Altruistic behavior is a prosocial behavior in which individuals benefit others without expected return (Tinghög et al., 2016). Researchers have mainly used the dictator game to explore altruistic behavior (Achtziger et al., 2015). According to the rational person hypothesis, individuals prioritize decisions that are in their own interest, and altruistic behavior occurs only after they have suppressed self-interest motives through cognitive control (Martinsson et al., 2012; Yamagishi et al., 2017). Thus, as individuals may take some time to suppress self-interested motives before altruistic decision making, decision time is necessary for them to conduct altruistic behavior. Some studies have shown that the adequacy of decision time can have an impact on decision making (Hafenbrack et al., 2020; Reed et al., 2016). Liu et al. (2019) found that in a dictator game when individuals make decisions under time pressure conditions, the decision outcome is affected, for example, third parties are more inclined to punish dictators when third parties are in time-pressure conditions.

There have been inconsistent results on the effects of time pressure on altruistic behavior. Some previous researchers have suggested that as time pressure causes individuals to be unable to make a trade-off between self-interest and altruism in a short time, they prefer to prioritize their own interests, which leads to less altruistic behavior (Krajbich et al., 2015; Verkoeijen & Bouwmeester, 2014). In contrast, others have shown that as time pressure triggers individuals’ altruistic intuition, this increases their altruistic behavior (Evans et al., 2015; Rand et al., 2012). However, these researchers did not take into account the influence of individual altruistic traits on time pressure affecting altruistic behavior. Personality traits refer to the tendency of individuals to maintain relatively consistent behavioral styles (Goldberg, 1993). For example, Ruci et al. (2018) found that altruistic behavior is influenced by both individual personality traits and situational factors. Individuals show different altruistic tendencies if they have altruistic traits in their personality structure (e.g., agreeableness and social value orientation). Thus, we examined if altruistic traits can also predict individual altruistic behavior under time pressure.

Most studies have pointed to a positive correlation between agreeableness and altruistic behavior, whereby individuals with greater (vs. less) agreeableness value the quality of relationships (Bamford & Davidson, 2019), and consequently conduct more altruistic behavior (Baumert et al., 2014; Becker et al., 2012). However, Ben-Ner and Kramer (2011) and Visser and Roelofs (2011) found that agreeableness was not related to altruistic behavior, or even that the relationship was negative, that is, individuals’ valuing of relationships did not necessarily increase altruistic behavior. In addition, studies have shown that agreeableness does not directly predict altruistic behavior, but, rather, is a moderating variable. For example, Caprara et al. (2012) showed that agreeableness indirectly influenced altruistic behavior only by affecting empathy. Yang and Tu (2021) found that empathy played a moderating role in the interpersonal relationships–agreeableness link among college students. We hypothesized that these mixed findings have been obtained because researchers have not considered whether individuals were in a time-pressured situation to make altruistic decisions. An examination of the agreeableness–altruistic behavior relationship under time pressure may be a better indicator as individuals are more likely to react intuitively, that is, consistent with their personality tendencies. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1: There will be a predictive effect of agreeableness on altruistic behavior, and agreeableness will be positively related to altruistic behavior under time pressure.

Researchers have also examined the relationship between social value orientation and altruistic behavior. Social value orientation refers to individuals’ preferences for the allocation of benefits to themselves and others, reflecting individual differences in the extent to which decision makers pay attention to the interests of others in social decision-making situations. Social value orientation, which is a relatively stable personality tendency (Van Lange, 1999), is considered a personality trait that can be used to assess individual altruistic behavior (Messick & McClintock, 1968), and has been stable in influencing individuals across cultures (Moon et al., 2018). Individuals with different social value orientations have shown differences in altruistic behavior. Prosocial individuals tend to maximize the outcome of social situations in a mutually beneficial direction, but they are more concerned with self-interest than with mutual benefit (Moche et al., 2020). Previous researchers have shown that social value orientation predicts individuals’ tendency to behave altruistically: Mill and Theelen (2019) used a multiround prisoner’s dilemma game paradigm to investigate how prosocial individuals maintain strong cooperation even over time, and Yamagishi et al. (2017) used an ultimatum game to show that, even in the face of an unfair allocation scheme, prosocial (vs. proself) individuals maintain significantly more altruistic behavior in the deliberation processing context.

Proself individuals also increase their cooperation over time depending on the payoff (Mill & Theelen, 2019). Yamagishi et al. (2017) found that when the ultimatum game paradigm is used, prosocial (vs. proself) individuals have significantly more altruistic behavior in both intuitive and deliberation processing contexts, and the differences between the processing context results are not significant. This evidence suggests that prosocial- and proself-oriented individuals show stable altruistic decision-making performance under different decision time conditions. However, Mischkowski and Glöckner (2016) noted that proself individuals significantly reduce their altruistic behavior under time pressure, whereas prosocial individuals show nonsignificant changes in altruistic behavior. The altruistic behavior of individuals with different social value orientations differs under time pressure; thus, the altruistic behavior of prosocial (vs. proself) individuals is relatively greater. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Social value orientation will have a predictive effect on altruistic behavior, and social value orientation will be positively related to altruistic behavior under time pressure.

In summary, there are inconsistencies in the findings of previous researchers who have examined the relationship between altruistic traits (agreeableness or social value orientation) and altruistic behavior, few of whom have examined how altruistic traits affect altruistic behavior under time pressure. There are three possible reasons for previous inconsistent findings: First, as parameter settings regarding time pressure differ considerably (e.g., ranging from 7 to 30 seconds; Capraro & Cococcioni, 2015; Rand et al., 2012; Tinghög et al., 2016), this can lead to validity problems for different time pressures. Second, previous researchers (e.g., Rand & Nowak, 2013; Rand et al., 2014) did not control for whether their participants had previously undertaken similar altruistic behavioral experimental tasks (e.g., dictator game) or whether individual familiarity with the task affected the results. Third, although altruistic behavior is likely to differ in the face of different allocation stakes (Andersen et al., 2018), few researchers have examined the effect of allocation stakes on altruistic behavior under time pressure. Therefore, we explored the relationship between the altruistic traits of agreeableness and social value orientation, and altruistic behavior under time pressure.

Method

Participants

We recruited 120 students from Tongji University, China (50 men, 70 women; M_age = 21.13 years, SD = 2.49), who took part in this research voluntarily. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tongji University.

Measures

Personality Traits
We measured the personality traits with the 60-item Big Five Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1990), which comprises five subscales: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Sample items are “Sometimes I feel angry and resentful,” “I enjoy chatting with others,” “I enjoy developing new hobbies,” “I try to be polite and very polite to everyone I meet,” and “I always keep my belongings neat and tidy,” respectively. Participants assess the items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never or never agree) to 5 (almost always or always agree). In this study the Cronbach’s alpha for the total inventory was .83, and those for the subscales ranged from .78 to .86.

Social Value Orientation
We measured social value orientation with Murphy et al.’s (2011) six-item scale. Each item contains nine subtopics, all with the same general form, in which allocation choices are made for a given amount of money (e.g., CNY 150). For example, if a decision maker chooses a specific value X between 50 and 100, the decision maker’s interest is X and the other’s interest is 150 − X. The higher the value chosen, the more the decision maker cares about others’ interest, indicating greater altruism.

Design

This study had a one-factor within-subjects design, where the independent variable was allocation stakes (CNY 10 vs. CNY 100; USD 1.50 vs. USD 15.00) and the dependent variable was the money received by the responders.

Procedure

Before beginning the main study we recruited 42 participants (M = 25.43 years, SD = 3.56) to complete a multiround dictator game without time constraint. The mean (3875.16 ms) and standard deviation (1941.65 ms) of reaction time were computed. The time pressure condition was then set at 1,900 ms (M − SD; Gao et al., 2020).

Participants completed the dictator game on a computer in the laboratory. They completed the experimental tasks in order, with one participant completing the task at a time. The main experiment was divided into three parts: First, participants completed the Big Five Personality Inventory and the Social Value Orientation Scale. Second, participants played the dictator game. They were first told, “You will be partnered with a stranger to complete a task, and you and the stranger do not know each other’s identity. Next, you will play multiple rounds to distribute money to your partner. You play the role of the proposer, the stranger plays the role of the responder, and you have the power to choose how to allocate the money. No matter what your allocation plan is, the other person will have to accept your plan unconditionally.” Then, CNY 10 and CNY 100 allocation options were randomly presented. For CNY 10 there were 11 allocation options, each with four trials: 10/0, 9/1, 8/2, 7/3, 6/4, 5/5, 4/6, 3/7, 2/8, 1/9, and 0/10. The allocation 10/0 meant CNY 10 was given to participants and CNY 0 to the responder. For CNY 100 there were 11 allocation options, each with four trial (88 trails in total), 100/0, 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, 40/60, 30/70, 20/80, 10/90, 0/100. According to the time pressure parameters determined in the prestudy, participants responded to each decision by pressing the “F” (accept) or “J” (reject) key on the keyboard within 1,900 ms. If they did not respond within the allocated time, their data were excluded (Rand et al., 2012). At the end of the game, participants answered two questions: (a) if their role was that of a proposer or a responder, and (b) if they had previously participated in such a money allocation task. Participants wrote their answers on the answer sheet on the computer screen. We aimed to screen out those who were not serious about the experiment and those who had had similar experimental experience.

Third, to increase the ecological validity of the study, participants completed, on their answer sheets, an altruistic behavior survey comprising the amount of their monetary donations to charities, the number of blood donations they had made, the number of volunteer activities in which they participated, and the number of times they had given up their seats to strangers in public during the past year (see Figure 1). These actions were selected as indicators of real-life altruistic behavior to examine if participants’ altruistic tendencies were consistent with their altruistic behavior performance under time pressure.

Results

Comparison of Altruistic Behavior According to Allocation Option

Responses were invalid for three participants (one did not complete the test, two had previously had the same experimental experience) and valid for the remaining 117 participants. We examined the effect of the allocation stake on altruistic behavior under time pressure, taking into account that the money received by the responders in the CNY 10 and CNY 100 allocation options cannot be directly compared. Therefore, we defined R = responders’ money/participants’ money. As a larger R value indicates participants’ greater altruism, the differences in their altruistic behavior could be compared in the CNY 10 and CNY 100 allocations (see Table 1 and Figure 2). A paired-samples t test of R values in the allocation options showed no significant difference between R₁₀ and R₁₀₀, t(116) = 0.06, ns, no significant difference between R₁₀ and R_total, t(116) = 0.90, ns, and no significant difference between R₁₀₀ and R_total, t(116) = –0.45, ns. As there was no significant difference between R₁₀, R₁₀₀, and R_total, R_total could be chosen for correlation analysis with regression analysis.

Correlation Analysis

The correlation analysis results show that agreeableness was significantly and negatively correlated with R_total (r = –.19, p < .05), social value orientation was significantly and positively correlated with R_total (r = .32, p < .01), and neither agreeableness nor social value orientation were significantly correlated with the altruistic behavior of monetary donations, blood donations, participation in volunteer activities, or giving up one’s seat (see Table 2).

Regression Analysis

To test if agreeableness and social value orientation can predict altruistic behavior, we conducted a regression analysis on altruistic behavior of R_total, monetary donations, blood donations, volunteer activities, and giving up one’s seat, with agreeableness and social value orientation as predictor variables. The results show that agreeableness and social value orientation significantly predicted R_total. Social value orientation was a positive predictor of R_total, β = .52, p < .001, and agreeableness was a negative predictor of R_total, β = –.32, p < .05. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was supported. For altruistic behavior, agreeableness did not predict monetary donations (β = –.07, p > .05; β = .05, p > .05), blood donations (β = 01, p > .05; β = .18, p > .05), volunteer activities (β = –.01, p > .05; β = –.16, p > .05), or giving up one’s seat (β = .07, p > .05; β = .01, p > .05). Thus, as the results show that agreeableness negatively predicted altruistic behavior, Hypothesis 1 was not supported.

Discussion

We found that both agreeableness and social value orientation predicted individuals’ altruistic behavior under time pressure in the laboratory, but did not predict their real-life altruistic behavior (monetary donations, blood donations, volunteer activities, and giving up one’s seat). Specifically, agreeableness and social value orientation had opposite effects on the prediction of altruistic behavior: Agreeableness significantly and negatively predicted altruistic behavior, which is consistent with previous findings (Ashton et al., 2014; Ben-Ner & Kramer, 2011), and social value orientation significantly and positively predicted altruistic behavior, which is also consistent with previous findings (Mischkowski & Glöckner, 2016; Moon et al., 2018; Yamagishi et al., 2017).

We have two explanations for why agreeableness was not positively related to altruistic behavior under time pressure: First, lower agreeableness possibly indicates maverick behavior, which facilitates more independent altruistic decision making without being influenced by others, and does not require good interpersonal relationships but still shows altruistic traits (e.g., social value orientation may be prosocial). Thus, this individual can act with intuitive altruism under time pressure, whereas those with higher agreeableness give others the impression that they are kind and trustworthy, and pursue interpersonal harmony. However, when their own interests are involved, especially under time pressure, they protect them from loss (e.g., social value orientation is proself), which leads to less altruistic behavior. Previous studies have indicated that individuals with high (vs. low) agreeableness are more focused on maintaining interpersonal relationships, and that altruistic behavior is helpful in promoting interpersonal harmony; therefore, agreeableness is positively associated with altruistic behavior (Bamford & Davidson, 2019).

Second, previous researchers have not examined the agreeableness–altruistic behavior relationship under time pressure (Baumert et al., 2014; Becker et al., 2012). Our findings suggest that the mechanisms by which agreeableness affects altruistic behavior differ between conditions with and without time pressure. Without time pressure, individuals can trade off the advantages and disadvantages of altruistic behavior through thoughtful processing. For example, when individuals conduct altruistic behavior, although they lose some individual benefits, they gain a good reputation and indirectly obtain more benefits. As individuals with higher (vs. low) agreeableness are more interested in maintaining relationships, they conduct more altruistic behavior without time pressure. Under time pressure, individuals use intuitive processing and react quickly, without sufficient time to trade off the advantages and disadvantages of altruistic behavior. Thus, even individuals with high agreeableness will prioritize not compromising their own interests in the face of an intuitive processing situation, and will not conduct altruistic behavior.

The result that social value orientation can positively predict altruistic behavior similarly suggests that the rational person hypothesis may not be totally correct. According to this hypothesis, individuals prioritize decisions that are in their own interest, and altruistic behavior occurs only after they have suppressed self-interest motives through cognitive control (Martinsson et al., 2012; Yamagishi et al., 2017), whereas individuals under time pressure are less likely to make altruistic decisions owing to reduced completion of information integration. Thus, to avoid damage to their own interests, individuals are more likely to make direct self-interested decisions under time pressure to avoid the loss of their own interests (Alós-Ferrer & Garagnani, 2020; Mrkva, 2017). However, our results suggest that social value orientations remain positive predictors of altruistic behavior even under conditions of time pressure. For example, Mischkowski and Glöckner’s (2016) results show that in the rational person hypothesis, differences in the performance of altruistic behavior across individuals with different social value orientations are assumed, with proself (vs. prosocial) individuals significantly reducing altruistic behavior under time pressure. Our results confirm that not all individuals show egoistic tendencies under time pressure, and the rational person hypothesis may be more consistent with proself individuals who prioritize their own interests during intuitive processing.

Finally, neither agreeableness nor social value orientation was significantly associated with the altruistic behavior of charitable donations, blood donations, volunteer activities, or giving up one’s seat on public transport. First, altruistic behavior under time pressure and real-life altruistic behavior mechanisms may be different: Donating to a charity, making blood donations, volunteering, and giving up one’s seat are real-life altruistic behavior, and choosing a monetary distribution plan in this study was an altruistic behavior conducted in a laboratory setting. The mechanisms of generating altruistic behavior in a real-life setting may be more complex, and occur after a combination of multiple influencing factors. Second, regarding the connotations of altruistic behavior, only monetary distribution and charitable donations directly involve the concept of money. The difference between them is that a charitable donation represents the donor’s loss of real money, whereas monetary distribution reflects only participants’ propensity to lose money. Making blood donations, volunteering, and giving up one’s seat are more about individuals’ loss of time or energy resources, suggesting that each type of resource consumption may influence altruistic behavior differently. Third, we focused on the relationship between the altruistic traits of agreeableness and social value orientation, and altruistic behavior under time pressure. However, altruistic behavior of making monetary and blood donations, participating in volunteer activities, and giving up one’s seat may not be altruistic decisions made under time pressure. This suggests that the amount of time an individual has to make a decision is an important factor influencing altruistic behavior.

