title: Two Different Views on the World Around Us: The World of Uniformity versus Diversity.
abstract: We propose that when individuals believe in fixed traits of personality (entity theorists), they are likely to expect a world of "uniformity." As such, they easily infer a population statistic from a small sample of data with confidence. In contrast, individuals who believe in malleable traits of personality (incremental theorists) are likely to presume a world of "diversity," such that they "hesitate" to infer a population statistic from a similarly sized sample. In four laboratory experiments, we found that compared to incremental theorists, entity theorists estimated a population mean from a sample with a greater level of confidence (Studies 1a and 1b), expected more homogeneity among the entities within a population (Study 2), and perceived an extreme value to be more indicative of an outlier (Study 3). These results suggest that individuals are likely to use their implicit self-theory orientations (entity theory versus incremental theory) to see a population in general as a constitution either of homogeneous or heterogeneous entities.
authors.affiliation: Department of Marketing, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Waco, TX, United States of America.
authors.forename: JaeHwan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0796-3139
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.affiliation: Department of Marketing, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Dhananjay
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nayakankuppam
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D011582:Psychological Theory; D013240:Stereotyping