This series of studies used an experimental paradigm to examine how people interpret and form judgments of personality change over time, and how their perceptions are influenced by the formal assessment methods widely used in research and practice. Participants viewed social stimuli that manipulated changes in the rates of eliciting events a target encountered and the target’s conditional reactions those events. Study 1 illustrated that a popular five-factor measure, the NEO-FFI (McCrae & Costa, 2005), detected changes in overall behaviors, but not context-specific reactions. Individual item analyses revealed that FFI’s items primarily assessed overall behaviors. Using audio stimuli, Study 2a demonstrated that in contrast to the FFI, when asked explicitly, participants were sensitive to changes in the social events the target encountered and partly sensitive to changes in the target’s context-specific reactions. Study 2b demonstrated that participants’ spontaneous descriptions of the target described both overall and context-specific behaviors, elaborating on contextual patterns as their narrative progressed. Building on Study 2a, Study 3 found that higher salience video vignettes increased participants’ sensitivity to changes in the target’s context-specific reactions. Finally, Study 4 aimed to shift participant’s attention towards overall behaviors or conditional reactions, but both groups of participants should good, yet equal sensitivity to the target’s context-specific reactions. Overall, these findings demonstrate that people’s perceptions of behavior are situated, but the extent to which they report on this context-specific information will critically depend on the framing of the assessment format and the salience of the social stimuli they observe.
Hartley, Anselma G.,
"Reconceptualizing the Perception and Assessment of Personality Change"
(2013).
Psychology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0KK9944
