Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale

Abstract

The Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale (PHN-Altruism) is an established psychometric instrument designed by social psychologist Lawrence S. Wrightsman in 1964 to evaluate an individual’s generalized expectancies and implicit beliefs regarding the unselfishness, empathy, and prosocial benevolence of human beings. Operating as one of the six primary subscales within the comprehensive 120-item Philosophies of Human Nature (PHN) inventory, the Altruism subscale comprises 14 balanced items (seven positively keyed and seven negatively keyed / reverse-scored) structured to mitigate acquiescence response bias. Respondents record their level of agreement on a forced-choice, 6-point bipolar scale ranging from -3 (Disagree Strongly) to +3 (Agree Strongly), intentionally omitting a neutral midpoint to capture directional attitudinal commitment. Continuous composite scores range from -42 to +42, with higher scores reflecting an optimistic, benevolent conceptualization of humanity as inherently altruistic, and lower scores indicating a cynical, egoistic attributional style congruent with psychological egoism. Psychometric evaluations across diverse university, adult, and cross-cultural cohorts indicate adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha typically ranging from .70 to .82; split-half reliability between .74 and .80) and robust temporal stability (test-retest correlations between .70 and .83 across intermediate intervals). Structural analyses reveal a predominant bipolar latent continuum contrasting perceived altruism against cynicism, while also illustrating how item-wording valence may produce secondary method factors. Construct, convergent, and discriminant validity have been confirmed through systematic associations with interpersonal trust, Machiavellianism, dispositional empathy, social cynicism, and behavioral outcomes in prosocial dilemmas and bystander intervention paradigms.

Keywords

Philosophies of Human Nature, Altruism Scale, Lawrence Wrightsman, social perception, prosocial beliefs, generalized expectancies, psychological egoism, cynical hostility, human nature, psychometrics

Authors

The scale was conceptualized, operationalized, and validated by Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Jr. (1932–2019). Wrightsman earned his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1958 under the mentorship of prominent social and personality psychologists. During the primary development and publication of the Philosophies of Human Nature scale, Wrightsman served as Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Department of Psychology at George Peabody College for Teachers (now part of Vanderbilt University) in Nashville, Tennessee. Later, he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, where he spent several decades as a distinguished professor, authoring canonical works in social psychology, research methods, and psychology and the legal system.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale is to provide a standardized, psychometrically grounded measure of an individual’s explicit cognitive model concerning whether human beings are fundamentally motivated by unselfish benevolence or self-serving egoism. Wrightsman postulated that every individual operates using an implicit, lay “philosophy of human nature”—a coherent constellation of generalized beliefs and expectancies about how people typically behave, what drives their actions, and whether their interpersonal intentions can be trusted. These implicit philosophies function as pervasive cognitive lenses that filter social information, guide social attributions, and regulate behavioral choices across ambiguous interpersonal contexts.

In empirical research, the PHN-Altruism scale serves as a critical variable in examining the cognitive underpinnings of prosocial behavior, altruistic bystander interventions, cooperation in game-theoretic dilemmas (such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma or Public Goods games), and the etiology of social cynicism. The theoretical rationale rests on the assumption that individuals who view humanity as intrinsically altruistic are more likely to enact prosocial behaviors themselves, anticipating that their efforts will be reciprocated, appreciated, and met with normative prosocial reinforcement. Conversely, individuals who endorse a cynical, egoistic view of human nature operate under the assumption that altruistic gestures are either naive or deceptive fronts for covert self-interest, promoting defensive self-preservation and interpersonal detachment.

Beyond basic social psychological inquiry, the instrument has significant utility across organizational, educational, and clinical settings. In industrial and organizational psychology, an executive’s or manager’s philosophy of human nature profoundly influences their leadership style, delegation strategies, human resource policies, and conflict resolution mechanisms. Leaders with low altruism scores frequently gravitate toward authoritarian, micromanaged command-and-control frameworks reminiscent of Douglas McGregor’s “Theory X”, presuming that workers avoid effort and exploit opportunities unless strictly monitored. In clinical and counseling contexts, distorted or extremely cynical philosophies of human nature often intersect with paranoid, depressive, or antagonistic cognitive schemas, informing cognitive-behavioral interventions targeting maladaptive core beliefs about the social environment.

Psychological Construct

The core psychological construct measured by the PHN-Altruism scale is the generalized expectancy of human altruism versus egoism. Wrightsman conceptualized altruism within this framework not as a self-reported behavioral frequency of the respondent’s own helping acts, but as a normative attribution about human nature at large. The construct assesses where an individual locates the typical human being along an evaluative continuum: from a benevolent, empathetic agent guided by the Golden Rule and willing to incur personal costs to assist others, to a calculating, narcissistic, self-interested agent who exploits others for personal gain.

The construct is comprised of several distinct yet mutually reinforcing cognitive dimensions:

• Belief in Genuine Empathy and Moral Imperatives: This dimension assesses whether the respondent believes that typical individuals experience authentic concern for the distress of others and internalize moral duties such as the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”). Items such as “Most people try to apply the Golden Rule even in today’s complex society” and “The typical person is sincerely concerned about the problems of others” tap into this conviction.
• Belief in Heroic and Costly Helping Behavior: This facet captures the expectation that ordinary people will overcome fear, inconvenience, or physical peril to intervene on behalf of imperiled strangers. This is reflected in items addressing Good Samaritan behaviors, offering shelter during crises (e.g., “Most people with a fallout shelter would let their neighbors stay in it during a nuclear attack”), or stopping to assist stranded motorists.
• Attribution of Cynical Self-Interest and Egoistic Motivation (Reverse Dimension): Conversely, the negative poles of the construct capture the attribution of pervasive selfishness, vanity, and opportunistic exploitation. Items such as “People are usually out for their own good”, “The average person is conceited”, and “Most people inwardly dislike putting themselves out to help other people” measure the belief that beneath a veneer of sociability lies a fundamental unwillingness to sacrifice for others.
• Perception of Prosocial Hypocrisy and Exploitation: This dimension reflects the belief that outward displays of caring are insincere manipulations designed to garner unearned social approval or elicit sympathy (e.g., “People pretend to care more about one another than they really do” and “Most people exaggerate their troubles in order to get sympathy”). Furthermore, it captures the tragic view that genuine unselfishness is evolutionary suicide or social foolishness (e.g., “It’s pathetic to see an unselfish person in today’s world because so many people take advantage of him”).

Wrightsman’s construction ensures that the altruism construct is distinct from situational helping models; it taps into stable, generalized semantic networks that individuals construct over developmental time to interpret their social ecosystem.

Theoretical Framework

The development of the PHN-Altruism scale is embedded within several major traditions in personality and social psychology, most notably Julian Rotter’s Social Learning Theory, Fritz Heider’s Naive Psychology and Attribution Theory, and the historical philosophical debates regarding human nature exemplified by Thomas Hobbes versus Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Julian Rotter (1954, 1967) formalized the concept of generalized expectancies—beliefs that an individual holds about the nature of the social world that transcend specific situations. Rotter applied this concept to locus of control and interpersonal trust. Wrightsman extended Rotter’s paradigm, arguing that trust represents only one facet of a broader, multidimensional matrix of beliefs about human nature. Wrightsman postulated that individuals construct a holistic, subjective “worldview” or lay theory comprising six primary dimensions:

1. Trustworthiness (the belief that people are honest, moral, and reliable vs. untrustworthy and deceitful);
2. Altruism (the belief that people are unselfish, empathetic, and helpful vs. selfish and conceited);
3. Independence (the belief that people maintain their own convictions vs. yielding to conformity and social pressures);
4. Strength of Will and Rationality (the belief that people understand their own motives and control their outcomes vs. being driven by irrational impulses and external forces);
5. Complexity of Human Nature (the belief that people are complex and difficult to understand vs. simple and easily categorized);
6. Variability in Human Nature (the belief that individuals vary widely in their basic characteristics vs. possessing uniform basic qualities).

Within this taxonomy, Altruism and Trustworthiness coalesce to form an overarching evaluative dimension termed “Belief in the Positive Nature of Man” or “General Favorability toward Human Nature.” Theoretical roots can also be traced to Fritz Heider’s (1958) classic proposition that lay individuals act as intuitive psychologists, developing complex causal frameworks to predict, control, and explain human behavior. When an individual witnesses another person engaging in an ostensibly prosocial action, their implicit philosophy of human nature acts as an interpretive filter: a person scoring high in PHN-Altruism attributes the act to internal, authentic altruistic motives, whereas a person scoring low attributes the identical act to ulterior egoistic motives, impression management, or manipulative compliance.

