Chiu C Y, Hong Y Y, Dweck C S
Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1997 Jul;73(1):19-30. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.73.1.19.
Lay dispositionism refers to lay people's tendency to use traits as the basic unit of analysis in social perception (L. Ross & R. E. Nisbett, 1991). Five studies explored the relation between the practices indicative of lay dispositionism and people's implicit theories about the nature of personal attributes. As predicted, compared with those who believed that personal attributes are malleable (incremental theorists), those who believed in fixed traits (entity theorists) used traits or trait-relevant information to make stronger future behavioral predictions (Studies 1 and 2) and made stronger trait inferences from behavior (Study 3). Moreover, the relation between implicit theories and lay dispositionism was found in both the United States (a more individualistic culture) and Hong Kong (a more collectivistic culture), suggesting this relation to be generalizable across cultures (Study 4). Finally, an experiment in which implicit theories were manipulated provided preliminary evidence for the possible causal role of implicit theories in lay dispositionism (Study 5).
外行本质主义是指外行在社会认知中倾向于将特质作为分析的基本单元（L. 罗斯和R. E. 尼斯比特，1991）。五项研究探讨了表明外行本质主义的行为与人们关于个人特质本质的内隐理论之间的关系。正如所预测的，与那些认为个人特质是可塑的人（渐变论者）相比，那些相信特质固定的人（实体论者）使用特质或与特质相关的信息做出更强的未来行为预测（研究1和2），并从行为中做出更强的特质推断（研究3）。此外，在美国（一种更具个人主义的文化）和香港（一种更具集体主义的文化）都发现了内隐理论与外行本质主义之间的关系，这表明这种关系在不同文化中具有普遍性（研究4）。最后，一项对内隐理论进行操纵的实验为内隐理论在外行本质主义中可能的因果作用提供了初步证据（研究5）。
