The study of human virtue is as old as history itself. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle stated, “We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly.” On the other side of the globe, 200 years earlier, Confucius remarked, “The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.” Both of these great thinkers were commenting on the variability among people in our tendency to be virtuous, moral, and prosocial. People have for centuries used these words of wisdom as touchstones for how to become more virtuous and compassionate. Fast forward well over two millennia. What has modern research taught us about the moral heroes who live among us? How do we identify those individuals who stop to help the person in need even though they are running late for a meeting, those who jump into the raging river to save a perfect stranger from drowning, or those who devote their lives to helping people with terminal illness despite how emotionally draining such hospice care can be? A fair amount of research illuminates the qualities of moral individuals.

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On the one hand, some of the social psychological factors that prevent us from helping seem to question the very notion of a moral character. If seminary students rush by a moaning person as they prepare a sermon on the Good Samaritan, what hope do any of the rest of us have in following the advice of Confucius and Aristotle? Other research, however, suggests that we can measure meaningful individual differences in what is known as the altruistic personality. For example, one such measure assesses the frequency with which people engage in helpful acts such as giving someone directions, donating blood, or offering a seat on the bus (Rushton et al., 1981). Others have emphasized more specific characteristics of the altruistic personality, such as the tendency to take another person’s perspective, a tendency to experience empathy, and a tendency to take personal responsibility for the welfare of others (Eisenberg et al., 1989). When it comes to pinpointing traits relevant to prosocial behavior, we do find evidence that the ability to empathize acts like a trait. Teenagers who score higher in empathy when they are 13 still view themselves as prosocially oriented a decade later, when they are young adults (Eisenberg et al., 2002). Even their moms agree: Those teens who later scored highest in prosociality in their early 20s tended to be seen as pretty helpful kids by their moms a decade earlier. Chances are that the college friend of yours most likely to volunteer for the local soup kitchen was out there raising money for a local charity before he even hit puberty.

Furthermore, although strong situational forces can constrain people’s behavior, keeping them from acting in line with their underlying values and traits, personality characteristics shine through when situations are more ambiguous. Remember the “trading places” study we described earlier, in which participants decided whether to switch places with a confederate and receive mild shocks instead of watching the electricity-phobic Elaine suffer? In a different version of that study, participants could choose to trade places with a woman who was visibly upset about having to read about a physical assault as part of a study procedure (Carlo et al., 1991). Just as Batson had shown previously, people were more likely to schedule an appointment to take her place if they would otherwise have to watch her suffer than if they were free to leave. When the situation was relatively easy to escape, people tended to take that option. But it was in this easy-to-escape condition that moral character mattered. Those who scored highest on a measure of altruism were more likely to take the other person’s place. Similar effects have been found for the other variables that make up the altruistic personality, such as taking responsibility for others’ well-being, the ability to take another’s perspective, the tendency to experience empathy or sympathy, and overall agreeableness (Eisenberg et al., 1989; Graziano et al., 2007).

Even relatively young children show evidence of helping that is predicted by personality. In one study with grade-school children, those who generally reported feeling sorry for others who are sad or in pain were more likely to donate money to a burn unit after watching a video about a young burn victim (Knight et al., 1994). Of course, donating money in this kind of scenario actually requires other skills that not all young children (or adults, for that matter) might have: being able to perceive accurately that someone is feeling sad and understanding the value of money. Children who possess all three of these qualities (empathy, perceiving emotions accurately, and understanding money) were the most likely to donate. In a more dramatic example of personality predicting altruism, research has shown that those who risked their lives to save others during the Holocaust can be distinguished from those who did nothing by a constellation of relevant traits such as strong moral reasoning, a sense of social responsibility, and empathy (Midlarsky et al., 2005). Together, these research results describe a profile of more specific traits that likely combine to making some of us more altruistic than others.

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Some research has tackled the question of who is most likely to help by examining the motivations people generally have for helping. For example, people who score high on a measure of trait agreeableness are thought to be motivated by prosocial concerns (Graziano et al., 2007). They are sensitive to the needs of others and motivated to adapt their behavior to meet those needs. Graziano and colleagues (2007) have found that agreeableness is a good predictor of people’s general willingness to help out, but particularly in those contexts in which helping is not necessarily expected. When it comes to helping family or group members, our dispositional agreeableness doesn’t predict whether we help. But it is a useful predictor of who will help a stranger or a member of a social outgroup. The motivation to act prosocially seems to broaden our scope of social connection.

But saying that someone is motivated to act prosocially could itself be understood in different ways. When you see a child share a toy with a classmate who is feeling sad, is he being helpful because this is merely what he has been told to do, or because he knows he might be praised for being such a helpful little boy, or because he truly wants to make his friend feel better? Research inspired by self-determination theory (see chapter 6) shows that these different possibilities fall on a continuum from completely external (“I help because others tell me to”) to completely internal (“I help because I think it is important to”). Those who say they help for more intrinsic reasons also show higher levels of empathy and report feeling a stronger connection to others (Ryan & Connell, 1989). In fact, because helping others can satisfy a basic need to feel connected to others, helping for these intrinsic reasons seems to have the most emotional benefits for both the giver and the receiver of help (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010).

All this talk of intrinsic motivations brings up the idea that those who are helpful are more likely to see themselves as helpful people. In other words, some people stake their sense of identity on being moral (Aquino & Reed II, 2002), a finding that fits research conclusions regarding the Nazi-era rescuers we described earlier. If you have a strong moral identity, you are better able to bring to mind examples of moral goodness and to feel uplifted by other people’s benevolence (Aquino et al., 2011). In addition, in experimental situations intended to prime helpful behavior, people who say that being a moral, helpful person is central to their sense of identity respond by being more helpful than those who don’t define themselves along these prosocial lines (Aquino et al., 2009).

Being oriented toward others, and incorporating that role into one’s sense of identity, also bodes well for sustaining prosocial behavior over time. People who are more oriented toward others and better at taking their perspective tend to volunteer more and also are better able to sustain such volunteer activity over longer stretches of time. For example, in one study the best predictor of whether people volunteered for AIDS organizations was the extent to which they were motivated toward others, rather than toward the self (Omoto et al., 2010). Of course, they can’t do or sustain it alone, that is, only on the basis of their own motivation. Levels of social support for the volunteer experience, and the satisfaction they get from the experience itself, also contribute to whether they keep at it (Kiviniemi et al., 2002; Omoto & Snyder, 2002; Penner & Finkelstein, 1998). In fact, when these experiences are positive and rewarding, the role of volunteering is more likely to become incorporated into one’s identity. The more helping is part of one’s identity, the more likely one is to sustain an investment in these kinds of prosocial activities (Piliavin et al., 2002).

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We’ve seen that morality clearly plays a role in helping, but at least in the United States, different moral domains are important to people, depending on their political orientation. In American political culture, liberals are sometimes seen as “bleeding hearts,” but what is the evidence that people’s political leanings predict a more prosocial orientation? One way to answer this question is to look at how people’s ideologies relate to the kinds of policies they support. True to the “bleeding heart” label, when it comes to providing assistance to people who are poor, sick, homeless, or unemployed, liberals more than conservatives vote in favor of such social programs (Kluegel & Smith, 1986). Whereas conservatives are more likely to withhold public assistance to people whom they view as responsible for their own predicament, liberals tend to support providing assistance to people regardless of how they got there (Skitka & Tetlock, 1992; Skitka et al., 1991; Skitka, 1999; Weiner et al., 2011). But this liberal generosity only extends so far. If resources are scarce and belts need to be tightened, both liberals and conservatives choose to help those who are least to blame for being in a bind.

What accounts for these differences in political proclivities of helpfulness? Are liberals more empathic and less inclined to make “us versus them” distinctions? Are conservatives simply savvier in making financial investments that pay off for society as a whole? Some evidence points to the different motivations of liberals and conservatives in making policy decisions (Skitka & Tetlock, 1993). Conservatives are more motivated to maintain traditional values and norms. When they see people violating those norms, there are more inclined to punish than to help them. Liberals, on the other hand, are more motivated by egalitarian values and don’t like to see a price tag put to anyone’s pain and suffering.

