Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemMoral, yet more than agreeable: The enlightened tendencies of open people( 2021)Openness/Intellect is a basic personality trait describing the tendency to be curious and imaginative. Although these cognitive exploration tendencies are not inherently other-regarding, and open people are not disposed toward prosociality in general, Openness/Intellect has at least some important but underappreciated prosocial correlates (e.g., Parks-Leduc, Feldman, & Bardi, 2014; Sibley & Duckitt, 2008; Soutter, Bates, & Mottus, 2020), suggesting the potential moral significance of this trait may have been overlooked. In this thesis, I aimed to clarify whether and in what ways Openness/Intellect is a morally significant personality trait through assessing its associations with specific forms of prosociality that are likely to benefit from cognitive exploration proclivities. In Stream One, I explored (Study 1; N = 119) then sought to confirm (Studies 2-4; combined N = 987) an ostensible association between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behaviour, a major subtype of prosociality that involves coordinating with others toward mutual goals. Cooperativeness was operationalised using the Public Goods Game, a behavioural paradigm that strips cooperation to its elementary components. Despite finding a sizeable correlation in my exploratory study, Openness/Intellect shared only a very modest (though nonnull) correlation with cooperative behaviour across my confirmatory studies, suggesting open people are not meaningfully disposed toward cooperativeness in its most elementary form. After introducing the concept of moral exceptionality, in Stream Two (Studies 1-3; combined N = 3,003) I turned to the question of whether Openness/Intellect—in combination with the more explicitly prosocial trait Agreeableness—can account for individual differences in the tendency to show regard for others in ways that are flexible and inclusive (vs. rigid or parochial). Results revealed that such morally exceptional expressions of prosociality can be summarised and measured as a trait—enlightened compassion—that correlates strongly with Openness (an aspect of Openness/Intellect) as well as Compassion (an aspect of Agreeableness), thereby constituting an interstitial facet of the Openness/Intellect and Agreeableness domains. Together, the results from Streams One and Two suggest that although Openness/Intellect is not robustly associated with more elementary expressions of prosocial behaviour, open people are likely to think, feel, and desire in more prosocial ways under circumstances that involve transcending the boundaries of parochialism. To the extent that this enlightened compassionate orientation translates into actual behaviour, open people can be said to exhibit a kind of moral exceptionality.