Although Web-based research is now commonplace, it continues to spur skepticism from reviewers and editors, especially whenever reaction times are of primary interest. Such persistent preconceptions ...are based on arguments referring to increased variation, the limits of certain software and technologies, and a noteworthy lack of comparisons (between Web and lab) in fully randomized experiments. To provide a critical test, participants were randomly assigned to complete a lexical decision task either (a) in the lab using standard experimental software (E-Prime), (b) in the lab using a browser-based version (written in HTML and JavaScript), or (c) via the Web using the same browser-based version. The classical word frequency effect was typical in size and corresponded to a very large effect in all three conditions. There was no indication that the Web- or browser-based data collection was in any way inferior. In fact, if anything, a larger effect was obtained in the browser-based conditions than in the condition relying on standard experimental software. No differences between Web and lab (within the browser-based conditions) could be observed, thus disconfirming any substantial influence of increased technical or situational variation. In summary, the present experiment contradicts the still common preconception that reaction time effects of only a few hundred milliseconds cannot be detected in Web experiments.
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The Dark Core of Personality Moshagen, Morten; Hilbig, Benjamin E; Zettler, Ingo
Psychological review,
10/2018, Volume:
125, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Many negatively connoted personality traits (often termed "dark traits") have been introduced to account for ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior. Herein, we provide a unifying, ...comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding dark personality in terms of a general dispositional tendency of which dark traits arise as specific manifestations. That is, we theoretically specify the common core of dark traits, which we call the Dark Factor of Personality (D). The fluid concept of D captures individual differences in the tendency to maximize one's individual utility-disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others-accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications. To critically test D, we unify and extend prior work methodologically and empirically by considering a large number of dark traits simultaneously, using statistical approaches tailored to capture both the common core and the unique content of dark traits, and testing the predictive validity of both D and the unique content of dark traits with respect to diverse criteria including fully consequential and incentive-compatible behavior. In a series of four studies (N > 2,500), we provide evidence in support of the theoretical conceptualization of D, show that dark traits can be understood as specific manifestations of D, demonstrate that D predicts a multitude of criteria in the realm of ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior, and illustrate that D does not depend on any particular indicator variable included.
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Measuring the Dark Core of Personality Moshagen, Morten; Zettler, Ingo; Hilbig, Benjamin E
Psychological assessment,
02/2020, Volume:
32, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The Dark Factor of Personality (D) is the basic disposition that gives rise to specific personality traits related to antagonistic, malevolent, or socially aversive behavior, thereby representing the ...common core of dark personality traits. Whereas existing evidence clearly supports the conceptualization and utility of D, the assessment of D was possible only indirectly and with extensive effort, so far. Applying rational item selection techniques to seven large and highly heterogeneous samples (total N > 165,000), we herein identified sets of items (comprising 70, 35, and 16 items, respectively) that allow for a psychometrically sound and more concise assessment of D. Results indicate that all identified item sets are characterized by high internal consistencies and high retest-reliabilities, clearly map on a single factor in line with the definition of D, and exhibit substantial associations to various relevant criteria, including actual behavior. In particular, the item sets showed substantial associations with behavioral measures of individual utility maximization disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others and were also related to various justifying beliefs, thereby mirroring the defining features of D. In sum, the identified item sets allow for a concise, reliable, and valid assessment of D.
Public Significance Statement
The Dark Factor of Personality (D) is the basic personality disposition from which specific dark traits related to malevolent behavior (such as Psychopathy) arise as manifestations. Improving on previous indirect assessment attempts, we herein identify and validate item sets differing in length that are optimally suited to measure D.
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People willingly accept personal costs to sanction norm violations even if they are not personally affected by the wrongdoing and even if their sanctioning yields no immediate benefits-a behavior ...known as third-party punishment. A notable body of literature suggests that this behavior is primarily driven by retribution (i.e., evening out the harm caused), rather than by the utilitarian motives of special prevention (i.e., preventing recidivism), or general prevention (i.e., preventing imitation). This has led to the conclusion that laypeople are "retributivists" in general. More recent evidence, however, raises doubts about the ubiquity of retributivism, showing that punishment is driven by multiple motives. The present research adds to this debate by investigating the motives underlying punishment in children around age 10. Specifically, we investigate children's (N = 238) punishment motives in an economic game paradigm, isolating punishment motives by experimentally manipulating the extent to which the offender and a bystander learn about the punishment. This offers the possibility to examine whether (and to what extent) children engage in punishment even when it is devoid of any preventive effects. Results show that children's punishment is motivated by retributive, special preventive, and general preventive purposes. These results point to a clear need for further theory specification on the motivational basis of punishment in humans and provide practical implications for the treatment of child misbehavior.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Trust is a key aspect of various social interactions. Correspondingly, trust has been heavily studied across different scientific disciplines. However, an integration of the diverse research and ...literature is still missing. Addressing this issue, we review several hundred articles on interpersonal trust among strangers and integrate them into a coherent framework, explaining trust behavior among unfamiliar agents based on an interaction between situational features and distinct personality characteristics. Understanding trust as a decision under risk, we distill 3 core components of trust behavior from the extant literature: attitudes toward risky prospects (i.e., risk aversion and loss aversion), trustworthiness expectations, and betrayal sensitivity. Each of these refers to a distinct set of causal determinants, including personality characteristics (anxiety/fear, trustworthiness, and forgiveness) which can be localized in the space defined by models of basic personality structure (e.g., the Five-Factor Model and the HEXACO model of personality). In sum, the review contributes to the understanding of trust behavior by linking and integrating the findings from various fields of trust research. Additionally, it provides fruitful directions and implications for future research.
