Journal of Personality and Social Psycholology 1998 Apr;74(4):837-48

Spontaneous trait transference: communicators taken on the qualities they describe in others.*                                                                            .

Skowronski JJ, Carlston DE, Mae L, Crawford MT                                                                   .
Department of Psychology, Ohio State University at Newark 43055, USA.
skowronski.1@osu.edu                              .

Spontaneous trait transference occurs when communicators are perceived as possessing the very traits they describe in others. Study 1 confirmed that communicators become associated with the trait implications of their descriptions of others and that such associations persist over time. Study 2 demonstrated that these associations influence specific trait impressions of communicators. Study 3 suggested that spontaneous trait transference reflects simple associative processes that occur even when there are no logical bases for making inferences. Finally, Study 4 used more naturalistic stimuli and provided additional evidence that the phenomenon reflects mindless associations rather than logical attributions. Together these studies demonstrate that spontaneous trait transference is a reliable phenomenon that plays a previously unrecognized role in social perception and interaction.
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* Reproduced with permission of the APA - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology