From observations of individual behaviour to social representations of personality: developmental pathways, attribution biases, and limitations of questionnaire methods

Uher, Jana ORCID: 0000-0003-2450-4943, Werner, Christina S. and Gosselt, Karlijn (2013) From observations of individual behaviour to social representations of personality: developmental pathways, attribution biases, and limitations of questionnaire methods. Journal of Research in Personality, 47 (5). pp. 647-667. ISSN 0092-6566

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Abstract

Socio-cognitive abilities to recognise and to represent individual-specificity—even in some nonhuman species—are central to human life. Using a novel philosophy-of-science paradigm, we explored these abilities over 3 years in 6 waves by investigating individual-specific behaviours of 104 crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and the representations that 99 human observers—experts and novices—developed of them. By applying the non-lexical Behavioural Repertoire × Environmental Situations Approach, we generated 18 macaque-specific personality constructs. They were operationalised with behavioural measures to study the macaques and with two rating formats to study the observers’ representations. Analyses of reliability, cross-method coherence, taxonomic structures, associations with demographic factors, and 12–24-month stabilities highlighted essential differences between individual-specific behaviours and pertinent representations, explored developmental pathways of representations, and illuminated attribution biases and limitations of questionnaire methods.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00926...
Additional Information:	© 2013 Elsevier Inc.
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	16 Sep 2015 12:59
Last Modified:	04 Apr 2024 21:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/63580

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