Self-gravity: Individuals Struggle to Change their Perceived Personality in a First Impression
Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: People are motivated to change aspects of their personality traits and psychological research seems to document its regular occurrence. Nevertheless, most research has focused on whether people self-report that their personality traits have changed. Personality change is more than self-determined, however: People hope that changes to their personality are visible to others as well. Across seven studies, I therefore investigated whether people’s attempts to change their Big Five personality in a first impression are successful, focusing especially on extraversion. My work demonstrates that (i) individuals’ personality traits remain robustly visible in a first impression regardless of attempts to change, (ii) acting experience does not improve this ability, (iii) individuals’ traits can affect their evaluations more strongly than their attempts to change, and (iv) people attempting to change their personality in a first impression are largely unaware of how others truly judge them. This work therefore suggests that people struggle to control how their traits are perceived by others in a first impression.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Ravin Alaei
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3090678542