Agency-Communion and Interest in
Prosocial Behavior: Social Motives for
Assimilation and Contrast Explain
Sociocultural Inconsistencies
Journal of Personality 82:5, October 2014
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12076
Jochen E. Gebauer,1 Constantine Sedikides,2
Oliver Lüdtke,1 and Wiebke Neberich3
1
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
University of Southampton
3
Affinitas GmbH
2
Abstract
Identifying the “prosocial personality” is a classic project in personality psychology. However, personality traits have been elusive
predictors of prosocial behavior, with personality-prosociality relations varying widely across sociocultural contexts. We
propose the social motives perspective to account for such sociocultural inconsistencies.According to this perspective, a focal
quality of agency (e.g., competence, independence, openness) is the motive to swim against the social tide—agentic social
contrast. Conversely, a focal quality of communion (e.g., warmth, interdependence, agreeableness) is the motive to swim with the
social tide—communal social assimilation. We report two cross-sectional studies. Study 1 (N = 131,562) defined social context
at the country level (11 European countries), whereas Study 2 (N = 56,395) defined it at the country level (11 European
countries) and the city level (296 cities within these countries). Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior
comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was common and comparatively weakly where such
interest was uncommon. Agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts
where such interest was uncommon and comparatively weakly where such interest was common.The results supported the
social motives perspective. Also, the findings help to reestablish the importance of personality for understanding prosociality.
A persistent societal challenge is the promotion of interest in a
wide array of prosocial behaviors, such as volunteering, fostering harmonious social ties, and protecting the environment.
Personality psychologists have traditionally approached this
societal challenge with research on the “prosocial personality”
(Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). In particular,
they have tried to identify personality traits that reliably predict
interest in a variety of prosocial behaviors across diverse social
contexts (Pearce & Amato, 1980). Yet, classic attempts to
locate the prosocial personality have rarely been successful
(Penner, Fritzsche, Caiger, & Freifeld, 1995). For example,
Hartshorne and May (1928) concluded that enduring personality traits can contribute little to the understanding of
prosociality. Latané and Darley (1970) investigated personality
predictors of helping in emergency situations and concluded
that personality is “rather unimportant in determining people’s
reactions to the emergency” (p. 115). Gergen, Gergen, and
Meter (1972) summarized personality research on prosociality
as “a quagmire of evanescent relations among variables, conflicting findings, and low order correlation coefficients”
(p. 113). (For similarly discouraging statements, see Huston &
Korte, 1976; Krebs, 1975; Piliavin, Dovidio, Gaertner, &
Clark, 1981.)
Albeit later research arrived at somewhat more optimistic
conclusions (Graziano, Habashi, Sheese, & Tobin, 2007;
Penner & Finkelstein, 1998; Staub, 1974), the image of the
prosocial personality remains blurred. As described below, an
enduring misgiving among researchers in the area has been
that personality traits are inconsistently linked to prosociality
across different sociocultural contexts. In an effort to address
this issue, we examined the link between the “Big Two” personality factors of agency (e.g., competence, independence,
openness) and communion (e.g., warmth, interdependence,
agreeableness), on the one hand, and interest in prosocial
behavior on the other. More importantly, we examined this link
across diverse sociocultural contexts—namely, 11 countries
We thank Andreas Nehrlich for help with coding the Study 2 data.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jochen
E. Gebauer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Psychologie, Unter
den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Deutschland. Email: [email protected].
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
(Study 1) and 296 major cities within these 11 countries (Study
2). We aimed to show that sociocultural inconsistencies in the
relation between Big Two personality and interest in prosocial
behavior are seeming rather than real. Specifically, we argue
that these inconsistencies follow theoretical predictions from
our social motives perspective. As such, not only do they pose
no validity threat to the prosocial personality, but they also
help to reaffirm the importance of personality for understanding prosocial behavior.
Next, we provide brief reviews on the prosocial personality
and on Big Two personality. An exposition of the social
motives perspective concludes the introduction. The empirical
part of the article, then, relies on the social motives perspective
to predict interest in prosocial behavior across different sociocultural contexts.
Prosocial Personality
Do enduring personality traits reliably predict prosocial
behavior? Or, in other words, is there a “prosocial personality”? Classic thinkers have intuitively answered this important
question with a clear yes (Allport, 1937; Freud, 1920/1959;
see Darley & Batson, 1973). The ensuing empirical evidence,
however, has been less clear. On the basis of their data,
early investigators have often rejected any important role
of personality in prosocial behavior (Gergen et al., 1972;
Hartshorne & May, 1928; Latané & Darley, 1970). As a
result, the situationist perspective dominated psychological
thinking almost entirely until the 1980s (Penner et al., 1995).
Around that time, more supportive evidence for the existence
of a prosocial personality started to accumulate, but the
effects were considerably smaller than originally expected
(Omoto & Snyder, 1995; Staub, 1978), and the evidence was
less consistent than originally hoped (Batson & Powell, 2003;
Piliavin et al., 1981). According to Graziano and Eisenberg
(1997), Agreeableness may be the most potent personality
predictor of prosociality. This focal Big Five factor (Digman
& Takemoto-Chock, 1981) “describes individual differences
in being likable, pleasant, and harmonious in relationships
with others” (Graziano & Tobin, 2009, p. 46). And, indeed, a
substantial amount of evidence has confirmed a positive relationship between Agreeableness and prosociality (Caprara,
Alessandri, & Eisenberg, 2012; Graziano & Tobin, 2013). At
the same time, however, this research has revealed relations of
rather inconsistent effect sizes. For example, Carlo, Okun,
Knight, and de Guzman (2005) examined the relationship
between Agreeableness and self-reported volunteerism in a
U.S. undergraduate sample and found a medium relationhsip
between the two variables (r = .23). Erez, Mikulincer,
van Ijzendoorn, and Kroonenberg (2008) also examined
the relationship between Agreeableness and self-reported
volunteerism. However, their results came from a Dutch
undergraduate sample, and they only found a rather small
relationship between the two variables (r = .07). Similarly,
Elshaug and Metzer (2001) consistently found that Canadian
453
volunteers (food preparers as well as firefighters) reported
higher levels of Agreeableness than a control group. Bekkers
(2005) also examined a group of volunteers, but his Dutch
political volunteers reported lower levels of Agreeableness
than the controls.
As will be described below, inconsistencies of that sort can
be explained by our social motives perspective. The social
motives perspective concerns the Big Two personality traits
rather than the Big Five. We see this as an advantage for the
present research for two reasons. First, despite the growing
popularity of the Big Two, there is hardly any research on its
relation to prosociality, so the present article may help to close
this gap. More importantly, the Big Five’s Agreeableness
factor and the Big Two’s communion factor are particularly
closely related to each other (McCrae & Costa, 1989; Trapnell
& Wiggins, 1990), and some have even suggested “communion” as an alternative label for Agreeableness (Wiggins,
1991; see also Graziano & Tobin, 2013).
Big Two Personality
In making judgments about the self, other individuals, groups,
cultures, social situations, and personal memories, people
draw on remarkably similar repertoires of psychological
attributes (Abele, Cuddy, Judd, & Yzerbyt, 2008; Judd,
James-Hawkins, Yzerbyt, & Kashima, 2005). Even more
remarkable, these psychological attributes fall into two
broad—and conceptually similar—factors for the self (Paulhus
& John, 1998), other individuals (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007),
groups (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002), cultures
(Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002), social situations
(Fournier, Moskowitz, & Zuroff, 2008), and personal memories (Gebauer, Haddock, Broemer, & von Hecker, 2013).
The labels for these two factors differ according to empirical
tradition, as researchers have arrived at the Big Two largely
independent from each other. In particular, the two factors
have been respectively labeled “intellectual goodness” and
“social goodness” (Rosenberg, Nelson, & Vivekananthan,
1968), “dominance” and “nurturance” (Wiggins, 1979), “masculinity” and “femininity” (Bem, 1981), “independence” and
“interdependence” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), “competence” and “warmth” (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007), “beta”
and “alpha” (Digman, 1997), “plasticity” and “stability”
(DeYoung, 2006), and “dynamism” and “social propriety”
(Saucier, 2009). Nevertheless, Bakan (1966), who pioneered
the discovery and labeling of the two factors, named them
agency and communion. Following recent calls for a unifying
terminology (Abele, Cuddy, et al., 2008; Judd et al., 2005;
Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), we adopt these terms in the present
work.
Researchers have used the Big Two to organize
diverse classes of psychological attributes, such as developmental goals (Charles & Carstensen, 2010), interpersonal
behaviors (Wiggins, 1991), interpersonal problems (Horowitz,
Rosenberg, Baer, Ureno, & Villasenor, 1988), person percep-
454
tions (Gebauer, Maio, & Pakizeh, 2013), sex roles (Bem,
1981), response biases (Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), selfenhancement strategies (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides,
2002), forms of narcissism (Gebauer, Sedikides, Verplanken,
& Maio, 2012), and social values (Trapnell & Paulhus, 2012).
More relevant to the present investigation, researchers have
used the Big Two to organize basic personality traits (Wiggins,
1979), including their higher-order factors, such as the popular
Big Five (John & Srivastava, 1999). Specifically, Paulhus and
John (1998) theorized that Extraversion and Openness constitute core elements of agency, whereas Agreeableness and
Conscientiousness constitute core elements of communion
(see also Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008). This conceptualization
squares with research on the Big Five’s higher-order factors.
Specifically, Extraversion and Openness underlie one of the
two higher-order factors, whereas Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (together with Emotional Stability) underlie the
second higher-order factor (DeYoung, 2006; Digman, 1997;
Erdle, Gosling, & Potter, 2009).
A Social Motives Perspective on
Big Two Personality
Humans’ elaborate social life confers a unique evolutionary
advantage (Baumeister, 2005; Sedikides, Skowronski, &
Dunbar, 2006). Consequently, the degree of access to social
resources is critical for survival and reproduction, and such
access is a function of a person’s social reputation (Leary &
Baumeister, 2000). Reputation, in turn, is largely determined
by two factors. Specifically, reputation is strong when a person
is (a) sufficiently similar to others in order to fit in and (b)
sufficiently different from others in order to be irreplaceable
(Leary, 2004). Hence, as Baumeister (2005) put it, “the human
self has to seek both common ground with others (to gain
acceptance) and distinctive capabilities (to perform a unique
role within the system)” (p. 45). Stated otherwise, motives for
social assimilation and social contrast are critical in order to
achieve a robust reputation (Gebauer, Leary, & Neberich,
2012).
A long-standing tradition has suggested links between
motives for social contrast and social assimilation, on the one
hand, and agency and communion on the other. Bakan (1966)
originated this tradition with his inaugural writings on agency
and communion: “Agency manifests itself in the formation of
separations; communion in the lack of separations” (p. 15).
Hogan (1982) assumed that agency allows individuals to “get
ahead” in the social world, whereas communion allows them to
“get along.” Wiggins (1991) included these motivational properties in his definition of agency and communion: “Agency
refers to the condition of being a differentiated individual. . . .
Communion refers to the condition of being part of a larger
social or spiritual entity” (p. 89). More recently, Abele and
Wojciszke (2007) theorized that “agency arises from strivings
to individuate and expand the self. . . . [C]ommunion
Gebauer, Sedikides, Lüdtke, et al.
arises from strivings to integrate the self in a larger social unit”
(p. 751).
Despite these assertions, empirical research on such agentic
social contrast and communal social assimilation has lagged
behind. In fact, the first empirical evidence has been reported
only recently, and this evidence is limited to the domains of
religiosity (Gebauer, Paulhus, & Neberich, 2013) and partner
preferences (Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012). For example,
Gebauer, Paulhus, et al. (2013) tested the relation between Big
Two personality and religiosity across 11 European countries.
According to Bakan’s (1966) classic perspective, communion,
but not agency, should constitute the pancultural personality
basis of religiosity. Bakan formulated these predictions
because religious commandments and practices generally
allow the expression of communion, but not the expression of
agency. Hence, high communion, but not agency, should panculturally draw people toward religiosity. This expressiveness
perspective contrasts with the social motives perspective. The
validity of expressiveness processes notwithstanding, the
social motives perspective proposes that high communion will
predict religiosity strongly in religious countries and weakly in
secular countries (communal social assimilation). Conversely,
high agency will predict religiosity strongly in secular countries and weakly in religious countries (agentic social contrast).
Gebauer, Paulhus, et al. (2013) results corroborated the social
motives perspective in the domain of religiosity. Indeed, the
effects of communal social assimilation and agentic social
contrast were so pervasive that Bakan’s (1966) classic expressiveness predictions were reversed in the most secular country:
In atheist Sweden, only agency emerged as a positive predictor
of religiosity, whereas communion was somewhat negatively
related to religiosity.
