Personality Characteristics of Morally Courageous Individuals: Evidence From Group Comparisons

What characterizes individuals who stand up and take action against violations of fundamental moral principles, even in the face of personal risk and adversity? Due to methodological and ethical challenges, we are limited in our understanding of personality dispositions that predict who acts morally courageously in situations of severe wrongdoings and considerable risk. In Germany and Austria, we recruited recipients of public awards for outstanding moral courage ( n = 54) and individuals who nominated themselves to have acted morally courageously ( n = 48). We contrasted these morally courageous individuals with a demographically matched reference group of people who reported not to have acted morally courageously before ( n = 323), and with normative samples of the German population. Results showed three key patterns: First, among the HEXACO personality factors, heightened extraversion consistently distinguished the morally courageous groups from the reference group. Second, membership in the morally courageous groups was predicted by heightened moral attentiveness and anger proneness, and lowered endorsement of loyalty and authority, indicating exceptional moral functioning of the morally courageous. Third, the morally courageous were characterized by diminished risk avoidance and social anxiety, suggesting that they encounter a lower psychological barrier posed by fear of negative social evaluation.