We can also gain insight into the role of political ideology in moral reasoning by turning to research on moral foundation theory, which we introduced back in chapter 2 (e.g., Graham et al., 2009). This work finds that people take into account five guiding principles when they prioritize whom and when to help or how to be virtuous: preventing harm to others, ensuring fair treatment to all, being loyal to one’s group, respecting authority, and maintaining purity in one’s actions (Haidt & Joseph, 2007).

In FIGURE 13.4, you can see that across the political spectrum, Americans generally make moral decisions with an eye toward avoiding harm and maintaining fairness (Graham et al., 2009). The graph also shows that conservatives prioritize respecting authority, maintaining purity, and protecting the ingroup—but liberals do not. These different moral foundations suggest that liberals will tend to reach out primarily to those who seem to be suffering unnecessarily or as a result of unfair disadvantage, whereas conservatives will be more likely to help individuals and groups they see as conforming to traditional moral and religious norms and values and generally upholding the social order.

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What are little boys made of?

Snips and snails and puppy dogs tails,

That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice and everything nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.

—Traditional nursery rhyme

We’ve all heard this nursery rhyme and its chipper little message about sex differences. This cultural clipping reflects an assumption that boys are rough and tumble, girls sweet and good. Although discussions of sex differences and stereotypes often turn on ways in which women are thought to be weaker, more submissive, and less competent than their male peers, prosocial behavior is one arena in which women usually are thought to reign victorious. For example, in 2012, women made up more than 70% of those working in professions such as counseling (70%), social work (81%), teaching (74%), nursing (91%), medical assistance (94%), legal assistance (86%), administrative support (73%), restaurant host- or hostessing (82%), and cleaning (88%) (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d). But are women in fact more helpful than men, as stereotypes and career choices would suggest? The answer to this question is not so straightforward, so let’s take a look at it from a few different angles.

First, we can ask whether any sex differences in personality traits are associated with a prosocial orientation. Women often score higher than men on measures of agreeableness (Feingold, 1994) and empathy (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004). They also are better at decoding people’s emotions (McClure, 2000). Furthermore, research often identifies two fundamental dimensions of identity: agency (being assertive, confident, and active) and communion (being oriented toward others, caring, and compassionate) (Bakan, 1966; McAdams, 1988). In findings consistent with the common stereotypes of men and women, women often score higher in communion than do men. These difference are found across many cultures (Costa et al., 2001; Schwartz & Rubel, 2005).

One problem with focusing on gender differences in personality, however, is that personality is most often measured with surveys. This means that what we really learn is whether women think about themselves as being more helpful and prosocial compared with how men think of themselves. We might ask ourselves whether these gender differences in self-perceptions are backed up by actual behavior. As you have gathered from reading through this chapter so far, a fair amount of research has been devoted to setting up experimental tests of helping behavior both in the laboratory and in the field. When it comes to helping someone pick up a spilled pile of pencils, staying late to work on an experimental task, or trading places with another student who is upset, are women more likely to help? A meta-analysis of such studies conducted back in the heyday of helping research suggested that there is a reliable gender difference in a tendency to provide help, but it’s not the difference you might have expected. In 62% of the studies that Eagly and Crowley analyzed, men were more likely to help than were women (Eagly & Crowley, 1986). For example, recall the studies in which someone collapsed on a subway. In those field experiments, men were more likely than women to step in and assist the collapsed stranger (Piliavin et al., 1975).

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Before we draw broad conclusions about gender and prosocial tendencies on the basis of this result, let’s take a closer look at some of the studies reviewed in the meta-analysis. FIGURE 13.5 shows approximately every sixth study reported in the meta-analysis, rank ordered by the size of the effect. Positive effect sizes indicate that men were more likely to help than were women; effects shown in blue were statistically significant. Negative effect sizes mean that women were more likely to help than were men; effects shown in red were examples of significantly greater prosocial behavior from women. Studies shown in green did not find significant sex differences between men and women. Notice any patterns?

