Personality and Product Preferences

1. Personality and Product Preferences MAR 3503 March 27, 2012

2. What does a person’s stuff tell you? • The big questions… • What possessions, preferences, etc., tell you what a person is like? • Do they tell you anything at all? • Why might they be useful?

3. People have beliefs about stuff • …And what it can reveal about a person • People make judgments based on a person’s musical tastes (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2009) • People believe that messy people are lower in A & C but higher in O & N (Harris & Sachau, 2005) • People draw inferences from a person’s appearance and clothing (Bardack & McAndrew, 1985) • People believe that dogs look like their owners (Roy & Christenfeld, 2004) • And so on…

4. People have beliefs about stuff

5. Do dogs look like their owners? • Yes! To some extent… • Participants were asked to try to pair up pictures of dogs and their owners taken at dog parks • Participants did better than chance… • When they judged purebreds • But not when they judged “mutts” • People can choose dogs that look like them

6. Other look-alikes Alpers et al, 2006

7. Look-alikes • Researchers went to a rest stop, and took pictures of 60 drivers and their cars, separately • Participants attempted to match pictures of cars with pictures of owners • 68% of the cars were reliably paired with their owners

8. Implicit egotism • People like to think positively themselves, and do so automatically • These feelings influence them to think positively about things simply associated the self • This happens at a very basic level… • The name letter effect: People like the letters that are in their name more than the letters that are not (same goes for the numbers in their birthdays) • …And for more complicated things, too

9. Implicit egotism • Half P’s “partners” had a code # that was the P’s birthday • How much do you look forward to getting to know the partner? • How much do you think you would like this person?

10. Class data

11. Implicit egotism and brands • People like products whose brand names start with their initials • Stage 1: Implicit egotism (the underlying motive to self-enhance) endows the name letters with positive valence • Stage 2: The positive valence gets endowed to the product attributes themselves

12. Apologizing for initials

13. Flavorology

14. Music preferences • What music do you like to listen to? • Let’s find out!

15. Music preferences

16. Music preferences

17. Music stereotypes • Contemporary religious • Country • Classical • Jazz • Rock • Folk • Blues • Heavy metal • Electronic • Soundtracks • Alternative • Pop • Rap • Soul Most accurate Least accurate

18. Room with a cue • People can make quite accurate inferences about a person’s personality by a brief examination of their personal spaces • Bedrooms • Best at revealing openness, neuroticism and conscientiousness • Offices • Best at revealing openness, not useful for judging agreeableness

19. Cues that people use, whether or not they work Cues that actually work

20. A Field Guide to Bedrooms

21. A Field Guide to Office Spaces

22. Online personality • Three questions about websites (or any item that might convey personality): • 1. Do personal websites convey a coherent message about the owner? (Consensus) • 2. Is the message conveyed by websites accurate? (Accuracy) • 3. Is the message conveyed by websites overly positive? (Impression management) Vazire & Gosling, 2004

23. Online personality • The answers to the questions are… • 1. Consensus: Yes! People do agree on the personality of the owner of a website • 2. Accuracy: Yes! People can be quite accurate at gauging personality from a website—even an individual person is often accurate • Openness is the easiest trait to distinguish • Not due to sex or age stereotypes • 3. Impression management: Yes! People do emphasize more flattering aspects of their personality • Extraversion and agreeableness tend to be enhanced

24. Online personality FFM = Big Five

25. Online personality • Are Facebook profiles accurate? Or do they reflect an idealized self? • They’re accurate! • Actual personality is a much better predictor of profile content than ideal personality • Accuracy is highest for extraversion and openness, lowest for neuroticism Back et al., 2010

26. Where you live Rentfrow et al., 2008

27. Where you live Rentfrow et al., 2008

28. Where you live • Why? Where do these regional differences stem from? Rentfrow et al., 2008

29. Cat People and Dog People

30. What causes what? • The data by nature is correlational • Do personalities cause certain preferences? • Do preferences lead to personalities? • Is there a third factor? • An intervening factor (a moderator)?

31. Can you spot a poseur? • Three categories of personality clues: • Category 1: Easiest to manipulate. These are deliberate signals, where the signal is the goal of the clue. Ex. Bumper stickers • Category 2: In the middle. These are deliberate modifications of your environment, but signaling is not the purpose. Ex. Creating a comfortable living space • Category 3: Hardest to manipulate. These are inadvertent signals, byproducts of our behavior. Ex. Dirty dishes in the sink

32. Controllability of impressions

33. For more information…

34. Summary • People have strong beliefs about what we can read about a person from the things they do and own • Some of these things are actually highly predictive of a person’s true personality • This arises for several reasons • Heritability, choice, etc.

35. Next time… • What are some useful ways to segment a population?