We further verified previous findings that agreeableness and social value orientation can predict altruistic behavior, and also that there are differences in their predictive effects. In addition, our finding that agreeableness and social value orientation did not predict altruistic behavior in real life illustrates the complex influences on individuals’ altruistic behavior, and provides insight for future researchers to enhance the ecological validity of the measurement of altruistic behavior.

There are several limitations in this study. First, as the participants were students, this may have led to a low level of monetary donations because of their low disposable income. There may be large individual differences in their real-life altruistic behavior test indicators for blood donations, volunteer activities, and giving up their seat. For example, giving up one’s seat is closely related to the individual living environment, and the difference in the frequency of participants taking public transportation may have caused bias in the altruistic trait results. Future researchers could choose more universal altruistic behavior indicators. Second, we conducted the classic dictator game in a laboratory setting for the experimental task. This may lead to low immersion of the participants and reduce the study’s ecological validity. Future researchers could use experimental tasks with greater ecological validity to measure altruistic behavior under time pressure. Finally, both agreeableness and social value orientation were measured by individual self-assessment. Future studies could use a more objective third-party measurement and verify the effects of agreeableness and social value orientation on altruistic behavior by designing electrophysiological and cognitive neurological experiments and combining them with behavioral experimental data.

Achtziger, A., Alós-Ferrer, C., & Wagner, A. K. (2015). Money, depletion, and prosociality in the dictator game. Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 8(1), 1–14.
https://doi.org/10.1037/npe0000031

Alós-Ferrer, C., & Garagnani, M. (2020). The cognitive foundations of cooperation. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 175, 71–85.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.04.019

Andersen, S., Gneezy, U., Kajackaite, A., & Marx, J. (2018). Allowing for reflection time does not change behavior in dictator and cheating games. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 145, 24–33.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2017.10.012

Ashton, M. C., Lee, K., & de Vries, R. E. (2014). The HEXACO honesty-humility, agreeableness, and emotionality factors: A review of research and theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), 139–152.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314523838

Bamford, J. M. S., & Davidson, J. W. (2019). Trait empathy associated with agreeableness and rhythmic entrainment in a spontaneous movement to music task: Preliminary exploratory investigations. Musicae Scientiae, 23(1), 5–24.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864917701536

Baumert, A., Schlösser, T., & Schmitt, M. (2014). Economic games: A performance-based assessment of fairness and altruism. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30(3), 178–192.
https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000183

Becker, A., Deckers, T., Dohmen, T., Falk, A., & Kosse, F. (2012). The relationship between economic preferences and psychological personality measures. Annual Review of Economics, 4, 453–478.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-080511-110922

Ben-Ner, A., & Kramer, A. (2011). Personality and altruism in the dictator game: Relationship to giving to kin, collaborators, competitors, and neutrals. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(3), 216–221.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.04.024

Caprara, G. V., Alessandri, G., & Eisenberg, N. (2012). Prosociality: The contribution of traits, values, and self-efficacy beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1289–1303.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025626

Capraro, V., & Cococcioni, G. (2015). Social setting, intuition and experience in laboratory experiments interact to shape cooperative decision-making. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282(1811), Article e20150237.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.0237

Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1990). Personality disorders and the five-factor model of personality. Journal of Personality Disorders, 4(4), 362–371.
https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.1990.4.4.362

Evans, A. M., Dillon, K. D., & Rand, D. G. (2015). Fast but not intuitive, slow but not reflective: Decision conflict drives reaction times in social dilemmas. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(5), 951–966.
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000107

Gao, Q., Jia, X., Liu, H., Wang, X., & Liu, Y. (2020). Attachment style predicts cooperation in intuitive but not deliberative response in one-shot public goods game. International Journal of Psychology, 55(3), 478–486.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12584

Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48(1), 26–34.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.48.1.26

Hafenbrack, A. C., Cameron, L. D., Spreitzer, G. M., Zhang, C., Noval, L. J., & Shaffakat, S. (2020). Helping people by being in the present: Mindfulness increases prosocial behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 159, 21–38.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2019.08.005

Krajbich, L., Bartling, B., Hare, T., & Fehr, E. (2015). Rethinking fast and slow based on a critique of reaction-time reverse inference. Nature Communications, 6, Article e7455.
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8455

