Blurring the Dichotomy of Good and Evil: The Idiosyncratic Helping Strategies Associated with Unmitigated-Agentic and Unmitigated-Communal Personalities

Abstract

We theorized that unmitigated-agentic personality constructs (UAPs)—prioritizing 'getting ahead’ over 'getting along’—and unmitigated-communal personality constructs (UCPs)—prioritizing getting along over getting ahead—are associated with distinct affect-regulatory helping strategies. In Study 1 (N = 179), UAPs, on average, related to greater negative-affect versus positive-affect induction helping tactics. In two experiments, UAPs, on average, related to a greater likelihood of selecting anger-inducing versus love-inducing or sadness-inducing songs to help a target overcome a breakup (Study 2; N = 313) and greater selection of anger-inducing and hubris-inducing messages versus authentic-pride-inducing and love-inducing messages to help a teammate struggling in a game (Study 3; N = 246). UCPs manifested the opposite patterns. Generally, these associations corresponded with helping-strategy utility beliefs and were robust to moderators of helping target (self or other; Study 2) or altruistic versus selfish motives (Study 3). Study 4 (N = 205) provided some evidence of ecological validity in contexts of recalled everyday helping. Associations between personality constructs and relative helping strategies were about moderate in size (rs ~.20) across these four studies. Findings suggest that UAPs are associated with helping strategies believed to promote ‘contemptuous’ self-enhancement relative to ‘innocuous’ self-enhancement and self-transcendence, and vice versa for UCPs. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology.