Open AccessSpontaneous Trait Inferences From Behavior: A Systematic Meta-Analysis
Author(s) -
Antonia Bott,
Larissa Brockmann,
Ivo Denneberg,
Espen Henken,
Niclas Kuper,
Felix Kruse,
Juliane Degner
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
personality and social psychology bulletin
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.584
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1552-7433
pISSN - 0146-1672
DOI - 10.1177/01461672221100336
Subject(s) - psychology , trait , meta analysis , moderation , personality psychology , social psychology , debiasing , relevance (law) , cognitive psychology , personality , medicine , computer science , law , programming language , political science
Research suggests that people spontaneously infer traits from behavioral information, thus forming impressions of actors' personalities. Such spontaneous trait inferences (STI) have been examined in a wide range of studies in the last four decades. Here, we provide the first systematic meta-analysis of this vast literature. We included data from k = 86 publications, with overall N = 13,630 participants. The average STI effect was moderate to large ( d z = 0.59) and showed substantial heterogeneity. The type of experimental paradigm significantly moderated the STI effect size, with larger effects in long-term memory-based paradigms compared with working memory-based paradigms. Generally, STI effects were robust to various methodological variations and also to potential concerns of publication bias. Contrary to expectations, cultural background (independent vs. interdependent) did not emerge as a significant moderator of STI effects. We discuss these findings with respect to their theoretical relevance and derive implications for future research and theorizing.