Korean University Students\' beliefs about the essence of psychological traits
AUTHOR : 최유정,송현주
INFORMATION : page. 163~184 / 2009 Vol.16 No.3
ABSTRACT
This study examined whether Korean adults believe psychological traits can be relatively stable, consistent, likely to be present at birth, and biological based. One-hundred college students participated in Study 1 and the other 100 college students participated in Study 2. Overall, the results showed that Korean adults have beliefs that resemble the incremental views regarding traits: which they believe are changeable and are highly influenced by a given environment. The Korean adults exhibited very coherent beliefs about psychological traits. Among the traits analyzed, Korean adults seemed to believe that ‘intelligent,’ ‘slow witted,’ and ‘stubborn’ are more stable traits than other traits, but ‘energetic’ and ‘not good at study’ are more changeable than other traits. This research is an attempt to investigate the nature of Korean adults\' beliefs about psychological traits. The results will provide a foundation for future studies on the development of beliefs about traits.
Key words : traits, essence, social cognition, person perception