ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Kill them with kindness: preliminary evidence for women's competitive altruism.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: We developed the Competitive Altruism Survey (CAS) to test how intrasexual competition (i.e., competitive altruism) relates to Machiavellianism, Big Five personality traits, social desirability, and impression management. Methods: A sample of 103 heterosexual cisgender women aged 18 to 45 years completed an online survey. Results: Competitive altruism was strongly and positively related to Machiavellianism and negatively related to Agreeableness and was more used when directed at other women than at men. Neuroticism was correlated with anxiety and frustration that accompany strategic kindness, rather than to competitive altruism. Correlations with impression management and social desirability were unexpectedly negative; this pattern is open to several readings, one being openness about strategic intent. Open-ended responses converge with this interpretation, with women describing the strategic kindness they observe in others as occurring within workplace hierarchies, in publicized or social-media display, and in warmth that contradicts itself in private. Discussion: Our results offer preliminary self-report evidence, in a predominantly Western online sample, that women may use competitive altruism and generosity as strategies to gain a reputation in competition.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.