Consumers' implicit theories about personality influence their brand personality judgments

Three studies document that consumers' implicit theories about the fixedness/malleability of personality guide brand personality updating in a brand extension context. The first two studies show that extension fit with the parent brand impacts brand personality updating only for incremental (vs. entity theorists). Specifically, for incremental theorists, brand personality is enhanced (vs. diluted) when extension fit is poor (vs. good), and only when brand personality is salient. The third study identifies conditions under which entity theorists focus on brand personality. Interestingly, overall evaluations of the parent brand and extension vary only with extension fit. Implications of our research are discussed.     

自恋型人格的理论模型与神经生理机制

自恋作为一种人格特质, 核心特征是具有夸张和膨胀的自我观点。当前研究将自恋型人格与不同的自我特征相联系, 这些特征包括了夸张性、崇拜的需要、自我中心和高自尊、情感共情缺乏和述情障碍, 研究表明自恋的夸张性和崇拜需要源自扭曲的自我观点和自我提升。当前研究发现额中回、内侧前额叶皮层、眶额叶皮层、揳前叶和前脑岛与自我提升和自我评估有关。前脑岛、右背外侧前额叶皮层和右侧后扣带回皮层与共情缺失有关。未来研究应注重将遗传学、电生理学、生物化学、脑成像等技术的结合, 构建自恋型人格形成的神经生理模型。     

The relation between implicit theories of personality and forgiveness

This research examined the effect of implicit theories of personality on interpersonal forgiveness and the mediating mechanism underlying this effect. Two experiments show that incremental personality theorists are less forgiving than entity personality theorists and that this difference can be explained by the incremental theorists’ stronger tendency to appraise the transgressor as responsible for causing the hurtful event. The same findings were obtained regardless of whether forgiveness was measured by self‐report or assessed as responses to anger words in a latency response task.     

A quantitative evaluation of sex differences in implicit personality theories

An investigation is conducted into whether male and female perceivers hold substantially different implicit theories of personality. 24 male and 24 female subjects were asked to sort a set of 36 trait names into groups of similar traits. On the basis of these data, proximities between trait names and proximities between groupings (or partitions) were computed and subjected to a differential statistical analysis. Neither a global test for sex-specific groupings of trait names nor tests at the level of perceived pairwise trait relationships yielded significant differences. It is concluded that aggregation of sorting data over both male and female perceivers is warranted without too big a loss of information. On the methodological side, this paper demonstrates the feasibility of a quantitative approach to handling the problem of data aggregation in the context of studies using the sorting method as a data-gathering technique.     

The association between implicit theories of personality and the attributional process

The influence of implicit theories of personality (entity vs. incremental theorists; see Dweck, Chiu and Hong, 1995) on the stages of the Sequential Operations Model of attribution (Gilbert, Pelham, and Krull, 1988) was investigated. Two hundred eighty Norwegian participants were given a Norwegian translation of the implicit personality theories measure. Participants then read two essays, one advocating the pro-life position and the other advocating the pro-choice position on the abortion issue. The essay positions were ostensibly assigned rather than freely chosen by the author. After each essay, participants were asked to rate the essay position and the true attitude of the author. Entity and incremental theorists showed no differences in their ratings of the essay position; however, entity theorists made significantly stronger correspondent inferences about the author's attitude than did incremental theorists. These results support the contention that entity theorists engage in less attributional correction than incremental theorists.     

Assumptions about human nature: comparison of implicit and explicit personality theories

Hjelle and Ziegler (1981) believe that people's positions on nine fundamental dimensions of human nature affect their personality theories, and that differences between people on these dimensions contribute to differences between their personality theories. The present study was conducted in order to obtain information about the ordinary person's position on these dimensions and to compare the ordinary person's position with 10 personality theorists' positions. 84 subjects rated their positions on each of nine 11-step bipolar dimensions. The following results were obtained: (1) According to the ordinary person, the human being is free, changeable, influenced by the subjective world of experience, a product of the environment, and best understood from a holistic perspective; (2) The position of the ordinary person is most similar to Allport's position, and least similar to Skinner's position. The results are discussed in light of the relation between implicit (lay) and explicit (scientific) theories of personality.     

内隐人格理论对他人印象加工策略的影响

从表征状态与他人知觉信息加工方式两个角度探讨了内隐人格理论对他人印象加工策略的影响。首先采用自编的童话情境测验对120名被试的内隐人格理论进行维度分析, 甄选出持不同内隐人格理论的被试(实体论42人、渐变论48人)。随后使用错觉关联效应的实验范式, 要求两类被试(持不同内隐人格理论及其指向性情境)对他人行为信息进行判断, 记录自由回忆和频率估计的差异值。结果发现：持不同内隐人格理论的个体在知觉他人时采用不同的信息加工方式。实体论者通常采用启发式加工, 渐变论者通常采用分析式加工。实体论者在进行启发式加工时, 通过对他人行为信息的即时性判断形成他人印象; 渐变论者在进行分析式加工时, 对他人行为信息进行记忆性判断, 最终依赖情境信息形成他人印象。     

Justice and personality: Using integrative theories to derive moderators of justice effects

Although organizational justice has been shown to have behavioral consequences, there remains a surprising amount of variation in how individuals react to fair and unfair treatment. The present study drew on three integrative theories in the justice literature—fairness heuristic theory, uncertainty management theory, and fairness theory—to identify personality traits that could explain such variation. From these theories, we identified trust propensity, risk aversion, and morality (rooted in circumplex models of personality) as potential moderators. A laboratory study provided some support for the prediction that the three traits moderate the effects of procedural, interpersonal, and distributive justice on task performance and counterproductive behavior. The moderating effects of the three traits explained more variance in the outcomes than moderators based in the justice literature (equity sensitivity, sensitivity to befallen injustice) or the five-factor model of personality. Taken together, the results suggest that the three integrative theories can inform the search for personality-based moderators of justice effects.     

Personality in its natural habitat: manifestations and implicit folk theories of personality in daily life

To examine the expression of personality in its natural habitat, the authors tracked 96 participants over 2 days using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), which samples snippets of ambient sounds in participants' immediate environments. Participants' Big Five scores were correlated with EAR-derived information on their daily social interactions, locations, activities, moods, and language use; these quotidian manifestations were generally consistent with the trait definitions and (except for Openness) often gender specific. To identify implicit folk theories about daily manifestations of personality, the authors correlated the EAR-derived information with impressions of participants based on their EAR sounds; judges' implicit folk theories were generally accurate (especially for Extraversion) and also partially gender specific. The findings point to the importance of naturalistic observation studies on how personality is expressed and perceived in the natural stream of everyday behavior.