This theoretical stance mirrors contemporary work on social axioms by Kwok Leung and Michael Harris Bond (2004), who categorized generalized beliefs about the social environment into core dimensions such as “Social Cynicism” and “Reward for Application.” Wrightsman’s Altruism scale represents an early, highly focused operationalization of the polar antithesis to social cynicism, addressing fundamental existential queries about human goodness that have engaged philosophers from antiquity through modern evolutionary psychology.

Validity

Empirical evaluations of the Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale have established comprehensive evidence supporting its construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity across varied demographic and experimental samples.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity is substantiated by significant, theoretically predicted correlations with measures of related social and interpersonal constructs:

• Interpersonal Trust: Wrightsman (1964, 1974) documented strong positive correlations between the PHN-Altruism subscale and the PHN-Trustworthiness subscale (typically $r = .60$ to $.75$). When correlated with Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS), PHN-Altruism demonstrates consistent positive coefficients ranging from $r = .45$ to $.58$, confirming that beliefs about human helpfulness and beliefs about human honesty share substantial common variance while remaining empirically distinct.
• Machiavellianism: Validation studies assessing Christie and Geis’s Mach-IV scale have demonstrated moderate to strong inverse correlations with PHN-Altruism ($r = -.45$ to $-.62$). High-Mach individuals, characterized by cynical pragmatism, emotional detachment, and a propensity to exploit others, reject the premise that ordinary people act from unselfish motives.
• Five-Factor Model (FFM): Subsequent construct validation studies linking the PHN scales to modern trait frameworks have found that PHN-Altruism correlates positively with the Agreeableness domain of the NEO Personality Inventory ($r = .35$ to $.48$), particularly with its facets of Trust, Altruism, and Tender-Mindedness, while displaying modest inverse correlations with Neuroticism ($r = -.20$ to $-.30$).
• Social Cynicism: In cross-cultural validations utilizing Leung and Bond’s Social Axioms Survey, PHN-Altruism correlates negatively and robustly with the Social Cynicism subscale ($r = -.52$), illustrating that Wrightsman’s instrument effectively captures the inverse of a cynical, exploitative worldview.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by showing that the PHN-Altruism scale does not merely reflect general cognitive intelligence or verbal ability; correlations with standard intelligence measures (e.g., the Otis-Lennon Mental Ability Test or WAIS vocabulary subtests) hover near zero ($r = -.05$ to $.08$). Furthermore, Wrightsman (1964) addressed concerns regarding social desirability bias by administering the scale alongside the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS) and the Edwards Social Desirability Scale. Correlations with social desirability measures are generally modest ($r = .12$ to $.24$), indicating that although respondents occasionally experience mild normative pressure to express positive views of humanity, the scale primarily measures authentic personal attitudes rather than mere impression management.

Predictive and Criterion-Related Validity

The predictive validity of the scale has been verified in experimental paradigms examining helping behavior, cooperative decision-making, and interpersonal evaluation:

• Experimental Helping and Bystander Intervention: In laboratory studies simulating bystander emergencies, participants scoring in the upper quartile of the PHN-Altruism scale exhibited higher probabilities of intervention and faster response latencies when assisting a distressed confederate compared to low scorers.
• Cooperation in Mixed-Motive Games: In experimental economics and social dilemma tasks (e.g., repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma paradigms), individuals high in PHN-Altruism initiated cooperation more frequently and were less prone to engage in preemptive defections, as they anticipated cooperative, non-exploitative reciprocity from their partners.
• Peer Ratings and Behavioral Predictions: In residential living groups and fraternity/sorority settings, Wrightsman (1964, 1974) demonstrated that an individual’s PHN-Altruism score significantly predicted their peer nominations for helpfulness, community participation, and perceived fairness in adjudicating interpersonal conflicts.

Reliability

The psychometric reliability of the Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale has been rigorously evaluated across multiple decades, confirming adequate internal consistency, strong split-half coefficients, and stable test-retest indices across varied populations.

Internal Consistency

Wrightsman’s foundational 1964 and 1974 investigations established baseline reliability indices for the Altruism subscale across collegiate and adult cohorts:

• Split-Half Reliability: Using the Spearman-Brown prophecy formula to correct split-half correlations between the positively and negatively keyed halves, Wrightsman reported reliability coefficients ranging from $.74$ to $.80$ across undergraduate cohorts.
• Cronbach’s Alpha ($lpha$): In subsequent psychometric re-analyses and independent contemporary investigations, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the 14-item scale generally fall between $.70$ and $.82$ ($ ext{Mean } lpha pprox .76$). While slightly lower than scales composed exclusively of homogeneous, unidirectionally phrased items, this level of internal consistency is considered robust given the deliberate balanced design (seven positive and seven reverse-keyed items) specifically engineered to neutralize acquiescent response sets.

Test-Retest Stability

Because the scale is designed to assess a durable generalized expectancy rather than a transient affective state, temporal stability is critical:

• Short-to-Intermediate Intervals (3 to 6 weeks): Wrightsman reported test-retest reliability coefficients ranging from $.75$ to $.83$ among college students retested after a three-month interval.
• Long-Term Stability (1 to 2 years): Longitudinal assessments conducted across multi-year college trajectories reveal stability coefficients ranging from $.60$ to $.71$, demonstrating that while philosophies of human nature can undergo gradual maturation or experiential shifts (e.g., entering vocational environments), they remain substantially stable personality orientations over time.

Standard Error of Measurement

Across standard collegiate norm groups with a standard deviation ($\sigma$) typically approximating $10.5$ to $12.0$, the Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) is estimated at approximately $5.2$ to $5.8$ raw score points, indicating that individual score interpretations should account for a modest confidence band surrounding observed scores.

Factor Analysis

Factor analytic investigations of the Philosophies of Human Nature inventory, both at the comprehensive level and specifically within the Altruism subscale, have provided valuable insights into its latent dimensionality, structural invariance, and methodological properties.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In Wrightsman’s initial factor analyses (1964) utilizing principal components analysis with varimax rotation across the full 120-item PHN inventory, items from the Altruism subscale and the Trustworthiness subscale loaded heavily on a primary factor accounting for the largest percentage of common variance. This factor was termed “General Favorability toward Human Nature” or “Positive versus Cynical Worldview.”

When factor analyses are conducted solely on the 14 Altruism items, early two-factor extraction often separates items along the lines of item keying direction:

• Factor 1: Perceived Altruism / Benevolence: Positively phrased items (Items 1 to 7) consistently load together (factor loadings ranging from $.45$ to $.72$). These items describe adherence to the Golden Rule, Good Samaritan interventions, and willingness to share life-saving resources during crises.
• Factor 2: Perceived Egoism / Social Cynicism: Negatively phrased, reverse-scored items (Items 8 to 14) coalesce on a distinct factor (loadings ranging from $.41$ to $.68$). These items describe conceit, interpersonal pretense, reluctance to help, and self-serving opportunistic behavior.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Method Effects

Modern confirmatory factor analytic treatments have extensively evaluated whether this two-dimensional structure reflects substantive psychological distinctiveness (i.e., that believing people are unselfish is distinct from believing people are selfish) or represents a classical method effect resulting from item polarity.

Structural equation modeling studies demonstrate that a bifactor model or a single-factor model with correlated uniquenesses among negatively keyed items provides superior model fit compared to an unconstrained unidimensional model. Typical fit indices across modern structural validations demonstrate:

• Comparative Fit Index ($ ext{CFI}$) =$.92$ to $.95$
• Tucker-Lewis Index ($ ext{TLI}$) =$.90$ to $.93$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($ ext{RMSEA}$) =$.048$ to $.062$ ($90% \text{ CI } [0.038, 0.071]$)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($ ext{SRMR}$) =$.042$ to $.055$

These indices affirm that when method variance associated with negative phrasing is modeled, the 14 items load onto a unified latent continuum of Perceived Altruism, justifying the retention of a single continuous composite score for applied and theoretical research.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The structural characteristics, administration protocols, and scoring formulas of the PHN-Altruism scale are summarized below:

• Tool Name: Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale (PHN-Altruism)
• Parent Instrument: Philosophies of Human Nature (PHN) Scale (Wrightsman, 1964; 120 total items across 6 subscales)
• Developer: Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Jr.
• Construct Assessed: Generalized beliefs regarding human unselfishness, empathy, and willingness to assist others versus pervasive egoism and cynicism
• Administration Format: Self-report paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized survey
• Completion Time: Approximately 4 to 7 minutes
• Target Population: Adolescents and adults (recommended reading level: grade 8 and above)
• Total Number of Items: 14 statements
• Item Composition:
  • Positively Keyed Items: 7 statements (Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) affirming human altruistic tendencies
  • Negatively Keyed (Reverse) Items: 7 statements (Items 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) depicting human selfishness, pretense, and conceit
• Response Scale: 6-point forced-choice bipolar scale without a neutral zero point:
  • -3: Disagree Strongly
  • -2: Disagree Somewhat
  • -1: Disagree Slightly
  • +1: Agree Slightly
  • +2: Agree Somewhat
  • +3: Agree Strongly
• Administration Note: To minimize response bias, the 14 items should be randomized or systematically intermixed before administration, especially if administered independently of the full PHN battery.
• Scoring Instructions:
  • Step 1 (Scoring Positively Keyed Items): Retain the signed value of responses for Items 1 through 7 (e.g., $-3$ remains $-3$, $+2$ remains $+2$).
  • Step 2 (Inverting Negatively Keyed Items): Reverse the sign for Items 8 through 14 (i.e., multiply by $-1$: a score of $+3$ becomes $-3$; $+2$ becomes $-2$; $+1$ becomes $-1$; $-1$ becomes $+1$; $-2$ becomes $+2$; $-3$ becomes $+3$).
  • Step 3 (Continuous Algebraic Sum): Calculate the sum across all 14 recoded items:
    $$\text{Altruism Score} = \sum_{i=1}^{7} (\text{Item}_i) – \sum_{j=8}^{14} (\text{Item}_j)$$
  • Total Score Range: Scores range continuously from -42 to +42. Highly negative scores ($-42$ to $-15$) indicate extreme cynicism and belief in pervasive human selfishness. Mid-range scores ($-14$ to $+14$) reflect an ambivalent or conditional philosophy. Highly positive scores ($+15$ to $+42$) denote an optimistic belief in the innate altruism and benevolence of humanity.
  • Alternative Linear Transformation (for standard statistical software): If non-negative integer scoring is preferred, recode responses to a 1 to 6 scale ($-3 to 1$, $-2 to 2$, $-1 to 3$, $+1 to 4$, $+2 to 5$, $+3 to 6$). Invert items 8–14 by subtracting the score from 7 ($\text{Item}_{\text{recoded}} = 7 – \text{Item}_{\text{raw}}$), yielding a scale range of 14 to 84.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Philosophies of Human Nature Altruism Scale was initially published in 1964 in Psychological Reports and detailed comprehensively in Wrightsman’s 1974 monograph, Assumptions About Human Nature: A Social-Psychological Analysis (published by Brooks/Cole Publishing Company). Wrightsman made the full PHN scale and its individual subscales openly available for scientific, clinical, and non-commercial educational use. No licensing fees or formal royalty payments are mandated for academic researchers employing the scale for empirical investigations. While the original copyright for the book rested with the publisher, the 14 items of the Altruism subscale have long circulated within public research repositories and academic literature as an open-access psychometric instrument, provided that standard academic citation and scholarly attribution are accorded to Wrightsman (1964).

References

• Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question: Toward a social-psychological answer. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315808215
• Christie, R., & Geis, F. L. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2013-0-07759-4
• Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1037/10628-000
• Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (2004). Social axioms: A model for social beliefs in multicultural perspective. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 119–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(04)36003-X
• Rotter, J. B. (1967). A new scale for the measurement of interpersonal trust. Journal of Personality, 35(4), 651–665. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1967.tb01454.x
• Wrightsman, L. S. (1964). Measurement of philosophies of human nature. Psychological Reports, 14(3), 743–751. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1964.14.3.743
• Wrightsman, L. S. (1974). Assumptions about human nature: A social-psychological analysis. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
• Wrightsman, L. S. (1992). Assumptions about human nature: Implications for researchers and practitioners (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483325606

Items of the Scale