Personality Correlates of Out-Group Harm

Author(s)
Simon Columbus, Isabel Thielmann, Robert Boehm, Ingo Zettler
Abstract

Motivated by theoretical accounts positing that participation in intergroup conflict is driven by a desire to promote the in-group, past studies have explored the link between prosocial personality dimensions and out-group harm. However, while dimensions such as Honesty-Humility predict in-group cooperation, they do not explain out-group harm. Across two incentivized experimental studies (one preregistered; overall N = 1,584), we show that out-group harm is uniquely associated with higher levels of the Dark Factor of Personality (D), a personality dimension capturing the core of all aversive personality characteristics. Conversely, high levels of D, alongside low levels of Honesty-Humility, are associated with less in-group cooperation. Our results show that in-group cooperation and out-group harm are associated with distinct personality dimensions.

Organisation(s)
Department of Occupational, Economic and Social Psychology
External organisation(s)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Copenhagen, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law
Journal
Social Psychological and Personality Science
Volume
15
Pages
838-847
No. of pages
10
ISSN
1948-5506
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506241254157
Publication date
09-2024
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
501021 Social psychology
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/53af4214-22ae-4acf-b207-3c709fcad5f2