The season of goodwill is likely to mean more to a humble person than a conceited one, research suggests.
Psychologists found a positive link between humility and willingness to help those in need.
In contrast, the opposite traits of conceit and arrogance were associated with more selfish behaviour.
"The findings are surprising because, in nearly 30 years of research on helping behaviour, very few studies have shown any effect of personality variables on helping," said lead researcher Dr Jordan LaBouff, from the University of Maine in the US.
Factors known to influence a person's decision to offer help include time pressure, the presence of bystanders, and temporary feelings of empathy or distress.
As part of the research, university students were played a campus radio broadcast describing a colleague unable to attend lectures because of an injured leg. Participants were asked how many hours over the next three weeks they would be willing to meet with and help the injured student.
Students first underwent personality assessments, including one in which they were asked to associate as quickly as possible traits that applied to themselves. "Humility" descriptions included "humble", "modest", "tolerant", "down-to-earth", "respectful" and "open-minded". Those pointing to "arrogance" included "arrogant", "immodest", "egotistical", and "conceited".
Individuals who scored highly for humility offered to give up more of their time to help the injured student than those with lower scores. This was especially true when there was little outside pressure to help.
The findings are published in the journal Positive Psychology.
Dr Wade Rowatt, from Baylor University in Texas, said: "Our discovery here is that the understudied trait of humility predicts helpfulness. Important next steps will be to figure out whether humility can be cultivated and if humility is beneficial in other contexts, such as scientific and medical advancements or leadership development."
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