TY - JOUR

T1 - The Dispositional Essence of Proactive Social Preferences

T2 - The Dark Core of Personality vis-à-vis 58 Traits

AU - Hilbig, Benjamin E.

AU - Thielmann, Isabel

AU - Zettler, Ingo

AU - Moshagen, Morten

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Individuals differ in how they weigh their own utility versus others’. This tendency codefines the dark factor ofpersonality (D), which is conceptualized as the underlying disposition from which all socially and ethically aversive(dark) traits arise as specific, flavored manifestations. We scrutinize this unique theoretical notion by testing, for abroad set of 58 different traits and related constructs, whether any predict how individuals weigh their own versusothers’ utility in proactive allocation decisions (i.e., social value orientations) beyond D. These traits and constructsrange from broad dimensions (e.g., agreeableness), to aversive traits (e.g., sadism) and beliefs (e.g., normlessness), toprosocial tendencies (e.g., compassion). In a large-scale longitudinal study involving the assessment of consequentialchoices (median N = 2,270; a heterogeneous adult community sample from Germany), results from several hundredlatent model comparisons revealed that no meaningful incremental variance was explained beyond D. Thus, D aloneis sufficient to represent the social preferences inherent in socially and ethically aversive personality traits.

AB - Individuals differ in how they weigh their own utility versus others’. This tendency codefines the dark factor ofpersonality (D), which is conceptualized as the underlying disposition from which all socially and ethically aversive(dark) traits arise as specific, flavored manifestations. We scrutinize this unique theoretical notion by testing, for abroad set of 58 different traits and related constructs, whether any predict how individuals weigh their own versusothers’ utility in proactive allocation decisions (i.e., social value orientations) beyond D. These traits and constructsrange from broad dimensions (e.g., agreeableness), to aversive traits (e.g., sadism) and beliefs (e.g., normlessness), toprosocial tendencies (e.g., compassion). In a large-scale longitudinal study involving the assessment of consequentialchoices (median N = 2,270; a heterogeneous adult community sample from Germany), results from several hundredlatent model comparisons revealed that no meaningful incremental variance was explained beyond D. Thus, D aloneis sufficient to represent the social preferences inherent in socially and ethically aversive personality traits.

U2 - 10.1177/09567976221116893

DO - 10.1177/09567976221116893

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 36442081

VL - 34

SP - 201

EP - 220

JO - Psychological Science

JF - Psychological Science

SN - 0956-7976

IS - 2

ER -