Personality as Performance: Categorization Tendencies and Their Correlates

Author: Robinson M.D.

Source: Current Directions in Psychological Science, Volume 13, Number 3, June 2004 , pp. 127-129(3)

Buy & download fulltext article:

The full text article is not available for purchase.

The publisher only permits individual articles to be downloaded by subscribers.

Abstract:

As people seek to understand events within the world, they develop habitual tendencies related to categorization. Such tendencies can be measured by tasks that determine the relative ease or difficulty a person has in making a given distinction (e.g., between threatening and nonthreatening events). Researchers have sought to determine how categorization tendencies relate to personality traits on the one hand and emotional outcomes on the other. The results indicate that traits and categorization tendencies are distinct manifestations of personality. However, they often interact with each other. Three distinct interactive patterns are described. Categorization clearly does play a role in personality functioning, but its role goes beyond assimilation effects on behavior and experience.

Keywords: categorization; personality; emotion; affect; cognition

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00290.x

Affiliations: 1: North Dakota State University

Publication date: 2004-06-01