Watch-wearing as a marker of conscientiousness.

David A Ellis,Rob Jenkins

doi:10.7717/peerj.1210

Abstract

Several aspects of an individual’s appearance have been shown to predict personality and related behaviour. While some of these cues are grounded in biology (e.g., the human face), other aspects of a person’s appearance can be actively controlled (e.g., clothing). In this paper, we consider a common fashion accessory, the wristwatch. In an exploratory sample (N > 100) and a confirmatory sample (N > 600), we compared big-five personality traits between individuals who do or do not regularly wear a standard wristwatch. Significantly higher levels of conscientiousness were observed in participants who wore a watch. In a third study (N = 85), watch wearers arrived significantly earlier to appointments in comparison to controls. These results are discussed in relation to enclothed cognition and the rise of wearable technology including smartwatches.

Highlights

Observers routinely make rapid inferences about personality based on aspects of personal appearance across a variety of contexts (Wall et al, 2013)
Watch wearers behave in way that is consistent with higher levels of conscientiousness by arriving at an appointment earlier than non-watch wearers
While personality has previously been linked to time perception (e.g., Rammsayer, 1997), this is the first study to link personality with the absence or presence of an everyday time cue

Summary

Introduction

Observers routinely make rapid inferences about personality based on aspects of personal appearance across a variety of contexts (Wall et al, 2013). Inferences are often based on information revealed through cues from the face, body, or voice. Aspects of personality extracted from brief snippets of novel voices are remarkably consistent between participants (McAleer, Todorov & Belin, 2014). People with broad faces are consistently rated as aggressive (Carre & McCormick, 2008). A second related branch of research concerns other aspects of an individuals’ appearance that can actively be controlled and a variety of specific inferential links have been observed between particular ‘features’ of clothing and components of character. Participants who wear glasses were rated as less extraverted and less open to experience (Borkenau, 1991; Hellstrom & Tekle, 2006) while the presence of tattoos are associated with lower levels of conscientious and higher levels of extraversion (Swami, 2012)

Methods

Results

Conclusion