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Helping and hurting others: Person and situation effects on aggressive and prosocial behavior as assessed by the Tangram task
Author(s) -
Saleem Muniba,
Barlett Christopher P.,
Anderson Craig A.,
Hawkins Ian
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
aggressive behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.223
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1098-2337
pISSN - 0096-140X
DOI - 10.1002/ab.21669
Subject(s) - prosocial behavior , task (project management) , psychology , aggression , social psychology , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , helping behavior , injury prevention , medical emergency , applied psychology , developmental psychology , medicine , engineering , systems engineering
The Tangram Help/Hurt Task is a laboratory‐based measure designed to simultaneously assess helpful and hurtful behavior. Across five studies we provide evidence that further establishes the convergent and discriminant validity of the Tangram Help/Hurt Task. Cross‐sectional and meta‐analytic evidence finds consistently significant associations between helpful and hurtful scores on the Tangram Task and prosocial and aggressive personality traits. Experimental evidence reveals that situational primes known to induce aggressive and prosocial behavior significantly influence helpful and hurtful scores on the Tangram Help/Hurt Task. Additionally, motivation items in all studies indicate that tangram choices are indeed associated with intent of helping and hurting. We discuss the advantages and limitations of the Tangram Help/Hurt Task relative to established measures of helpful and hurtful behavior. Aggr. Behav. 43:133–146, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.