The Psychological Correlates of Courage in the Workplace: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Function of Courageous Altruism

In the workplace, there are situations that arise where an individual can make courageous decisions in the face of adversity. This research used an evolutionary-based personality approach to examine the dispositional predictors of the tendency to make courageous decisions in the workplace. More specifically, this study examined personality, risk-taking propensity, and resilience as predictor variables for courageous decision-making in the workplace. We presented participants (N = 1343) with Behavioral Courage Scales designed for this study (one was completely self-report and the other was a behavioroid measure), along with the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, which taps the Big Five personality traits (TIPI), Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), and the General Risk Propensity Scale (GRiPS). Correlational analyses demonstrated significant positive relationships between courageous decision-making and extraversion, openness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and risk-taking propensity. Importantly, when it came to self-reported courage, we found that risk-taking propensity was negatively correlated with dispositional courage, whereas risk-taking propensity was positively related to intentions of courageous action. Overall, these findings suggest that traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness might predict courageous and altruistic behaviors that benefit coworkers, even when it might cause conflict that brings a net reduction to the benefits of the individual.