anything to do with whether they were the type to do these huge, kind acts.