Moral Elevation and Economic Games: The Moderating Role of Personality

Abstract

Moral elevation is the prototypical emotional response when witnessing virtuous deeds of others. Yet, little is known about the role of individual differences that moderate the susceptibility to experiencing this self-transcendent emotion. The present experiment investigated the role of personality traits as moderators of elevation and its behavioral effects using economic games as a measure for prosocial behavior. One aim was to replicate prior findings on trait Engagement with Moral Beauty as moderator for experimentally induced state elevation. A second aim was to explore new potential moderators that were found to be connected to the moral realm: Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness vs. Anger, and Need for Cognition. Third, the present study is among the few investigating the effects of elevation on different prosocial actions and intentions. A sample of US American college students ( N = 144) was randomly assigned to either watch a morally uplifting or a humorous video clip. Afterwards, all participants played a dictator game and an ultimatum game, and were asked to volunteer in another time-consuming experiment. In line with our hypotheses, experimentally induced state elevation promoted prosocial behavior, however, only within the dictator game. Also in line with our hypotheses, higher levels of Need for Cognition and higher levels of Engagement with Moral Beauty (but not higher levels of Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness vs. Anger) increased prosocial behavior within the experimental group. In contrast to our hypotheses, none of the investigated personality traits moderated the proneness to experience the state of elevation after seeing an elevating video clip; only the behavioral consequences of elevation were moderated. Our results replicate and extend prior findings on moderators for elevation and exemplify the importance of investigating the role of personality traits in the context of the moral elevation phenomenon.

Trait Appreciation of Beauty: A Story of Love, Transcendence, and Inquiry

“…In summary, although a variety of brain regions respond to experiences of beauty, the mOFC is the most consistently found to do so across domains of beauty: beautiful paintings, beautiful music, human facial beauty, moral beauty, and beautiful math ideas. It appears that these results are somewhat analogous to the factor analytic studies performed on the Engagement with Beauty Scale (Diessner et al, 2008; Pohling et al, 2018). All subscales, representing somewhat different traits of engagement with beauty, correlate fairly highly with the overall EBS total score, similar to the mOFC processing various different forms of beauty stimuli.…”

“…This finding is consistent across many disparate cultures and nations, including in samples from Russia (Sabadosh, 2016, 2017), Hong Kong (Hui & Diessner, 2015), Switzerland (Güsewell & Ruch, 2012b), Cyprus, Germany, Iran, Croatia, Samoa, and the United States (Richel et al, 2008; Diessner et al, 2013), and India (Pohling et al, 2018). In the largest study to date with the EBS and EBS-R (Internet sample of N = 15,129; 74.9% Americans and 25.1% from 116 other nations), women's ( N = 7410) mean EBS total score was 75.8 ( SD = 14.1) and men's ( N = 8379) was 69.5 ( SD = 15.8); d = .42 (Pohling et al, 2018). Likewise women's EnB scores were higher ( M = 22.5, SD = 4.9) than men's ( M = 20.5, SD = 5.4, d = .39); EaB higher ( M = 20.1, SD = 5.7) than men's ( M = 18.8, SD = 6.0, d = .22); and EmB higher ( M = 33.3, SD = 7.4) than men's ( M = 30.2, SD = 8.5, d = .39).…”

“…Such ideas can be for instance a grand theory (philosophy, science), a revolutionary way to order the world and solve human problems (politics), or an approach to the ontology of the universe, the existence of humanity, and/or the nature and function of the human mind (religion and spirituality). Research on the personality trait of engaging with beautiful ideas is in its infancy (Pohling et al, 2018). Seminal work on the beautiful ideas of mathematicians has been done by Zeki et al (2014).…”

“…Most, and perhaps all, studies with the EBS and EBS-R (Diessner et al, 2008; Pohling et al, 2018) have found significant or marginally significant gender differences, with small to medium effect sizes, in which women produce higher scores on EnB, EaB, and especially with EmB, than men. This finding is consistent across many disparate cultures and nations, including in samples from Russia (Sabadosh, 2016, 2017), Hong Kong (Hui & Diessner, 2015), Switzerland (Güsewell & Ruch, 2012b), Cyprus, Germany, Iran, Croatia, Samoa, and the United States (Richel et al, 2008; Diessner et al, 2013), and India (Pohling et al, 2018). In the largest study to date with the EBS and EBS-R (Internet sample of N = 15,129; 74.9% Americans and 25.1% from 116 other nations), women's ( N = 7410) mean EBS total score was 75.8 ( SD = 14.1) and men's ( N = 8379) was 69.5 ( SD = 15.8); d = .42 (Pohling et al, 2018).…”

“…How to cut the pie? The creators of the EBS and EBS-R (Diessner et al, 2008; Pohling et al, 2018) analyzed the works of philosophers and psychologists and determined that there are at least four somewhat distinct forms of trait AoB and developed four subscales tapping four different traits: EnB, EaB, EmB, and EiB. Factor analytic studies have shown these to be distinct, although, correlated subscales.…”