Liu, Y., Wang, H., Li, L., Wang, Y., Peng, J., & Baxter, D. F. (2019). Judgments in a hurry: Time pressure affects how judges assess unfairly shared losses and unfairly shared gains. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 60(3), 203–212.
https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12532

Martinsson, P., Myrseth, K. O. R., & Wollbrant, C. (2012). Reconciling pro-social vs. selfish behavior: On the role of self-control. Judgment and Decision Making, 7(3), 304–315. https://bit.ly/3jY0UMu

Messick, D. M., & McClintock, C. G. (1968). Motivational bases of choice in experimental games. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 4(1), 1–25.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(68)90046-2

Mill, W., & Theelen, M. M. P. (2019). Social value orientation and group size uncertainty in public good dilemmas. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 81, 19–38.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2019.05.001

Mischkowski, D., & Glöckner, A. (2016). Spontaneous cooperation for prosocials, but not for proselfs: Social value orientation moderates spontaneous cooperation behavior. Scientific Report, 6, Article e21555.
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep21555

Moche, H., Erlandsson, A., Andersson, D., & Västfjäll, D. (2020). Opportunity cost in monetary donation decisions to non-identified and identified victims. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article e3035.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03035

Moon, C., Travaglino, G. A., & Uskul, A. K. (2018). Social value orientation and endorsement of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism: An exploratory study comparing individuals from North America and South Korea. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article e2262.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02262

Mrkva, K. (2017). Giving, fast and slow: Reflection increases costly (but not uncostly) donations. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 30(5), 1052–1065.
https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2023

Murphy, R. O., Ackermann, K. A., & Handgraaf, M. J. J. (2011). Measuring social value orientation. Judgment and Decision Making, 6(8), 771–781.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1804189

Rand, D. G., Greene, J. D., & Nowak, M. A. (2012). Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature, 489(7416), 427–430.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11467

Rand, D. G., & Nowak, M. A. (2013). Human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Science, 17(8), 413–425.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2013.06.003

Rand, D. G., Peysakhovich, A., Kraft-Todd, G. T., Newman, G. E., Wurzbacher, O., Nowak, M. A., & Greene, J. D. (2014). Social heuristics shape intuitive cooperation. Nature Communications, 5, Article e3677.
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4677

Reed, A., II, Kay, A., Finnel, S., Aquino, K., & Levy, E. (2016). I don’t want the money, I just want your time: How moral identity overcomes the aversion to giving time to prosocial causes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(3), 435–457.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000058

Ruci, L., van Allen, Z. M., & Zelenski, J. M. (2018). Pro-social personality traits, helping behavior, and ego-depletion: Is helping really easier for the dispositionally pro-social? Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 32–39.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.08.013

Tinghög, G., Andersson, D., Bonn, C., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Koppel, L., & Västfjäll, D. (2016). Intuition and moral decision-making – The effect of time pressure and cognitive load on moral judgment and altruistic behavior. PLoS ONE, 11(10), Article e0164012.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164012

Van Lange, P. A. M. (1999). The pursuit of joint outcomes and equality in outcomes: An integrative model of social value orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(2), 337–349.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.2.337

Verkoeijen, P. P. J. L., & Bouwmeester, S. (2014). Does intuition cause cooperation? PLoS ONE, 9(5), Article e96654.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0096654

Visser, M. S., & Roelofs, M. R. (2011). Heterogeneous preferences for altruism: Gender and personality, social status, giving and taking. Experimental Economics, 14(4), 490–506.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-011-9278-4

Yamagishi, T., Matsumoto, Y., Kiyonari, T., Takagishi, H., Li, Y., Kanai, R., & Sakagami, M. (2017). Response time in economic games reflects different types of decision conflict for prosocial and proself individuals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(24), 6394–6399.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1608877114

Yang, D., & Tu, C.-C. (2021). Influence of college students’ agreeableness on interpersonal relationships: Moderating role of empathy. Education and Urban Society, 53(4), 383–401.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124520928609

This work was supported by the Outstanding Clinical Discipline Project of Shanghai Pudong (PWYgy2018-10)

and the Shanghai Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project

Cognitive Neural Mechanism of Altruistic Behavior

Based on the Perspective of Time Pressure and Moral Sense (2020BSH007).

Gengdan Hu, Department of Psychology, School of Humanities, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China. Email: [email protected]