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Person memory: A semantic category model of personality traits
Author(s) -
Hampson Sarah E.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1982.tb01784.x
Subject(s) - psychology , trait , big five personality traits , personality , situational ethics , cognitive psychology , big five personality traits and culture , action (physics) , trait theory , cognition , dimension (graph theory) , representation (politics) , social psychology , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , politics , computer science , political science , pure mathematics , law , programming language
A model of the cognitive representation of personality traits is proposed in which traits are regarded as categories which are applied to situation‐specific action units composed of situational, behavioural and motivational attributes. Evidence to support the view that trait categories vary on a dimension of trait‐behaviour associatedness and that instances of trait categories vary in terms of prototypicality is presented. The power of the model to account for previous findings in implicit personality theory, and to resolve the issue of the epistemological status of personality traits, is discussed.