Assessing three altruism facets by economic games and self-report: a multitrait-multimethod investigation

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Abstract
Reliable and valid measurement of the various components of prosociality calls for tools that capture its diverse behavioral expressions. Here, we evaluate how economic game measures derived from the Dictator Game, Public Goods Game, and Ultimatum Game as well as a novel Third-Party Intervention Paradigm correspond with their self-reported counterparts within a design informed by a multitrait–multimethod approach. The self-report scales described Help Giving, Peer Punishment, and Moral Courage as behavioral traits in real life. Each game decision was regressed on all three of these scales using data from 22 studies. Convergent validity emerged, with the strongest associations for help giving and the weakest for peer punishment. Discriminant validity was evidenced by the lack of significant cross-correlations, with one minor exception regarding the Peer Punishment scale and the Dictator Game. Overall, the findings support the distinctiveness of the facets, particularly for help giving and moral courage, while highlighting challenges in capturing punishment-related altruism. While several procedures for improving correspondence are discussed, the descriptively higher correlations within methods than across traits suggest a persistent gap in criterion validation.
Funding Information
  • Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main

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