Abstract
In a theory-based concept model, the theory is often treated as implicit. In order to specify the conditions under which people prefer to construct categories of family resemblance, thereby explicating such an implicit theory, two experiments of people-sorting tasks were conducted. The first experiment was based on the paradigm of defining family resemblance in terms of independent sets of matching and mismatching values of personality traits. The second explored the idea that inter-property relationships rather than independent personality traits served to organize categories of people. In both studies, participants with low cognitive complexity persisted in sorting people on the basis of family resemblance, while those with high cognitive complexity continued to sort them along a single dimension. The results indicated that choice of sorting strategies, such as family resemblance or dimension, was related to an aspect of the person's implicit personality theory, namely cognitive complexity. Therefore, it was argued, a theory-based concept model and implicit personality theory were closely related.
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