Neuroticism predisposes to donation more than agrecableness: An fMRI study

Abstract

Using functional MRI (fMRI) in Study 1, we examined the effect of 2 personality dimensions related to altruism, such as Agreeableness and Neuroticism, on the neural response to videos, including images of situations from developing countries and audio recordings of sentences employed by Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) to request help. For all the participants, the brain response across the whole brain was not significantly different in the donor and control videos. Multiple regression analyses revealed that while Agreeableness was related to the activation of mentalizing brain areas (i.e., the precuneus), Neuroticism was related more to the activation of the brain areas related to reward and donation. Study 2 was a psychometric study and confirmed that Neuroticism showed a greater association with donation behavior and sponsoring children from developing countries than Agreeableness. Our results may serve to gain a better understanding of the relationship between personality traits and altruistic behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)