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.     

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.     

Personality and persona: personality processes in self-presentation

This article examines the role that personality variables and processes play in people's efforts to manage their public images. Although most research on self-presentation has focused on situational influences, people differ greatly in the degree to which they care about others' impressions of them, the types of impressions they try to convey, and their evaluations of their self-presentational effectiveness. Personality constructs such as public self-consciousness, approval motivation, and fear of negative evaluation are associated with the motive to manage one's impressions, and people who differ in self-disclosure and desire for privacy differentially reveal information about themselves to others. Other variables relating to people's self-concepts, interpersonal goals, and traits influence the construction of specific images. Finally, the extent to which people believe they are capable of making desired impressions influences their impression management strategies and how they respond to other people's evaluations.     

The use of psychological theories by ‘naive’ judges: A study in implicit personality theory

Sixty-three subjects judged the behaviour of one of two fictitious stimulus persons by means of five different types of explanation which corresponded with specific psychological theories. These types of explanation based behaviour on adaptation to external conditions, reward/punishment, fulfilment of role expectations, effects of unconscious motives and the imitation of models. The explanations were evaluated on graphic rating scales as to their truth and convincingness. Two-way analyses of variance with repeated measures on one factor showed significant main effects for type of explanation and interaction effects of stimulus person × type of explanation for both dependent variables. The results are discussed in the light of studies done so far in implicit personality theory.     

The implicit theories of firesetters: A preliminary conceptualization

The importance of cognition in the facilitation and reinforcement of criminal behavior has been highlighted and recognized in numerous offender populations. In particular, professionals have theorized that various offender populations hold offense-supportive schemas or implicit theories that require treatment in therapy. However, the role of cognition in deliberate firesetting has received no focused conceptual or theoretical attention. Using current research evidence and theory relating to general cognition and the characteristics of firesetters, this paper outlines a preliminary conceptual framework of the potential cognitions (in the form of implicit theories) that are likely to characterize firesetters. Five implicit theories are proposed that may be associated with firesetting behavior. The content, structure, and etiological functions of these implicit theories are described as well as the cognitive similarities between firesetters and other offender types. Future research implications and practical implications of the proposed implicit theories are also discussed.     

Gender differences in implicit and explicit personality traits

This article investigates gender differences in implicit and explicit measures of the Big Five traits of personality. In a high-powered study (N = 14,348), we replicated previous research showing that women report higher levels of Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism. For implicit measures, gender differences were much smaller for all, and opposite in sign for Extraversion. Somewhat higher levels of implicit Neuroticism and Agreeableness were observed in women, and somewhat higher levels of implicit Extraversion and Openness were observed in men. There was no gender difference in implicit Conscientiousness. A possible explanation is that explicit self-concepts partly reflect social norms and self-expectations about gender roles, while implicit self-concepts may mostly reflect self-related experiences.     

Measuring individual and cultural differences in implicit trait theories

A new measure of implicit theories or beliefs regarding the traitedness versus contextuality of behavior was developed and tested across cultures. In Studies 1 (N = 266) and 2 (N = 266), these implicit beliefs dimensions were reliably measured and replicated across U.S. college student samples and validity evidence was provided. In Study 3, their structure replicated well across an individualistic culture (the United States; N = 249) and a collectivistic culture (Mexico; N = 268). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs overlapped only modestly with implicit entity theory beliefs and were predicted by self-construals in ways that generally supported cultural psychology hypotheses. Implicit trait beliefs were fairly strongly endorsed in both cultures, suggesting that such beliefs may be universally held.     

Integrating personality, daily life events and emotion: Role of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation dynamics

We investigated the roles of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation, looking simultaneously at personality, daily life events, and affects. We hypothesized that individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affective experience related to trait anxiety would manifest themselves both in affective responsiveness to life events and in homeostatic regulatory forces. Data were collected from 49 adults, who rated their affective state three times a day over a 40-day period. Data were analyzed using a dynamical system model and graphical representations in the form of vector fields. Results showed that anxiety chiefly interacted with home base (attractor) positions as a function of life events. It also influenced the shape of positive affectivity trajectories in response to negative events.     

Bridging the gap between explicit and implicit measurement of personality: The questionnaire-based implicit association test

This study presents the questionnaire-based implicit association test (qIAT), a method that resembles the assessment procedures of self-report scales and allows an implicit assessment of constructs measured by such instruments. The qIAT measures the speed of association between ordinary questionnaires’ items (i.e., short statements rather than single words) and true versus false self-related sentences. Participants completed self-report measures of all Big-Five domains and the qIAT that measured extraversion. The qIAT implicit extraversion score showed good levels of internal consistency and it correlated with explicit extraversion but not with other explicit scales, thus supporting the convergent and discriminant validity of this measure. It also predicted a criterion behavior, and this prediction was incremental to self-report assessment of the same set of items. The qIAT opens the door for the indirect assessment of numerous psychological phenomena measured by existing self-report scales.     

Personality profiles of cultures: aggregate personality traits

Personality profiles of cultures can be operationalized as the mean trait levels of culture members. College students from 51 cultures rated an individual from their country whom they knew well (N=12,156). Aggregate scores on Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) scales generalized across age and sex groups, approximated the individual-level 5-factor model, and correlated with aggregate self-report personality scores and other culture-level variables. Results were not attributable to national differences in economic development or to acquiescence. Geographical differences in scale variances and mean levels were replicated, with Europeans and Americans generally scoring higher in Extraversion than Asians and Africans. Findings support the rough scalar equivalence of NEO-PI-R factors and facets across cultures and suggest that aggregate personality profiles provide insight into cultural differences.     

Rating ability in performance judgments: The joint influence of implicit theories and intelligence

The purpose of this study was to approach the issue of rating ability by examining the influence of rater implicit theories and rater intelligence on rating outcomes. Using the inferential accuracy model (Jackson, 1972), raters were identified as either possessing a normative or idiosyncratic implicit theory of the occupation of college instructor. In a laboratory setting, 50 normative and 50 idiosyncratic raters judged the videotaped performance of either a good or poor lecturer. Results showed that (a) intelligence was positively related to rating accuracy and to possessing a normative implicit theory, (b) rater type moderated the relationship between intelligence and rating accuracy, and (c) controlling for intelligence, normative raters committed stronger halo effects than idiosyncratic raters. These results were discussed in relation to furthering the understanding of rating ability.     

Personality in proportion: a bipolar proportional scale for personality assessments and its consequences for trait structure

Trait structures resulting from personality assessments on Likert scales are affected by the additive and multiplicative transformations implied in interval scaling and correlational analysis. The effect comes into view on selecting a plausible alternative scale. To this end, we propose a bipolar bounded scale ranging from -1 to +1 representing an underlying process in which the assessor would review and discount positive and negative behavioral instances of a trait. As an appropriate index of likeness between variables X and Y, we propose LXY = SigmaXY/N, the average of the raw scores cross products. Using this index, we carried out a raw scores principal component analysis on data consisting of 133 participants who had each been rated by 5 assessors including self on 914 items. Contrary to the Big-Five structure that was found in these data on standard analysis, the results showed a relatively large first principal component F1 and 2 very small ones, F2 and F3. The sizes LFF=SigmaF2/N, the averages of the squared component scores, were modest to small. It thus appears that the scale, bipolar proportional versus standard, has a profound impact on the size and structure of personality assessments. The dissimilarity remains on analyzing self-ratings rather than averaged (over the 5 assessors) ratings.     

The sounds of social life: a psychometric analysis of students' daily social environments and natural conversations

The natural conversations and social environments of 52 undergraduates were tracked across two 2-day periods separated by 4 weeks using a computerized tape recorder (the Electronically Activated Recorder [EAR]). The EAR was programmed to record 30-s snippets of ambient sounds approximately every 12 min during participants' waking hours. Students' social environments and use of language in their natural conversations were mapped in terms of base rates and temporal stability. The degree of cross-context consistency and between-speaker synchrony in language use was assessed. Students' social worlds as well as their everyday language were highly consistent across time and context. The study sheds light on a methodological blind spot--the sampling of naturalistic social information from an unobtrusive observer's perspective.     

Personality disorders and personality dimensions in anorexia nervosa

Information on the relationship between anorexia nervosa (AN) and personality disorders (PDs) and dimensions of temperament and character (measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory [TCI; Cloninger, Przybeck Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994]) is limited. This study examines the predictive validity of the TCI for PD diagnoses assessed by the International Personality Disorder Examination-ICD-10 (IPDE-ICD-10; Loranger, Janca, & Sartorius, 1997) interviews of 46 women with DSM-IV-defined AN. Patients with a PD reported higher levels of harm-avoidance and lower levels of self-directedness than those without a PD. Scores on the TCI were predictive of the number of PD features present, particularly for those PDs in the anankastic, anxious, and dependent groups accounting for 40% to 51% of the variance. Cluster analysis based on scores on the TCI identified a subgroup of patients characterized by low levels of novelty seeking, self-directedness, and cooperativeness and high levels of harm avoidance. This cluster included the majority of those with avoidant, anxious, or dependent PDs. Assessment of particular personality dimensions was able to predict PDs in an anorexic sample. Since normal personality dimensions have greater validity than the categorical PDs, a consideration of normal temperament and character may assist in clinical decisionmaking and considerations concerning treatment.