Agreement on initial impressions: Differences due to perceivers, trait dimensions, and target behaviors.

Assesses agreement as a function of the trait being judged, the information presented, and individual differences to spontaneously use particular trait dimensions. In Experiment 1, there was a reliable amount of agreement in rating the targets, but this was greater if the traits were related to extraversion (Factor 1 traits) than to intelligence, honesty, or conscientiousness (Factor 2 traits). In Experiment 2, Ss viewed videotapes of interviews in which the questions focused on information relevant to either Factor l or Factor 2 traits. Again there was greater agreement in ratings of Factor 1 than Factor 2 traits, but this difference was reliably reduced if Ss saw the tape that focused on Factor 2 information. Regardless of the tape viewed, Ss who frequently used Factor 2 traits gave ratings on these that were in greater agreement with those of judges as a whole. Ss judged Factor 2 traits as more difficult to clearly confirm. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives.

164 undergraduates rated the degree to which various traits represented desirable characteristics and the degree to which it was possible for a person to exert control over each of these characteristics. From these initial ratings, 154 trait adjectives for which 4 levels of desirability were crossed with 2 levels of controllability were selected. 88 undergraduates then rated the degree to which each of these traits characterized the self and the average college student. Results support the prediction that self-ratings in relation to average college student ratings would be increasingly positive as traits increased in desirability and that in conditions of high desirability, self-ratings in relation to average college student ratings would be greater for high- than for low-controllable traits, whereas in conditions of low desirability the opposite would occur. Results are discussed in terms of the adaptive advantages of maintaining a global self-concept that implies that positive characteristics are under personal control and that negative characteristics are caused by factors outside of personal control. Mean preratings of desirability and controllability are appended. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality traits and the eye of the beholder: Crossing some traditional philosophical boundaries in the search for consistency in all of the people.

Studies of nomothetically applied personality tests, clinical inference, and person perception have been interpreted as supporting the view that the naive "trait" based personality conceptions of the layman (and psychologist) are largely erroneous constructions of the perceiver. Recent work has suggested that the assumption of nomothetic applicability of traits may have been incorrect and that only some people may be consistent on any given trait. A method was developed to combine advantages of both idiographic and nomothetic measurement by allowing each of 98 undergraduates to choose his or her most consistent characteristic (on bipolar dimensions based on the 16 PF) and to assess the extent to which these consistent dimensions were publicly observable. High correlations were found between self, parent, and peer ratings on the high-consistency dimensions, particularly when Ss judged them to be highly publicly observable. The utility of consistency and observability self-assessments as moderating variables for individual traits is also considered, as is the use of mean population consistency and observability rankings in discriminating relatively more nomothetically applicable dimensions. (56 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Component analysis of the Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern in male and female college students.

Two studies investigated the psychological dimensions encompassed by the Rosenman Structured Interview (SI) method of assessing Type A (coronary prone) behavior. 164 female undergraduates completed the SI and Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS) for Health Prediction. Factor analysis of the verbal stylistic and answer content components of the SI yielded a 5-factor solution, with 1 factor—Clinical Rating—accounting for most nonerror variance in Type A ratings. The remaining factors were derived from answer content and correlated more substantially with JAS Type A ratings than with SI Type A ratings. In Study 2, 70 male and 74 female college students completed the SI and JAS and a battery of questionnaires that assess trait dimensions implied by the conceptual definition of Type A. For both males and females, SI ratings of Type A could almost be completely predicted by scores on the Clinical Rating factor. For both sexes, content dimensions of the SI related to other measures of Type A and to Type A-consistent traits, whereas the Clinical Rating factor was only modestly associated with such traits. Moreover, sex differences were observed in the trait constellations composing SI and JAS definitions of Type A. Results suggest that a discrepancy exists between conceptual and operational definitions of the Type A pattern. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting school achievement from data on pupils obtained from teachers: Towards a screening device for disadvantage.

Home background, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of 220 5-yr-old disadvantaged Irish children were measured with a questionnaire sent to teachers shortly after Ss entered school. These characteristics were then related to scores on standardized tests of mathematics, English, and intelligence administered after 3 yrs of school. MANOVAs indicated that performance at 8 yrs of age could be predicted with considerable accuracy by a combination of teachers' ratings of Ss' home and personal characteristics at 5 yrs of age. Teachers' ratings of Ss' personal characteristics were better predictors of performance than were their ratings of home background or status. Performances on the English and intelligence tests were better predicted than performance on the mathematics test. The construction of a pilot screening device based on the predictor variables used in the present study is advocated. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and clarity of the self-concept.

This article examines the association between evaluative and knowledge components of the self. Four studies tested the hypothesis that the self-concepts of low-self-esteem (LSE) people are characterized by less clarity or certainty than those of high-self-esteem (HSE) people. LSE Ss exhibited less extremity and self-reported confidence when rating themselves on bipolar trait adjectives (Study 1), less temporal stability in their trait ratings over a 2-month interval (Study 2), less congruence between their self-concepts and their subsequent perceptions of situation-specific behavior and memory for prior behavior (Study 3), and less internal consistency, lower self-rated confidence, and longer reaction times when making me/not me responses to pairs of opposite traits (Study 4). Alternative accounts of the results and the implications of self-concept clarity for understanding the pervasive impact of self-esteem on behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context-induced shifts in personality trait evaluation: A comment on the evaluative halo effect and meaning change interpretations.

Evaluative responses to personality traits are affected by the particular context of other traits ascribed to the stimulus person. One interpretation has invoked a denotative change in trait meaning, which then mediates evaluative change. A second interpretation has proposed that meaning is invariant across contexts, but that the response to the trait is an amalgamation of evaluative response to both person and trait. A review of the literature shows that research has employed stimulus substitution, denotative ratings, and trait evaluative variability as strategies in comparing these formulations, but no one test has proven crucial. The evidence, however, is shown to be more consistent with an evaluative halo influence than with a denotative meaning-change process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-anchoring and differentiation processes in the minimal group setting.

In-group favoritism in the minimal group setting was hypothesized to be a function of 2 processes: a tendency to base in-group judgments on the self (self-anchoring) and a tendency to assume 1 group to be the opposite of the other (differentiation). In the first 3 experiments, in which the order of rating the self and target group was varied, categorized and uncategorized participants were given trait information about 1 group and were asked to estimate the level of those traits in the other group. In-group judges tended to base group ratings on the self, whereas out-group and uncategorized judges inferred the 2 groups to be opposite of one another. Experiment 4 attempted to directly assess the direction of inference between self and in-group by giving feedback about self or in-group on unfamiliar dimensions and found that participants were more willing to generalize from self to in-group than from in-group to self. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inferring interpersonal traits from behavior: Act prototypicality versus conceptual similarity of trait concepts.

Investigates 2 models of the cognitive process underlying trait ratings; the trait-to-trait process states that trait inferences are guided by the conceptual similarity among traits. Ss were presented with 6 fictitious persons. Each was described by acts referring to 1 of 6 traits. Ss rated the targets on interpersonal trait terms. If trait ratings are gathered immediately after the presentation of behavioral information about a single target (Study 1), these ratings correspond closely to the prototypicality ratings of the acts on the trait concepts (behavior-to-trait process). However, if Ss have to keep the behavioral information about several targets in memory (Study 2), the trait ratings are guided by the conceptual relations among the concepts under study (trait-to-trait process). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parameters of social identity.

Two studies establish distinct types of social and collective identities (Study 1) and describe dimensions that differentiate among identities (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 1, individuals (N?=?50) sorted 64 social identities on the basis of perceived similarity; 259 respondents provided trait property ratings of the identities. Cluster analysis indicated 5 types of social identity: personal relationships, vocations/avocations, political affiliations, ethnic/religious groups, and stigmatized groups. Multidimensional scaling analysis shows that identities differ on several trait properties, including desirability and collectivity. In Study 2, 171 people rated the similarity of identities within a specific cluster; 193 respondents provided trait property ratings. Results indicate that different trait properties are relevant to each cluster. The theoretical importance of distinguishing among forms of social identification is stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations among occupational hazards, attitudes, and safety performance.

This study examined psychological empowerment and organizational identification as outcomes of occupational context and predictors of occupational safety performance. In this study, 171 hospital employees from 17 units and 21 occupations completed surveys measuring psychological empowerment, organizational identification, and supervisor safety practices. They also completed measures of 2 dimensions of safety performance: use of personal protective equipment and safety participation. These data were merged with Occupational Information Network (O*NET) context ratings of occupational hazards and physical demands. Results indicated that occupational hazards were negatively related to individual-level psychological empowerment and organizational identification, which were in turn positively related to safety participation. Psychological empowerment and organizational identification also interacted with perceptions of supervisor safety actions in the prediction of personal protective equipment use. Results have implications for organizational safety performance and point to the role of occupational context in psychological empowerment and the extent to which employees participate in the safety of their worksite. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hermeneutics of personality description.

