Investigating implicit trait theories across cultures

College

Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education

Department/Unit

Counseling and Educational Psychology

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Volume

36

Issue

4

First Page

476

Last Page

496

Publication Date

7-1-2005

Abstract

Implicit trait and contextual theories encompass lay people's beliefs about the longitudinal stability (vs. instability) of traits; the cross-situational consistency (vs. variability) of behavior; the ability to predict (vs. not predict) individuals' behavior from their traits; the ability to infer traits from few behavioral instances (vs. the difficulty of doing so); and the importance of traits in understanding people (vs. the greater importance of contextual factors such as roles and relationships). Implicit trait and contextual beliefs were investigated in two individualistic cultures, the United States and Australia, and two collectivistic cultures, Mexico and the Philippines. Hypotheses based on an integration of trait and cultural psychology perspectives were supported. The structure of implicit beliefs replicated well, and trait beliefs predicted judgments about crosss-ituational consistency of behavior in all four cultures. Implicit trait beliefs were stronger, and implicit contextual beliefs weaker, in the United States as compared to Mexico and the Philippines. © 2005 Sage Publications.

html

Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1177/0022022105275963

Upload File

wf_yes

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS