Expression and Judgement of Personality in Everyday Contexts

人们不断地对自己发表声明。在自我表达的服务中，可以调动广泛的媒体，从人们听的音乐和穿的衣服，到他们装饰卧室和办公室的方式。例如，一个人选择挂在墙上的照片，她选择阅读的书籍，以及她安排生活空间中物品的方式都暴露了她的个性和价值观。自我表达的普遍性表明它具有重要的功能。但这个功能是什么呢？先前的研究表明，了解自我表达的原因和后果将有助于揭示成功的社会和心理功能的过程。例如，自我验证理论（Swann，1997）表明，当别人看待他们时，人们会快乐，健康，并享受满意的关系;个人可能会使用物理环境，服装和音乐来表达自己，以让别人看到他们，因为他们看到自己。此外，某些形式的自我表达可以作为群体归属的标志，使个人能够融入社会群体并向他人传达有关自己的信息，最终促进联系感和幸福感。使用新的和既定的方法，三项研究将扩展我们的研究范式从物理（例如，办公室）和虚拟（例如，网站）环境中的三个新的背景下，个性的表达和感知。这些研究将分析个人的音乐偏好（研究1）、服装和发型等外观元素（研究2）以及日常语言特征（研究3）所传达的信息。为了使我们能够比较不同背景下的研究结果，这些研究将采用平行程序。在每一项研究中，目标将提供关于他们自己的信息（例如，音乐偏好），这将作为刺激，法官将从中形成对目标的印象。评委的印象将与从目标本身获得的目标真实情况的测量结果以及目标朋友的线人评级进行比较。对刺激的分析将揭示哪些线索被法官用来形成印象，哪些线索是目标真正喜欢的有效指标。最终，本文提出的研究将作为一系列实验室和现场实验研究的基础，研究自我表达的原因和后果。例如，生活在监狱和养老院等压制自我表达的机构中会产生什么样的社会和健康后果？

Individuals are constantly making statements about themselves. A broad range of media can be mobilized in the service of self-expression, ranging from the music people listen and the clothes they wear, to the ways they decorate their bedrooms and offices. For example, the pictures a person selects to hang on walls, the books she chooses to read, and the way she arranges the items that fill her living space all betray aspects of her personality and values. The ubiquity of self-expression suggests that it serves an important function. But what is that function? Previous research indicates that understanding the causes and consequences of self-expression will shed light on processes underlying successful social and psychological functioning. For example, self-verification theory (Swann, 1997) suggests that people will be happy, healthy, and enjoy satisfactory relationships when others view them as they view themselves; individuals may use physical environments, clothing, and music to make expressions about themselves in the service of getting others to see them as they see themselves. In addition, some forms of self-expression can serve as marks of group affiliation, allowing individuals to fit in with social groups and convey information about themselves to others, ultimately promoting feelings of connectedness and well-being. Using new and established methodologies, three studies will extend our research paradigm from physical (e.g., offices) and virtual (e.g., websites) environments to three new contexts in which personality is expressed and perceived. The studies will examine the information conveyed by individuals' music preferences (Study 1), elements of appearance such as clothing and hairstyle (Study 2), and features of everyday language (Study 3). To permit us to compare the findings across contexts, these studies will adopt parallel procedures. In each of the studies, targets will provide information about themselves (e.g., music preferences) that will serve as the stimuli from which judges will form impressions about the targets. The judges' impressions will be compared with measures of what the targets are really like obtained from the targets themselves and informant ratings from the targets' friends. Analyses of the stimuli will reveal which cues are used by judges to form impressions and which cues are valid indicators of what the targets are really like. Ultimately the studies proposed here will serve as the foundation for a series of experimental studies in the laboratory and field, examining the causes and consequences of self expression. For example, what are the social and health consequences of living in institutions, such as prisons and retirement homes, that suppress self-expression?