Investigated, in 6 studies with graduate and undergraduate students, the limits of interpretive flexibility within the sphere of personality assessment. It is noted that since most researchers use personality measures that are taken out of context, interpretation of findings are without apparent constraint. In the present study, Ss completed Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale. Findings show that sophisticated language users could demonstrate how responses on any item of the scale could plausibly be used as indicators of virtually any common trait term within the English language. Multiple items could be viewed as an indicator of the same trait, or multiple traits could be plausibly explained as the source of the same internal–external (I–E) response. Furthermore, identical traits (other than I–E) could be linked to opposing items, and logically opposing traits could both be understood as giving rise to the same I–E response. These and additional findings suggest that interpretations of personality research data may depend primarily on social processes within the science. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias.

In addition to personal self-esteem, we propose that there is a second type of self-esteem, collective self-esteem. People who are high in trait collective self-esteem should be more likely to react to threats to collective self-esteem by derogating outgroups and enhancing the ingroup. In a study using the minimal intergroup paradigm, trait personal and collective self-esteem were measured, and subjects received information about the average performance of their group. Subjects high in collective self-esteem varied their ratings of above-average and below-average scorers on the test in an ingroup-enhancing fashion, whereas those low in collective self-esteem did not. Analyses based on personal self-esteem did not show this interaction. We conclude that collective self-esteem is an individual difference variable that may moderate the attempt to maintain a positive social identity. The relation between collective and personal self-esteem is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Large-scale investigation of the role of trait activation theory for understanding assessment center convergent and discriminant validity.

This study used trait activation theory as a theoretical framework to conduct a large-scale test of the interactionist explanation of the convergent and discriminant validity findings obtained in assessment centers. Trait activation theory specifies the conditions in which cross-situationally consistent and inconsistent candidate performances are likely to occur. Results obtained by aggregating correlations across 30 multitrait-multimethod matrices supported the propositions of trait activation theory, shedding a more positive light on the construct validity puzzle in assessment centers. Overall, convergence among assessment center ratings was better between exercises that provided an opportunity to observe behavior related to the same trait, and discrimination among ratings within exercises was generally better for dimensions that were not expressions of the same underlying traits. Implications for assessment center research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Traits as goal-based categories: The importance of goals in the coherence of dispositional categories.

It is argued that goals are central to the meaning and structure of many traits and help define the prototypicality structure of those traits. Partly on the basis of L. W. Barsalou's (1985) work on goal-derived categories, it was predicted that goals help define the judged prototypicality of many trait-related behaviors and the confidence with which people make trait inferences from those behaviors. Consistent with this hypothesis, ratings of the extent to which behaviors achieved the goal associated with a trait strongly predicted the typicality of the behaviors. Furthermore, the rated goal-relatedness of a behavior also strongly predicted the confidence with which people would make a trait inference from that behavior. It is suggested that goals play a major role in the conceptual coherence of traits and other social categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal focus and estimates of consensus: An examination of the false-consensus effect.

Examined one of the underlying mechanisms—people's causal attributions for their own behavior—of the "false-consensus effect" (the tendency to overestimate the commonness of one's own attitudes and behavior). It was hypothesized that when people view their responses as the result of external influences, they overestimate the commonness of those responses; when they see their behavior as stemming from their own personal characteristics or experiences, they make more unbiased estimates of consensus. Study 1 tested this notion by having 109 undergraduates make hypothetical behavioral choices and then manipulating their explanations for their choices. As predicted, Ss who were led to cite personal reasons for their choices made lower consensus estimates than Ss who either were led to cite situational reasons or were unconstrained in their explanations. This causal-focus manipulation also had significant effects on Ss' trait ratings of the kind of person who would choose each alternative. Study 2, with 20 undergraduates, extended these results by finding a significant correlation between the extent to which people perceive a false consensus for various issues and the extent to which those issues prompt situational explanations for one's responses. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal striving differentiation and affective reactivity.

Examined the relation between affective reactivity (intensity and variability of mood) and cognitive differentiation through the personal striving (Emmons, 1986) framework in order to test the hypothesis that affective reactivity underlies differentiation. 88 Ss in 2 samples listed 15 of their personal strivings and rated them with respect to 3 measures of striving differentiation (interdependence, dissimilarity, and plans for accomplishing each). Experience-sampling and daily mood ratings were used to assess affect intensity and affect variability over a 3-week period. Emotionally reactive Ss possessed a more differentiated striving system. However, they generated fewer plans for accomplishing each striving than did less reactive Ss. Results are interpreted in terms of Larsen and Diener's (1987) arousal regulation theory of affect intensity and Linville's (1982, 1985) self-complexity/affect extremity model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)