Individual differences in prototypicality judgments about trait categories.

Three studies demonstrated substantial individual differences in prototypicality judgments about trait categories. In Study 1, subjects twice rated instances of four personality trait categories, four concrete object categories, and one definitional category. For all nine categories, agreement between individuals was substantially lower (median r?=?.43) than the retest reliability of individual ratings (median r?=?.86). In Studies 2 and 3, subjects twice rated the prototypicality of characters from the film Twelve Angry Men as instances of seven trait dimensions. Agreement between individuals was again found to be substantially lower (median r?=?.56) than the retest reliability of individual ratings (median r?=?.81). These results may help to explain the unreliability of trait ratings based on examples of behavior (e.g., evaluation of employees or patients) and suggest that individual differences in the perception of prototypicality should be taken into account when comparing cross-situational with temporal consistency of behavior. Most generally, the results suggest a reconsideration of the nature of implicit personality theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)