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Based on lexical studies, the HEXACO (honesty-humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience) model of personality has been proposed as a model of ...basic personality structure that summarizes individual differences in six broad trait dimensions. Although research across various fields relies on the HEXACO model increasingly, a comprehensive investigation of the nomological net of the HEXACO dimensions is missing entirely. Thus, it remains unclear whether each HEXACO dimension accounts for individual variation across theoretically relevant outcome criteria. We close this gap through a large-scale meta-analytic investigation, testing whether each HEXACO dimension is uniquely linked to one broad and theoretically relevant outcome domain. Results from 426 individual meta-analyses, 436 independent samples, and 3,893 effect-size estimates corroborate this unique mapping. Specifically, honesty-humility maps onto the outcome domain of exploitation, emotionality onto insecurity, extraversion onto sociality, agreeableness versus anger onto obstruction, conscientiousness onto duty, and openness to experience onto exploration. Overall, the current investigation provides a comprehensive empirical test of the (breadth of) content captured by the HEXACO dimensions and allows for a broad specification of the nomological net of the HEXACO model overall.
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A recurrent observation in personality judgments is that individuals' ratings of others' personalities are positively linked to their self-description, and that such "assumed similarity" effects ...appear to be trait-specific. However, the extent of and explanations for assumed similarity have been addressed only insufficiently. To close this gap, we first provide a meta-analytic summary of evidence on assumed similarity of basic personality traits. More importantly, we then critically test different theoretical accounts of assumed similarity (i.e., lack of information, relation to personal values, and known/spurious similarity) in nine studies. Specifically, we investigated assumed similarity of the HEXACO personality traits among strangers, using tailored experimental tests tackling the different theoretical accounts. Across studies, we consistently found the strongest assumed similarity effects for those traits being most strongly linked to personal values: Honesty-Humility and (albeit somewhat weaker) Openness to Experience. For the remaining traits, no consistent evidence for assumed similarity occurred, even when raters had very limited information about the target person. This contradicts that assumed similarity reflects a lack-of-information effect. In turn, the findings could also neither be accounted for by actual similarity, nor by a shared group membership (i.e., spurious similarity) between rater and target. Overall, our studies support the idea that assumed similarity of basic traits is closely tied to personal values and suggest that this finding is attributable to the high personal relevance of value-related traits. This implies that assumed similarity reflects the assumption that others share basic parts of one's identity, even if these others are complete strangers.
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Concerning the dispositional determinants of prosocial behavior and cooperation, work based on the classic 5 personality factors, and especially Agreeableness, has turned out somewhat inconsistent. A ...clearer picture has emerged from consideration of the HEXACO model of personality-though supported entirely by hypothetical behavior as criterion, so far. Thus, in 2 studies and a reanalysis, we investigated "actual behavior" in the form of individually and socially consequential distribution decisions. As expected, HEXACO Honesty-Humility consistently predicted prosocial behavior, including a theory-consistent pattern on the facet level. Importantly, this pattern might explain why five-factor Agreeableness has only sometimes been found to account for prosocial behavior. Indeed, further results indicate that five-factor Agreeableness comprises some aspects that are predictive of prosocial behavior-aspects well covered by HEXACO Honesty-Humility-but also others that play no role for this criterion. As such, the links between five-factor Agreeableness and prosocial behavior are well-covered by HEXACO Honesty-Humility, but not vice versa. Taken together, these findings hint that especially HEXACO Honesty-Humility (and certain aspects of five-factor Agreeableness) account for prosocial behavior-thus explaining previous inconsistencies and providing a more nuanced understanding of the links between basic personality and prosocial or cooperative behavior.
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9.
lab.js: A free, open, online study builder Henninger, Felix; Shevchenko, Yury; Mertens, Ulf K. ...
Behavior research methods,
04/2022, Volume:
54, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Web-based data collection is increasingly popular in both experimental and survey-based research because it is flexible, efficient, and location-independent. While dedicated software for ...laboratory-based experimentation and online surveys is commonplace, researchers looking to implement experiments in the browser have, heretofore, often had to manually construct their studies’ content and logic using code. We introduce lab.js, a free, open-source experiment builder that makes it easy to build studies for both online and in-laboratory data collection. Through its visual interface, stimuli can be designed and combined into a study without programming, though studies’ appearance and behavior can be fully customized using
html
,
css
, and JavaScript code if required. Presentation and response times are kept and measured with high accuracy and precision heretofore unmatched in browser-based studies. Experiments constructed with lab.js can be run directly on a local computer and published online with ease, with direct deployment to cloud hosting, export to web servers, and integration with popular data collection platforms. Studies can also be shared in an editable format, archived, re-used and adapted, enabling effortless, transparent replications, and thus facilitating open, cumulative science. The software is provided free of charge under an open-source license; further information, code, and extensive documentation are available from
https://lab.js.org/
.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Individuals differ in how they weigh their own utility versus others’. This tendency codefines the dark factor of personality (D), which is conceptualized as the underlying disposition from which all ...socially and ethically aversive (dark) traits arise as specific, flavored manifestations. We scrutinize this unique theoretical notion by testing, for a broad set of 58 different traits and related constructs, whether any predict how individuals weigh their own versus others’ utility in proactive allocation decisions (i.e., social value orientations) beyond D. These traits and constructs range from broad dimensions (e.g., agreeableness), to aversive traits (e.g., sadism) and beliefs (e.g., normlessness), to prosocial tendencies (e.g., compassion). In a large-scale longitudinal study involving the assessment of consequential choices (median N = 2,270; a heterogeneous adult community sample from Germany), results from several hundred latent model comparisons revealed that no meaningful incremental variance was explained beyond D. Thus, D alone is sufficient to represent the social preferences inherent in socially and ethically aversive personality traits.
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