A good giver? Patrick Stewart as Scrooge and Joel Grey as the Ghost of Christmas Past in a TV adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Photograph: AP
Our recently published research shows that people's personality types predict their donations to charities and noble causes. This might have important implications for fundraising activities, which mostly do not tailor their messages to the personalities of potential givers.
Our study was carried out in the Netherlands, which, if I am correct, is among the most charitable countries in the world. In a representative sample of almost 1,000 Dutch citizens we found that people with a "prosocial" personality gave more money to charities and other noble causes. For instance, with donations to "third world organisations", 52% of people with a prosocial personality gave money, compared to 42% of people with an individualistic personality and only 21% of people with a competitive personality.Overall prosocials donate more to all kinds of charitable and noble organisations - including health, environmental, charity, education/research and arts/culture organisations - than individualists and competitors. Interestingly, the only exception was donations to local community and church groups, perhaps because people donate to these causes for selfish needs.
I hope that fundraising organisations, such as those dedicated to helping the poor and the ill, particularly during humanitarian crises or at critical times of the year, such as winter and Christmas, will benefit from this research. Donations seem to be down this year but not everyone is a Scrooge and there are many Samaritans around. The trick is to get people with individualistic and competitive personalities to donate more, maybe by offering them small gifts or raffle tickets.
In our study we measured people's personalities with a three-minute procedure, which can easily used by organisations wanting to raise money for good causes.
We do not yet know how social values are shaped. But some earlier findings suggest that prosocial personalities come from larger families with more sibling sisters. Prosocials are more likely to be female and there is even a suggestion that they may live longer.
· Mark van Vugt works in the department of psychology at Kent University