Eagly and Crowley coded these studies for various characteristics and noted that men are more likely to help in those situations that call for chivalrous behavior or taking action in spite of possible danger. Men are more likely to help a woman with heavy packages, hold a door open (especially for a woman), or be willing to take the risk of picking up a hitchhiker or letting a stranger in to their home. Men are also more likely to help when others will know that they have helped, suggesting that men more than women might act prosocially as a way to boost their own social status. They might be smart to do this: It turns out that women report being more attracted to men who behave prosocially (Jensen-Campbell et al., 1995).

Women, on the other hand, are more likely to volunteer their time for others or go out of their way to mail a letter that has been left behind. In other words, both men and women are prosocially oriented in some ways, but gender roles suggest who should help in which kinds of situations. Underscoring these conclusions from research, more men than women have received the Carnegie Hero Fund Award (given for heroic acts), whereas more women than men have received the Caring Canadian Award (which rewards volunteerism).

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If there are some average differences in prosocial orientation between men and women, are these differences really a function of “what little boys and girls are made of,” as the poem would suggest? Or are they passed along from one generation to the next through such poetry? As in most nature versus nurture disputes, both elements likely factor in. On the side of biology, Shelly Taylor and her colleagues have argued that in addition to the typical fight-or-flight response to acutely stressful situations, women might also exhibit a “tend-and-befriend” response to stressors (Taylor et al., 2000). In other words, in stressful situations, a suite of hormonal responses, including increases in oxytocin, spur women to seek safety and comfort for both themselves and close others, especially their offspring, and to build social networks. From this perspective, evolved biological differences in hormonal responses might lead women more than men to reach out to others and offer a helping hand.

Developmental and comparative studies also provide compelling evidence for sex differences. In babies who are less than a year old, boys look longer at a truck than at a doll, whereas girls look longer at a doll than a truck (Alexander et al., 2009; Ruble et al., 2006). Because these same sex-typed preferences show up in nonhuman primates (Alexander & Hines, 2002; Hassett et al., 2008), some researchers have argued that females have an inherent preference for people over things, whereas males show interest in things before people (Lippa, 1998). These biologically based differences might set the stage for girls and women to be more prosocially attuned than boys and men and to help out of a concern for alleviating the suffering of others.

Other perspectives layer on top of these initial differences the role of socialization and cultural influences in magnifying gendered behavior (Bussey & Bandura, 2004). From Eagly and Crowley’s perspective, because we so often see women in caregiving, communal roles, little girls grow up to be better able to envision themselves in those roles. Those communal personality traits might also be shaped partly by our environment. For example, grade-school girls score higher than boys in empathy (Eisenberg et al., 1991; Knight et al., 1994), but parents are also more likely to talk about emotional reactions and behave in more emotionally warm ways with their daughters than with their sons (Eisenberg et al., 1991; Leaper et al., 1998). Even if girls show some greater preference for attending to people rather than to things, it seems that parents also provide a richer education to their daughters on how to attend to, interpret, and respond to what other people need. In this way, cultural forces help to amplify and reinforce what might begin as smaller, biologically disposed differences between the sexes.

Even among the most aggressive nonhuman primates, some evidence indicates that sex differences in more communal or affiliative behaviors can be reduced by cultural changes. For example, baboons are thought to be one of the most aggressive primate species. Like most female primates, female baboons are more affiliative than the males, spending more of their time grooming each other and caring for offspring. The male baboons are much more aggressive and combative, fighting with competing troops and establishing a hierarchy of dominance. In the 1980s, the primatologist Robert Sapolsky observed a troop of baboons in East Africa whose behavior changed entirely when the most dominant males in their hierarchy suddenly died of tuberculosis. Without these alpha males around, the remaining males in the troop began to engage in more affiliative grooming behavior—grooming both females and other males alike, a behavior that was nearly unprecedented. More amazing, six years later Sapolsky discovered that the troop had maintained this new norm of prosociability. By that time, new adolescent males had joined the troop but apparently had learned to adopt this kinder, gentler lifestyle (Sapolsky & Share, 2004). Even among baboons, changes in social dynamics can narrow the gap between the sexes in prosocial tendencies.

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