Is it all about the money? A re-analysis of the link between Honesty-Humility and Dictator Game giving

From the perspective of basic personality models, the HEXACO Honesty-Humility factor has yielded most consistent evidence in accounting for inter-individual variation in prosocial behavior in game-theoretic paradigms. However, both the Honesty-Humility scale and game-theoretic paradigms involve a strong reference to money; thus, the observed link might reflect a concern for money rather than sharing “true” variance in the underlying trait and prosocial motives. In a large-scale re-analysis across eight studies (N = 1917), we therefore tested whether the relation between Honesty-Humility and Dictator Game giving is affected by the specific (money-related versus money-unrelated) Honesty-Humility indicators. Results revealed strikingly similar effect sizes across scales, suggesting that the link of Honesty-Humility to prosocial behavior can be attributed to the underlying trait itself.