Implicit personality theory

Implicit personality theory describes the specific patterns and biases an individual uses when forming impressions based on a limited amount of initial information about an unfamiliar person. While there are parts of the impression formation process that are context-dependent, individuals also tend to exhibit certain tendencies in forming impressions across a variety of situations. There is not one singular implicit personality theory utilized by all; rather, each individual approaches the task of impression formation in his or her own unique way. However, there are some components of implicit personality theories that are consistent across individuals, or within groups of similar individuals. These components are of particular interest to social psychologists because they have the potential to give insight into what impression one person will form of another.

One of the first psychologists to extensively explore the concept of impression formation was Solomon Asch. His research, dating back to the mid-1940s, provided a substantial amount of the initial data explaining factors that affect impression formation. He was particularly interested in the differences between central and peripheral traits. Many of the ideas produced from Asch's experiments are still relevant to the study of impression formation, and have played a significant role in establishing a foundation for modern implicit personality theory research.

One of the most notable characteristics of implicit personality theories is that they are, in fact, implicit. In this context, "implicit" is taken to mean "automatic". It is a common belief that much of the process of social perception actually is automated. For example, it is possible for a person to experience automatic thought processes, and for those processes occur without that person's intention or awareness of their occurrence. In terms of impression formation, this means that an observer may perceive another person's behavior and automatically make trait inferences from that behavior, without being aware that these inferences were being made. The strongest evidence for the implicitness of impression formation comes from observed "savings effects" when trying to learn another person's traits. In a study by Carlston & Skowronski (1994), participants who were exposed to descriptive stimuli containing implied trait information learned the target person's traits more easily than participants who had not been previously exposed to implied trait information. Moreover, this effect could not be accounted for by simple priming mechanisms. The participants exhibited a true savings effect, which suggested that they had gained implicit trait information from the descriptive stimuli.

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