Incorporating if...then...personality signatures in person perception: beyond the person-situation dichotomy.
Three studies investigated conditions in which perceivers view dispositions and situations as interactive, rather than independent, causal forces when making judgments about another's personality. Study 1 showed that perceivers associated 5 common trait terms (e.g., friendly and shy) with characteristic if...then... (if situation a, then the person does x, but if situation b, then the person does y) personality signatures. Study 2 demonstrated that perceivers used information about a target's stable if...then... signature to infer the target's motives and traits; dispositional judgments were mediated by inferences about the target's motivations. Study 3 tested whether perceivers draw on if...then... signatures when making judgments about Big Five trait dimensions. Together, the findings indicate that perceivers take account of person-situation interactions (reflected in if...then... signatures) in everyday explanations of social behavior and personality dispositions. Boundary conditions are also discussed.
Kammrath
Lara K
LK
Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. lkk7@columbia.edu
Mendoza-Denton
Rodolfo
R
Mischel
Walter
W
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D012938:Social Perception; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014825:Vocabulary