Competence over Communion: Implicit Evaluations of Personality Traits During Goal Pursuit

• Authors: Marta Roczniewska , Alina Kolańczyk
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits (75 ms masked presentation). The list of words comprised agentic (e.g. agile) and communal (e.g. trustworthy) traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit.

Keywords

EN

agency; communion; goal pursuit; implicit attitudes; regulatory focus

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 418-425

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2014-12-16

Contributors

author

Marta Roczniewska

• University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty in Sopot, ul. Polna 16/20, 81-745 Sopot

author

Alina Kolańczyk

• University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty in Sopot, ul. Polna 16/20, 81-745 Sopot

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ppb-2014-0051