Kin altruism, reciprocal altruism, and the big five personality factors

The purpose of this study was to identify personality characteristics associated with kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, and to relate those characteristics to the Big Five personality dimensions. We hypothesized that traits such as empathy and attachment mainly facilitate kin altruism, and that traits such as forgiveness and non-retaliation mainly facilitate reciprocal altruism. Self-report items that we constructed to measure those kinds of personality traits defined two factors as hypothesized. Those factors correlated significantly with external criterion measures intended to represent kin altruism and reciprocal altruism, respectively. Furthermore, correlations with adjective markers of the Big Five indicated that the Empathy/Attachment factor was related positively to Agreeableness and negatively to Emotional Stability, whereas the Forgiveness/Non-Retaliation factor Was related positively to both Agreeableness and Emotional Stability, (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.