The Pollyanna Myth How Highly Agreeable People Judge Positive and Negative Relational Acts

Although people high in agreeableness have often been shown to be positively biased toward others, four studies provide evidence that agreeableness is associated with extremity effects, not simple positivity effects, in social judgment. Across studies, agreeable participants judged prosocial behavio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPersonality & social psychology bulletin Vol. 37; no. 9; pp. 1172 - 1184
Main Authors Kammrath, Lara K., Scholer, Abigail A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.09.2011
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Adolescent
Agreeableness
Altruism
Antisocial behaviour
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial Personality Disorder - psychology
Bias
Character
Conflict (Psychology)
Cooperative Behavior
Female
Humans
Impressions
Judgment
Laboratories
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Personality Inventory
Positive affect
Prosocial behaviour
Sex Factors
Social Perception
Social psychology
Social Values
Young Adult
negativity effects
social judgment
person perception
relational transgressions
agreeableness
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Summary:Although people high in agreeableness have often been shown to be positively biased toward others, four studies provide evidence that agreeableness is associated with extremity effects, not simple positivity effects, in social judgment. Across studies, agreeable participants judged prosocial behaviors more favorably, but antisocial behaviors more unfavorably, than did disagreeable participants. In support of a goal-congruence mechanism, Study 1 showed that communal goals, rather than perceived similarity, mediated the effects, and Studies 2-4 demonstrated that agreeable perceivers were particularly sensitive to communal (vs. agentic) violations. A longitudinal study of real-life impressions supported the laboratory evidence that agreeable people are highly sensitive to both the prosocial and antisocial behavior of others (Study 4). We discuss how the current account complements and extends existing theories of agreeableness.
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ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167211407641