Similarly, Gebauer, Leary, et al. (2012) reported that
agency was overall a better predictor of preferences for highstatus partners than was communion. However, this classic
“similarity attracts” pattern (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford,
1997; Buston & Emlen, 2003) was qualified by country-level
status preferences in line with predictions from the social
motives perspective. Indicative of agentic social contrast,
agency predicted preferences for high-status partners most
strongly in countries in which such preferences were a cultural
taboo. Conversely, and indicative of communal social assimilation, communion predicted preferences for high-status partners most strongly in countries in which such preferences
were widely accepted. As a result of these social motives
processes, the “similarity attracts” pattern vanished in countries in which status preferences were widely accepted:
Agency was only a modest predictor of status preferences, and
communion was a somewhat stronger predictor of status preferences. Together, then, the social motives perspective plays a
role in the domains of belief systems and interpersonal relationships. It is unclear, however, whether this perspective can
explain previously puzzling and validity-threatening sociocontextual differences in the relationship between personality
and prosociality.
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
Big Two Personality and Prosociality: May
Social Motives Matter?
Classic thinking on Big Two personality and prosociality is
based on expressiveness processes. Specifically, and reminiscent of predictions regarding Big Two personality and religiosity (see above), communion has been conceptualized as the
Big Two personality basis of prosociality, given that prosocial
behavior affords the expression of high communion (Bakan,
1966; Wiggins, 1991). Agency, however, has been conceptualized as independent of prosociality, given that prosocial behavior rarely affords the expression of high agency and sometimes
even hinders its expression (Bakan, 1966; Wiggins, 1991).
Thus, classic thinking holds that high communion, but not
agency, will predict interest in prosocial behavior and that this
pattern will emerge consistently across disparate sociocultural
contexts.
While acknowledging the merit of expressiveness processes, the social motives perspective adds more nuanced and
context-sensitive predictions. Communion will predict interest
in prosocial behavior strongly in sociocultural contexts where
such interest is common, whereas communion will predict
interest in prosocial behavior weakly in sociocultural contexts
where such interest is uncommon (communal social assimilation). Conversely, agency will predict interest in prosocial
behavior strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest
is uncommon, whereas agency will predict interest in prosocial
behavior weakly in sociocultural contexts where such interest
is common (agentic social contrast).
In two studies, we examine the applicability of the social
motives perspective to interest in prosocial behavior. This issue
cannot be settled merely by generalizing from previous
research on religiosity and partner preferences. After all, it is
hard to think of a domain that affords the expression of communion any better than the domain of prosociality. In line with
that, past theory has exclusively tied prosociality to communion but not to agency (with moral exemplars being an exception to that rule; Frimer & Oakes, 2013; Frimer, Walker,
Dunlop, Lee, & Riches, 2011; Frimer, Walker, Riches, Lee, &
Dunlop, 2012). Hence, expressiveness processes may leave
little room for social motives processes. For that reason, the
present research represents a conservative test case of the
social motives perspective.
Our research pursues an additional goal. The vast majority
of the cross-cultural literature defines sociocultural context at
the country level (Gelfand et al., 2011; Hofstede, 2001;
Schwartz, 1992; Triandis, 1989), and so does the literature on
the social motives perspective (Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012;
Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013). Yet, a growing body of evidence points to the relevance of more refined social contexts
(Rentfrow, Gosling, & Potter, 2008; Vandello & Cohen, 1999),
with a special focus on city-level context (Kashima et al.,
2004; Levine, Norenzayan, & Philbrick, 2001; Plaut, Markus,
Treadway, & Fu, 2012; Rentfrow, 2011). Hence, Study 1 takes
a more standard approach, examining the relevance of the
455
social motives perspective to the prosocial personality in a
sample of 131,562 individuals from 11 countries. Further,
Study 2 examines whether Study 1’s conclusions regarding the
relevance of country-level sociocultural contexts hold even
when city-level sociocultural context is additionally considered. Study 2’s 56,395 participants lived in the 30 largest cities
within each of Study 1’s 11 countries (and Study 2’s participants did not take part in Study 1).
STUDY 1
Study 1 tested the relationship between Big Two personality
and interest in prosocial behavior across 11 European countries. That is, in Study 1, sociocultural context was defined at
the country level. Past research suggests that the sampled
European countries vary widely in their degree of countrylevel prosociality. For example, Huppert et al. (2009) reported
representative data from nine of the sampled countries,
showing that the proportion of people who stated that they
volunteered in the year 2006 ranged from smaller minorities in
some countries to larger majorities in other countries.
On the basis of expressiveness processes (Bakan, 1966;
Wiggins, 1991), we examined whether high communion,
rather than high agency, would emerge as the strongest predictor of interest in prosocial behavior across all 11 countries.
More importantly, however, we expected inconsistencies
across countries, and we expected that these inconsistencies
would follow predictions of the social motives perspective.
Specifically, the effect of communion on interest in prosocial
behavior would wax in countries high in prosociality, but this
effect would wane in countries low in prosociality (communal
social assimilation). Conversely, the effect of agency on interest in prosocial behavior would wax in countries low in
prosociality, but it would wane in countries high in prosociality
(agentic social contrast).
Method
Participants. We relied on the eDarling dataset, which contains data from 187,957 individuals from 11 European countries (Gebauer, Sedikides, & Neberich, 2012). Of those
individuals, 56,395 lived in one of the 30 largest cities of their
respective country. We used the data from these individuals in
Study 2, whereas we included the remaining data in Study 1.
That is, our two studies were based on data from different
individuals. The current study, then, reports data from 131,562
individuals (55% male; Mage = 37.33 years, SDage = 12.37)
living in 11 countries (Table 1).
Procedure and Measures. eDarling is a European onlinedating site. Participants provided their data in the process of
setting up their dating profile. They began by consenting to the
use of their anonymized data for scientific research. Next, they
completed self-report items on a variety of topics, including
456
Gebauer, Sedikides, Lüdtke, et al.
Table 1 Sample Size, Country-Level Means, and Big Two Relations With Prosociality
Means
Countries
Austria
France
Germany
Italy
The Netherlands
Poland
Russia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Total
Relations With Prosociality
N
Agency
Communion
Prosociality
Agency
Communion
7,708
13,995
13,895
9,325
10,062
13,623
15,986
11,551
12,087
7,239
16,091
4.29
4.17
4.19
4.23
4.29
4.83
4.48
4.39
4.51
4.28
5.00
6.01
5.61
5.92
5.37
5.92
5.84
5.52
5.73
5.71
5.93
5.99
4.64
5.00
4.59
4.61
4.52
4.69
3.89
4.89
4.36
4.62
5.15
.22
.14
.22
.22
.28
.29
.29
.21
.32
.21
.26
.33
.30
.33
.33
.29
.30
.22
.36
.23
.31
.33
131,562
4.42
5.78
4.63
.24
.30
Note. Prosociality = individual-level interest in prosocial behavior. Big Two relations with prosociality represent βs of one Big Two factor, controlling for the other Big Two
factor.
measures of agency and communion as well as personal interests. Participants knew that their responses would be used to
match them with suitable partners. Hence, they had reason to
be honest about their personal interests (and other factors) in
order to receive the most suitable partner suggestions
(Gebauer, Baumeister, Sedikides, & Neberich, in press).
Agency and Communion. The 20-item Big Two Personality Scale (Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013) asks, “How well
does each of the following generally describe you?” succeeded by 10 agentic items (e.g., adventuresome, competitive,
outgoing; α = .78) and 10 communal items (e.g., caring,
honest, understanding; α = .86; 1 = not at all, 7 = very much).
A validation study (N = 344; Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013)
found that our 10-item Agency subscale loaded highly on a
factor together with well-established agency scales (.87;
Abele, Uchronski, Suitner, & Wojciszke, 2008; Fiske et al.,
2002; Trapnell & Paulhus, 2012), whereas our 10-item Communion subscale loaded highly on a separate factor together
with well-established communion scales (.91; Abele,
Uchronski, et al., 2008; Fiske et al., 2002; Trapnell & Paulhus,
2012). Furthermore, we tested for measurement invariance of
our two-factor scale across the 11 countries. We opted for
metric invariance because this type of invariance helps to
assert that differences in correlations across countries are not
merely the result of cross-cultural differences in the involved
measures’ validity (Horn & McArdle, 1992). To this end, we
conducted a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
with AMOS 19.0 (Arbuckle, 2010) and found sufficiently
strong evidence for metric invariance (ΔCFI = .013,
ΔRMSEA < .001, ΔSRMR = .002).1 In line with past research
(Suitner & Maass, 2008), agency and communion were moderately positively correlated across the full sample, r = .34.
Table 1 displays the country-level agency and communion
means.
Individual-Level Interest in Prosocial Behavior. The
dataset contained 40 personal interest items. Relying on Pearce
and Amato’s (1980) broad and well-accepted definition of
prosociality (Batson & Powell, 2003), we consensually identified seven of these items as reflecting prosocial behavior. The
items were preceded by the stem “How interested are you in
the following activities?” and were “animal rights,” “teaching/
supporting other people’s development,” “talking to friends,”
“protecting the environment,” “conversations with others,”
“volunteering,” and “hosting get-togethers/entertaining”
(1 = not interested, 7 = very interested). A scree test (Cattell,
1966) clearly suggested a one-factor structure in an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) across the seven items, the internal
consistency of the seven-item scale was good (α = .75), and
evidence for metric invariance was obtained (ΔCFI = .021,
ΔRMSEA = .004, ΔSRMR = .005).2,3
Country-Level Interest in Prosocial Behavior. Countrylevel indices are most often derived by averaging individuallevel responses for each country (Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011;
Fulmer et al., 2010; Hofstede, 2001), a procedure validated
with the eDarling dataset (Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012;
Gebauer, Sedikides, & Neberich, 2012; Gebauer, Wagner,
Sedikides, & Neberich, 2013). We proceeded to average the
individual-level personal interest scores for each country
(Table 1).4 Additionally, we implemented an external countrylevel index. Specifically, for nine of the 11 countries, Huppert
et al. (2009) reported the percentage of people who stated
having done volunteer work during the past year. These percentages rest on countrywide representative data from the
2006 European Social Survey (European Social Survey, 2006).
Equivalent results across both indices would buttress the validity of the social motives perspective in general and the validity
of our prosociality measure in particular (both at the individual
level and at the countrylevel).
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
Results
Data-Analytic Strategy. The 131,562 participants were
nested in 11 countries. Hence, we used multilevel modeling
with two levels (HLM 7.0; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong,
Congdon, & du Toit, 2011). In order to obtain standardized
effects at the participant level, we z-standardized all
individual-level variables (i.e., all grand means = 0, all
SDs = 1) prior to setting up the multilevel model. This procedure permits interpretation of main effect bs as βs (Cohen &
Cohen, 1983). In the multilevel analyses, we centered continuous individual-level predictors around their country mean and
continuous country-level predictors around their grand mean.5
Multilevel
Analyses. We
regressed
simultaneously
individual-level interest in prosocial behavior on the following
predictors: individual-level agency, individual-level communion, country-level interest in prosocial behavior, individuallevel agency × country-level interest in prosocial behavior, and
individual-level communion × country-level interest in
prosocial behavior. Additionally, we entered three control variables at the individual level: age, sex, and highest education.
Result patterns were similar without these controls. We performed this multilevel analysis twice—first with our index of
country-level interest in prosocial behavior (available for all 11
countries) and subsequently with Huppert and colleagues’
(2009) index (available for nine countries).
We started with examining the main effects of agency and
communion on our index of country-level interest in prosocial
behavior. Descriptively, communion, b = .28, SE = .003,
t(131,553) = 108.17, p < .001, was overall somewhat more
strongly related to interest in prosocial behavior than was
agency, b = .24, SE = .003, t(131,553) = 88.31, p < .001. Crucially, however, country-level interest in prosocial behavior
qualified both main effects. In particular, communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in
countries where such interest was uncommon, while predicting
interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in countries where such interest was common, b = .12, SE = .007,
t(131,553) = 18.42, p < .001. Conversely, agency predicted
interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in countries where such interest was common, while predicting interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in countries
where such interest was uncommon, b = –.04, SE = .007,
t(131,553) = –5.67, p < .001.6
Next, we set out to test the replicability of these results with
Huppert and colleagues’ (2009) index of country-level interest
in prosocial behavior. As before, we found that communion,
b = .28, SE = .003, t(106,130) = 92.73, p < .001, was more
strongly related to interest in prosocial behavior than was
agency, b = .23, SE = .003, t(106,130) = 76.04, p < .001. Crucially, however, country-level interest in prosocial behavior
again qualified both main effects. Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in countries
where such interest was uncommon, while predicting interest
457
in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in countries
where such interest was common, b = .02, SE = .001,
t(106,130) = 15.02, p < .001. Agency, on the other hand, predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in
countries where such interest was common, while predicting
interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in countries where such interest was uncommon, b = –.008, SE = .001,
t(106,130) = –6.08, p < .001.
