Fairy Tale Situation Test for Implicit Theories of Personality

Yichen Cui,Zengkui Wan,Wentai Gu,Zhenzhong Zhou,Lu Yang,Yonghui Feng,Qi Xia

doi:10.11648/j.ajap.20200906.15

Abstract

When judging others, individuals often unconsciously apply their own special knowledge and personal constructs about human beings, which eventually forms some implicit theories of personality (ITPs). On the basis of different implicit personality theories, these individuals thus divided into two categories: a type of people believe that personality attributes or traits are sequestration, namely entity theorists; another type of people believe that personality attributes or characteristics are gradient, i.e. incremental theorists. Unlike studies that focus on how personality traits interact, implicit personality theory explores people’s beliefs about the fixity and plasticity of personality traits. Based on projective techniques, a fairy tale situation test is developed to explore whether the implicit personality theories of college students have consistency across different personal attributes (such as characteristic or ability), as well as whether entity theory and incremental theory are two dimensions or two poles of the same dimension. The result of the pretest shows that the compiled fairy tale situation test could be a measurement to analyse the universality of implicit personality theory and the structural pattern of its dimension. A formal test separated the implicit personality theories of 120 college students. The results of both the pretest and the formal test indicated that (a) college students had a common and consistent implicit theory across five personal attributes including character, ability, temperament, morality, and emotion and that (b) entity theory and incremental theory were two inverse poles of the same dimension in implicit theories of personality. These results show that Implicit Theories of Personality has the characteristics of two dimensions (entity theory vs. gradient theory).

Highlights

It is generally accepted that individuals apply their own specific knowledge about people in the process of judging others
The judging process is based on knowledge accumulated imperceptibly and organized in the practice of observing people, which is defined as the implicit theories of personality (ITP) [1], instead of through conscious inferences [2, 3]
Spinath et al (2003) developed a scale for implicitpersonality, and special ability [25]. These results indicated that an individual’s ITP on one attribute could largely predict the ITP on another attribute and Yichen Cui et al.: Fairy Tale Situation Test for Implicit Theories of Personality agreed with the universal view of ITP

Summary

Introduction

It is generally accepted that individuals apply their own specific knowledge about people in the process of judging others. The judging process is based on knowledge accumulated imperceptibly and organized in the practice of observing people, which is defined as the implicit theories of personality (ITP) [1], instead of through conscious inferences [2, 3]. ITP is a basic cognitive pattern or a naive theory about human attributes including intelligence, morality, and personality incorporated by lay persons in interpersonal communication [4, 5]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion