ArticleNature communications2023
Unselfish traits and social decision-making patterns characterize six populations of real-world extraordinary altruists.
Article in Nature communications, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analyses on charitable giving clarify evidence for empathic and effective altruism.Nature communications · 2026Pooled it
- Choosing Not to Eat Meat: What Characterizes Independently Vegetarian Children?Developmental science · 2026Article
- The Changing Paradigm of Good Samaritan Kidney Donation in the United States.Transplantation direct · 2026Article
- Sequential Donation: Evaluating Safety and Quality of Life of Living Donors.Clinical transplantation · 2026Article
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- Information Prioritization Underpins the Flexible Expression of Social Preferences Under Time Constraints.Social psychological and personality science · 2025Article
- Cognitive and neural underpinnings of friend-prioritization in a perceptual matching task.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Close relationship partners of impartial altruists do not report diminished relationship quality and are similarly altruistic.Communications psychology · 2024Article
- Intergenerational concern relates to constructive coping and emotional reactions to climate change via increased legacy concerns and environmental cognitive alternatives.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Neural responses underlying extraordinary altruists' generosity for socially distant others.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Moral foundations, values, and judgments in extraordinary altruists.Scientific reports · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Acts of extraordinary, costly altruism, in which significant risks or costs are assumed to benefit strangers, have long represented a motivational puzzle. But the features that consistently distinguish individuals who engage in such acts have not been identified. We assess six groups of real-world extraordinary altruists who had performed costly or risky and normatively rare (<0.00005% per capita) altruistic acts: heroic rescues, non-directed and directed kidney donations, liver donations, marrow or hematopoietic stem cell donations, and humanitarian aid work. Here, we show that the features that best distinguish altruists from controls are traits and decision-making patterns indicating unusually high valuation of others' outcomes: high Honesty-Humility, reduced Social Discounting, and reduced Personal Distress. Two independent samples of adults who were asked what traits would characterize altruists failed to predict this pattern. These findings suggest that theories regarding self-focused motivations for altruism (e.g., self-enhancing reciprocity, reputation enhancement) alone are insufficient explanations for acts of real-world self-sacrifice.
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