Figure 1 provides a graphical display of our results. The
figure shows the relation between each of the Big Two and
interest in prosocial behavior per country as a function of
country-level interest in prosocial behavior. Because the
number of people per country was homogenously very large,
the relationships between the Big Two and interest in prosocial
behavior for each country were estimated very precisely
(SEs ≤ .01; Cooper, Hedges, & Valentine, 2009). Given this
precision, the correlation between (a) the relationsships
between the Big Two and interest in prosocial behavior and (b)
country-level interest in prosocial behavior constitutes a viable
alternative analysis strategy to our HLM results (Wood,
Gosling, & Potter, 2007). Once more buttressing the social
motives perspective, these country-level correlations were
positive for communion, r = .77, and negative for agency,
r = –51 (see also Table 1). Moreover, Figure 1 also provides an
indication about the relative importance of the social motives
perspective. Specifically, the figure shows that, compared to
agency, communion was a considerably stronger predictor of
interest in prosocial behavior in countries where such interest
was common. However, compared to agency, communion was
a weaker predictor of interest in prosocial behavior in countries
where such interest was uncommon (Table 1). This reversal in
the dominant Big Two predictors of interest in prosocial behavior illustrates that the impact of the social motives perspective
can be large.7,8
Discussion
In a large, cross-cultural sample, we found that, compared to
agency, communion was a descriptively stronger predictor of
interest in prosocial behavior. This result is in line with the
classic expressiveness perspective (Bakan, 1966; Wiggins,
1991), which posits that high communion, more so than
agency, draws people toward prosocial behavior because
prosocial acts allow them to express their communality. Importantly, however, our results were inconsistent across sociocultural contexts. Yet, these inconsistencies buttress rather than
threaten the validity of the prosocial personality. Sociocultural
differences were not erratic. Instead, they followed precisely
predictions from the social motives perspective. Hence, Study
1 adds to past research that began to restore the image of the
prosocial personality (Graziano & Tobin, 2009, 2013). The
study also corroborates the validity of the social motives
perspective within a conservative test domain. Although
prosociality represents a strong affordance to expressing
458
Gebauer, Sedikides, Lüdtke, et al.
Figure 1 The relation between individual-level agency-communion and individual-level interest in prosocial behavior (y-axis) as a function of country-level
interest in prosocial behavior (x-axis). ● = relation between individual-level communion and individual-level interest in prosocial behavior for each country,
including their best-fitting regression line over all countries (
); ▲ = relation between individual-level agency and individual-level interest in prosocial
behavior for each country, including their best-fitting regression line over all countries ( ).
communion, communal social assimilation and agentic social
contrast were strong.
STUDY 2
A burgeoning literature suggests that city-level sociocultural
context can have psychological implications over and above
country-level sociocultural context (Kashima et al., 2004;
Levine et al., 2001; Plaut et al., 2012; Rentfrow, 2011). There
are other reasons to presume that the social motives for
assimilation and contrast, in particular, are relevant to citylevel sociocultural context. Social motives are fundamental to
a person’s social acceptance (i.e., social assimilation; Batson,
Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Byrne,
1971) and social non-redundancy (i.e., social contrast;
Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick,
2006; Leary, 2004). It should be beneficial, then, for people to
be attuned to their more immediate sociocultural context, such
as the city. In fact, the country-level effects uncovered in Study
1 (and also in previous research on the social motives perspective; Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012; Gebauer, Paulhus, et al.,
2013) may only appear to be driven by country-level sociocultural context, while in fact being spuriously caused by citylevel sociocultural context. Study 2, then, was conducted in
order to simultaneously examine the role of city-level and
country-level sociocultural context.
Method
Participants. Study 2 used data from 56,395 participants
(51% female; Mage = 37.85 years, SDage = 12.11) of the
larger eDarling dataset (Gebauer, Sedikides, & Neberich,
2012). As described in Study 1’s Method section, these data
did not overlap with Study 1 data. Specifically, Study 2 participants lived in one of the 30 largest cities within each of
the 11 eDarling countries. The dataset contains data from
296 (90%) of the 330 largest cities from the 11 eDarling
countries.
Procedure and Measures. Procedure and measures were
identical to those in Study 1. Internal consistencies of all
individual-level measures were good: agency (α = .77), communion (α = .86), interest in prosocial behavior (α = .72). As
in Study 1, we built our country-level as well as our citylevel interest in prosocial behavior indices by averaging the
corresponding individual-level responses for each country
and city, respectively. An external index of city-level interest
in prosocial behavior was not available. However, the number
of cities was sufficiently large to calculate the internal consistency of the seven-item interest in prosocial behavior
measure at the city level. Paralleling the individual-level
results, the internal consistency was also good at the city
level (α = .81).
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
459
Results
Discussion
Data-Analytic Strategy. The 56,395 participants were
nested in 296 cities, which were nested in 11 countries. Hence,
we used multilevel modeling with three levels (HLM 7.0;
Raudenbush et al., 2011). Again, we z-standardized all
individual-level variables prior to setting up the multilevel
model, yielding standardized effects at the individual level
(Cohen & Cohen, 1983). In the multilevel analyses, we centered individual-level predictors around their city means, citylevel predictors around their country means, and country-level
predictors around the grand mean. Apart from allowing unambiguous interpretation of cross-level interactions involving the
individual-level variables (Enders & Tofighi, 2007), centering
of city-level predictors around their country mean yields citylevel effects that are independent of country-level effects
(Raudenbush, 1989).
Study 2 replicated the results of Study 1. Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior strongly in countries in
which such interest was common and weakly in countries
in which it was uncommon (communal social assimilation).
In contrast, agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior
weakly in countries in which interest in such behavior was
common and strongly in countries in which it was uncommon
(agentic social contrast). These effects occurred independent
of the influence of city-level sociocultural context. The finding
that city-level and country-level sociocultural contexts are
both relevant for the social motives perspective is encouraging
and suggests that previous research on the social motives perspective (Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012; Gebauer, Paulhus, et al.,
2013) has underestimated the true influence of social motives
in explaining personality effects because it has focused solely
on country-level sociocultural context.
Multilevel Analyses. We regressed simultaneously interest in
prosocial behavior on the following predictors: individuallevel agency, individual-level communion, city-level interest in
prosocial behavior, country-level interest in prosocial behavior, individual-level agency × city-level interest in prosocial
behavior, individual-level communion × city-level interest in
prosocial behavior, individual-level agency × country-level
interest in prosocial behavior, individual-level communion ×
country-level interest in prosocial behavior. Again, we entered
the same individual-level controls as in Study 1: age, sex, and
highest education.
To begin with, we examined the main effects of agency
and communion on interest in prosocial behavior. As in
Study 1, communion, b = .30, SE = .004, t(56,382) = 75.21,
p < .001, was somewhat more strongly related to interest in
prosocial behavior than was agency, b = .22, SE = .004,
t(56,382) = 52.61, p < .001. Moreover, city-level interest in
prosocial behavior qualified both main effects. Communion
predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively
weakly in cities in which it was uncommon, and comparatively strongly in cities in which it was common, b = .09,
SE = .05, t(56,382) = 1.93, p = .05. Agency predicted
interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in cities
in which it was common, and comparatively strongly in
cities in which it was uncommon, b = –.14, SE = .05,
t(56,382) = –2.89, p = .004. Crucially, replicating Study 1
results, country-level interest in prosocial behavior additionally and independently qualified both main effects. Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively
weakly in countries where such interest was uncommon, and
comparatively strongly in countries where such interest
was common, b = .12, SE = .01, t(56,382) = 8.50, p < .001.
Agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively weakly in countries where such interest was common,
and comparatively strongly in countries where such interest
was uncommon, b = –.03, SE = .01, t(56,382) = –2.01,
p = .04.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The search for the prosocial personality has been prominent
in personality psychology throughout its history (Hartshorne
& May, 1928; Latané & Darley, 1970; Penner et al., 2005).
However, identifying personality traits that reliably predict
different prosocial behaviors has proven difficult (Penner et al.,
1995; Piliavin et al., 1981). One problem has been the inconsistency of research findings across distinct sociocultural contexts (Gergen et al., 1972), and this inconsistency can be
regarded as a validity threat to the very notion of prosocial
personality. However, sociocultural inconsistencies only pose a
validity threat if they are at odds with theoretical personality
predictions. Here, we endorsed these inconsistencies. In particular, we examined whether the social motives perspective
(Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012; Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013)
can account for inconsistent relationships between Big Two
personality and interest in prosocial behavior in a sample of
131,562 individuals across 11 countries (Study 1) and in a
sample of 56,395 individuals across 296 cities from 11 countries (Study 2).
The social motives perspective takes seriously the often
talked about, but empirically neglected, socio-motivational
qualities of the Big Two. Specifically, writers have theorized
that the motive to swim against the social tide (social contrast)
is a central quality of agency, whereas the motive to swim with
the social tide (social assimilation) is a central quality of communion (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; Bakan, 1966; Hogan,
1982; Wiggins, 1991). It follows that agency will be strongly
linked to a given outcome if that outcome is socially uncommon, whereas communion will be strongly linked to a given
outcome if that outcome is socially common.
These predictions of the social motives perspective are not
meant to supplant the classic expressiveness perspective. The
latter stipulates that a given personality trait is linked to an
outcome if that outcome allows the expression of that person-
460
ality trait. According to the expressiveness perspective, then,
communion, but not agency, should be linked to interest in
prosocial behavior because prosocial behavior allows the
expression of communion, but not of agency, and hence high
communion should universally direct people’s interest toward
prosocial behavior.
The validity of such expressiveness processes notwithstanding, the social motives perspective adds a more contextspecific element to the prosocial personality and posits that
communion will be strongly linked to interest in prosocial
behavior in sociocultural contexts where such interest is
common, whereas communion will be weakly linked to interest in prosocial behavior in sociocultural contexts where such
interest is uncommon (communal social assimilation). Conversely, the social motives perspective posits that agency will
be strongly linked to interest in prosocial behavior in sociocultural contexts where such interest is uncommon, whereas
agency will be weakly linked to interest in prosocial behavior
in sociocultural contexts where such interest is common
(agentic social contrast).
The reported studies provided support for these predictions,
and they did so while being a conservative test case of the
social motives perspective. Indeed, it is difficult to think of
a stronger affordance for expressing communion than the
diverse prosocial behaviors that we sampled. Nonetheless,
agentic social contrast and communal social assimilation were
strong enough to drive considerable sociocultural inconsistencies regarding the Big Two basis of prosociality (Figure 1).
Furthermore, Study 2 is the first to fortify the importance of
country-level sociocultural context against the alternative
explanation that city-level sociocultural context spuriously
caused apparent country-level effects in our prior research
(i.e., the present Study 1; Gebauer, Leary, et al., 2012;
Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013). At the same time, Study 2 also
suggests that agentic social contrast and communal social
assimilation simultaneously operate at the city level as well as
at the country level. One important avenue for future research
is to further examine the relative importance of different sociocultural contexts for the social motives perspective. Relevant
sociocultural contexts may in principle range from whole continents over countries, states, counties, cities, and neighborhoods to people’s most immediate social surrounding (e.g.,
in-groups, close others).
Another important question for future research concerns
the affective drivers of the two social motives. Already
McClelland (1985) has highlighted the centrality of affective
rewards for any motivation. But despite much theory on the
duality of human social motives (Bakan, 1966; Hogan, 1982;
Wiggins, 1991), their affective drivers remain elusive.
Recently, though, Wojciszke and colleagues (Abele &
Wojciszke, 2007; Wojciszke, Baryla, Parzuchowski, Szymkow,
& Abele, 2011) provided evidence for a unique link between
the social contrast/getting-ahead motive (Hogan, 1982) and
self-esteem. Self-esteem, then, may be the affective driver of
that motive, much in line with the affective metering function
Gebauer, Sedikides, Lüdtke, et al.
of self-esteem proposed by sociometer theory (Leary, 2006;
Leary & Baumeister, 2000). As to the social assimilation/
getting-along motive (Hogan, 1982), research suggests that
social traits associated with this motive are uniquely linked to
emotional stability (DeYoung, 2006; Digman, 1997). Thus, it
stands to reason that self-esteem and emotional stability
occupy such a broad and central role in human experience
because they constitute the affective drivers of getting ahead
and getting along, respectively (for debates on the universality
of self-esteem, see Norenzayan & Heine, 2005; Sedikides,
Gaertner, & Vevea, 2005).
Theoretically, the social motives perspective should be
helpful not only for explaining the relationships between the
Big Two and religiosity, partner preferences, and prosocial
interest. But where do the limits of this perspective lie? Communal social assimilation may, for example, not drive behavior
that semantically opposes communion, such as prejudice
against an out-group. But what if most people in one’s sociocultural context hold strong prejudices against this out-group?
Will communal people swim with the social tide and also
develop such prejudices? Along similar lines, agentic social
contrast may not influence behavior that is indispensable for
survival, such as satisfying one’s nutritional needs. That is, just
because almost all people who have the ability to satisfy their
nutritional needs do so, agentic people are not expected to
swim against the social tide and refrain from that behavior.
More generally, then, the evolutionary utility of swimming
against the social tide in a particular domain may decide
whether agentic social contrast will operate. This leads to an
important unanswered question of the present research. Specifically, why should it be evolutionarily advantageous for
agentic people to be interested in prosocial behavior if only a
few people are? One possible answer is that agentic social
contrast evolved in order to ensure that kin-group members
develop sufficiently broad skills in order for the group to
survive. Possessing prosocial group members, if prosociality is
rather scarce, may be of evolutionary value for the kin-group
(Hamilton, 1964).
Furthermore, countries differ in the extent to which their
inhabitants attend to sociocultural norms. Triandis (1989) has
argued that in-group norms are more salient for people from
collectivist cultures. Gelfand and her colleagues differentiated between tight and loose cultures (Gelfand, 2012;
Gelfand et al., 2011). The former hold strong social norms
and do not tolerate deviance, whereas the latter hold weak
social norms and accept deviance. Together, it is possible that
the importance of social motives processes may vary across
countries. Increased salience of cultural norms may generally
exacerbate the impact of social motives processes in collectivist and tight cultures. At the same time, tight cultures’
intolerance for deviance may reduce agentic social contrast
processes in these cultures. Future research should examine
the possibly complex interrelations between the social
motives perspective, culture-level collectivism, and culturelevel tightness.9
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
Additionally, future research should examine the applicability of the social motives perspective to other personality
factor models, such as the Big Five. As described in the introduction, the Big Two’s communion factor is rather closely
related to the Big Five’s Agreeableness factor (McCrae &
Costa, 1989; Trapnell & Wiggins, 1990). As such, it is likely
that our communal social assimilation results extend to Agreeableness as well. Such findings would provide valuable process
information for a growing body of evidence on the relationship
between Agreeableness and prosocial behavior (Bekkers,
2005; Caprara et al., 2012; Carlo et al., 2005; Elshaug &
Metzer, 2001; Erez et al., 2008; Graziano et al., 2007). Of
course, the role of the social motives perspective could also be
examined regarding other important Big Five effects on consequential life outcomes (Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006).
Also, future research should examine the applicability of the
social motives perspective not only to explain differences
between people, but also to explain differences within people
across time. That is, personality can vary considerably across
situations (Fleeson, 2001, 2004), and research is needed to
examine whether the social motives perspective is implicated
in effects of such “personality states” on their outcomes.
A limitation of the current research is its cross-sectional
nature, which prohibits causal conclusions. Yet, compared to
interest in prosocial behavior, Big Two personality is
cognitively more basic (Abele & Bruckmüller, 2011), broader
(Gebauer, Paulhus, et al., 2013), and more firmly genetically
based (Bouchard, 2004). In accordance with these notions,
longitudinal research has indicated that communion drives
interest in prosocial behavior (Caprara, Alessandri, Di Giunta,
Panerai, & Eisenberg, 2010). At the same time, a different
longitudinal investigation has provided evidence for the causal
assumptions underlying the social motives perspective
(Gebauer, Bleidorn, Gosling, Rentfrow, & Potter, 2013), and,
although this investigation concerned religiosity rather than
interest in prosocial behavior, we see no compelling reason
why the underlying mechanisms should vary between these
domains. In sum, there is convergent, albeit indirect, evidence
for the causal mechanisms that we assumed in the present
research. More conclusive evidence is the next empirical step.
CODA
Promoting interest in prosocial behavior may become an indispensable enterprise in the face of growing social inequality,
natural resource depletion, and climate change (Randers,
2012). These developments perhaps render the long-standing
search for the prosocial personality more relevant than ever
before. Our research has addressed a persisting puzzle in the
relevant literature: Inconsistencies in personality effects on
prosociality across sociocultural contexts have been understood as evidence against the prosocial personality. We have
replicated such sociocultural inconsistencies. In contrast to
previous perspectives, however, we predicted these inconsistencies on the basis of the social motives perspective, which
461
anticipates that Big Two effects vary across sociocultural
contexts along the lines of agentic social contrast and communal social assimilation. Two large-scale studies, defining
sociocultural context at the country level (Study 1) and at the
city level (Study 2), supported these predictions. A promising
way to increase prosocial behavior, then, is to offer socially
uncommon opportunities for prosociality to individuals high
in agency while offering socially common opportunities for
prosociality to individuals high in communion. That way,
agency and communion may work in tandem to contribute
optimally toward a rise in prosocial behavior.
Notes
1. Change in model fit constitutes the consensually endorsed method
to examine measurement invariance in large samples (Church et al.,
2011). We compared fit indices of two models. Our configural model
modeled the Big Two as two correlated latent variables, with 10
indicators each—that is, the 10 items of the two subscales. This model
did not possess any constraints across countries. The metric model
was identical to the configural model, with one crucial difference—
each factor loading of the 2 × 10 indicators was constrained to be
equal across all 11 countries (Horn & McArdle, 1992). Metric invariance is evidenced if the change in model fit from the configural to the
metric model is small, with some researchers defining small change
as ≤.050 (Little, 1997; Tucker & Lewis, 1973), ≤.022 (McGaw &
Jöreskog, 1971), or ≤.010 (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002). Because fit
indices for the configural model were CFI = .813, RMSEA = .026,
and SRMR = .086 and fit indices for the metric model were
CFI = .800, RMSEA = .026, and SRMR = .088, we received evidence
for metric invariance even when applying the most conservative cutoff criterion. Notably, whereas both models’ RMSEA and SRMR
indicated good fit, the CFI did not. This is not surprising, considering
the large number of indicators for each latent variable (Kenny &
McCoach, 2003). Indeed, when repeating our metric invariance test,
but modeling 2 × 4 item parcels rather than 2 × 10 items, the CFIs of
the configural model, CFI = .939, and the metric model, CFI = .930,
indicated good fit (and also revealed measurement invariance again).
2. Measurement invariance testing followed the procedure described
for the Big Two Personality Scale (see note 1). That is, in the
configural model, the prosociality latent variable was defined by
seven indicators (three error variances were correlated) and no crosscountry constraints were modeled. In contrast, the (otherwise identical) metric model constrained each indicator’s factor loading to be
equal across all 11 countries. Because fit indices for the configural
model were CFI = .880, RMSEA = .039, and SRMR = .059 and fit
indices for the metric model were CFI = .859, RMSEA = .035, and
SRMR = .064, we received evidence for metric invariance even when
applying rather conservative cut-off criteria (Cheung & Rensvold,
2002; McGaw & Jöreskog, 1971). The CFIs were again predictably
low due to the comparatively large number of indicators (Kenny &
McCoach, 2003), as analog analyses with four-item parcels illustrated: CFIconfigural = .962, CFImetric = .943.
3. We conducted a pilot study to verify the selection of these seven
items. Seventy-three participants rated all 40 items on “prosocial
462
outcomes for other living entities (humans, animals, nature).” They
judged 10 items as prosocial (M > 4.00; 0 = not at all, 6 = very much),
seven of which were the ones we had initially identified. The additional three items were “friends,” “family,” and “science.” Analyses
indicated that participants judged the seven initially identified items
as higher in prosociality than the three additional ones, t(72) = 2.67,
p = .009. Hence, we did not include these three items in our measure.
Conceptual considerations back this decision. Strong ties with close
others (i.e., friends and family) are universally sought and more
appropriately thought of as an expression of an evolutionarily rooted
psychological need that is relatively unresponsive to social influence
(Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Nevertheless, analyses that included all
10 items yielded similar results to the reported ones.
4. We examined whether our seven-item Interest in Prosocial Behavior Scale possessed scalar invariance in addition to metric invariance
(see note 2). Scalar invariance helps to assert that differences in a
scale’s mean across countries are not merely the result of crosscultural differences in the validity of this scale (Horn & McArdle,
1992). Thus, evidence for scalar invariance would further buttress the
validity of our country-level interest in prosocial behavior index.
Scalar invariance is evidenced by small fit differences between the
metric model (see note 2) and the scalar model—a model in which the
variances of the seven indicators are additionally constrained to be
equal across the 11 countries. Evidence for scalar invariance was
mixed (ΔCFI = .285, ΔRMSEA = .017, ΔSRMR = .003). Hence, we
sought an additional and external country-level indicator (consecutively described in the text).
5. Centering predictor variables in multilevel models is a muchdebated issue (Enders & Tofighi, 2007; Kreft, de Leeuw, & Aiken,
1995). However, a consensus appears to emerge when the substantive
research question concerns cross-level interactions. For these models,
group-mean centering of lower-level predictors is recommended
(Aguinis, Gottfredson, & Culpepper, 2013; Raudenbush & Bryk,
2002) because it allows the most unambiguous interpretation of crosslevel interactions. Some authors argue that the group means of lowerlevel predictors should also be entered as covariates at the higher level
(de Leeuw & Meijer, 2008; Kreft et al., 1995). The additional inclusion of group means is most relevant when researchers are interested
in assessing contextual effects (Lüdtke et al., 2008). However, in the
present study, our research question concerns cross-level interactions
(see also Aguinis et al., 2013). Nonetheless, we examined whether
our results change when we include additionally the lower-level predictor means as covariates at the higher level (both on the intercepts
and on the relevant slopes). Despite such inclusion, our results
remained conceptually identical (i.e., all reported cross-level interactions remained statistically significant), and this was true for both
studies.
6. The main effects and cross-level interactions were tested using
random-intercept models. Although random-slope models are often
used in order to test cross-level interactions, in our case the small
number of Level 2 units (only 11 countries) did not allow for a reliable
estimation of the slope variance. In fact, when random slopes were
specified for agency and communion, the multilevel models did not
converge. However, as noted by Snijders and Bosker (2011), a statistically significant random-slope variance is not a necessary precon-
Gebauer, Sedikides, Lüdtke, et al.
dition for testing cross-level interactions: “There is nothing wrong
with looking for a specific cross-level interaction even if no significant random-slope variance was found” (p. 82).
7. The high internal consistency of our seven-item interest in
prosocial behavior measure supports our decision to combine the
seven specific instantiations of prosociality into a single score.
However, despite the cost of increasing measurement error, we
complemented our main analyses by single-item analyses. Specifically, we tested seven additional hierarchical models strictly following
the description in the text. However, in each model, another singleitem instantiation of prosocial behavior from our seven-item scale
served as the criterion. Correspondingly, each single item’s countrylevel means served as our country-level index. With one exception,
the results paralleled the results involving the more reliable sevenitem interest in prosocial behavior measure. We obtained the
following results for communal social assimilation (csa) and agentic
social contrast (asc): animal rights (csa: b = .07, SE = .005,
t(131,544) = 13.51, p < .001; asc: b = –.03, SE = .005, t(131,544) =
–5.13, p < .001), teaching/supporting other people’s development
(csa: b = .10, SE = .005, t(131,544) = 19.03, p < .001; asc: b = –.009,
SE = .005, t(131,544) = –1.54, p = .12), talking to friends (csa:
b = .11, SE = .01, t(131,544) = 9.12, p < .001; asc: b = –.16, SE = .01,
t(131,544) = –12.71, p < .001), protecting the environment (csa:
b = .09, SE = .004, t(131,544) = 25.14, p < .001; asc: b = –.03,
SE = .004, t(131,544) = –8.32, p < .001), conversation with others
(csa: b = .12, SE = .007, t(131,544) = 18.83, p < .001; asc: b = –.15,
SE = .007, t(131,544) = –21.38, p < .001), volunteering (csa: b = .09,
SE = .004, t(131,544) = 20.47, p < .001; asc: b = .01, SE = .004,
t(131,544) = 2.58, p = .01), and hosting get-togethers/entertaining
(csa: b = .03, SE = .007, t(131,544) = 5.32, p < .001; asc: b = –.09,
SE = .007, t(131,544) = –13.78, p < .001). The one inconsistency was
that the asc effect for volunteering went in the opposite direction. This
may well be due to unreliability of the single-item measure. Of interest, when we used Huppert and colleagues’ (2009) representative
country-level volunteering index (see Method section), the singleitem volunteering results better fit our hypotheses (csa: b = .01,
SE = .002, t(106,130) = 6.79, p < .001; asc: b = –.003, SE = .002,
t(106,130) = –1.71, p = .09).
8. Do personality factors interact in predicting their outcomes? This
important question has recently received increasing attention from
personality psychologists (Jensen-Campbell & Graziano, 2005; Ode
& Robinson, 2009; Ode, Robinson, & Wilkowski, 2008). Although
this question is independent of our research goals, our data afforded
testing it. Hence, we once more conducted the multilevel analyses
described in the text, but entered the agency (z-standardized) × communion (z-standardized) interaction as an additional predictor. First,
we inspected whether our main results remain conceptually identical,
despite adding this interaction term. Further increasing the confidence
in our main results, our results indeed remained conceptually
unchanged. Second, we inspected the results of the agency × communion interaction and found it to be positive and significant, b = .02,
SE = .002, t(131,543) = 13.20, p < .001. Thus, the simultaneous
occurrence of high agency and high communion predicted higher
interest in prosocial behavior over and above the independent main
effects of high agency and high communion. For communal people,
Agency-Communion and Prosociality
high agency may well be a tool enabling them to act prosocially. From
this standpoint, the uncovered interaction makes intuitive sense.
9. We thank Arie Kruglanski for suggesting the integration with
culture-level tightness versus looseness.
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