Lay personality knowledge and dispositionist thinking: A knowledge-activation framework

Abstract

We explicate a knowledge-activation framework depicting the link between lay personality knowledge and dispositional judgments, building on work by Dweck, Chiu, and Hong (1995a, 1995b). According to this framework, most people possess knowledge consistent with an entity theory (personality is fixed) and incremental theory (personality is malleable), which operates according to knowledge-activation principles. Consistent with this claim, we find that people render more confident dispositional judgments when their entity knowledge is made relatively more accessible through priming manipulations that activate aspects of their existing knowledge. Findings also illustrate the usefulness of incorporating both specific and general knowledge in our analysis. The present framework enhances and complements the individual-differences approach to the study of person theories prevalent in the literature. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.