The Paradox in Moral Character Judgement of Highly Altruistic Individuals: Investigating the Role of Predictability and Honesty‐humility

ABSTRACT This study explored why highly altruistic individuals are regarded as less moral from a third‐party perspective and investigated the boundary conditions of this phenomenon. In Study 1 ( N = 199), participants evaluated those who distributed all (vs. half) of their resources to others as being less predictable and having a lower moral character. Study 2 ( N = 238) examined the boundary condition of the mediation effect and found that honesty‐humility moderated the relationship between altruism type and predictability. Low honesty‐humility exacerbated the perception that highly altruistic individuals were less predictable, while high honesty‐humility buffered this lower predictability, which further influenced people's judgements of the moral character of highly altruistic individuals. Study 3 ( N = 213) optimized the experimental design to further test the role of predictability and honesty‐humility to validate the robustness of the hypothesized model. Implications of the negative relationship between high altruism and moral character judgement are discussed.