The Research Of Effect Of Actor-Trait Association Of Spontaneous Trait Inferences

Spontaneous trait inferences refer to the cognitive processes in which individuals infer actors personality traits from their behaviors without intention or awareness. It is very important in social interaction and job-hunting interviews. Traditional behavioral experiments are all limited, because these studies indeed proved STIs existing but they only explored general process of STIs, which can’t be used to find the brain and neural mechinisms. Recently social cognitive neuroscience is burgeoning and enormously developing. So it is one of very popular topics to studying the neural correlates of STIs in current social cognitive neuroscience.Does the trait become one of the logical predicates about the actor or is it merely associated with the actor because of their co-occurrence. There are a large amount of experimental evidence to support this two possibilities, but it’s the question that who point to the association of spontaneous trait inferences and it’s still in debate. Theoretically, the previous research on spontaneous trait inferences use more reasoning paradigm to investigate the association, few people using event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to find relevant evidence pointing to problems of the brain.This study combined Behavioral experiments and ERPs technology, to selecte some healthy undergraduates and graduates and use E-prime and Neuroscan’s ERP recording and analyzing systems to study association of spontaneous trait inferences。 Modified false recognition paradigm was used in experiments1and2to Investigate association of spontaneous trait inferences. Experiment3borrowed and modified Bartholow’s stimulus materials(2001,2003). and investigate the association from the perspective of the neural mechanisms.The results were as follows:(1) The reaction time of implicit trait and explicit trait of actors are significantly lower than the others. Result show that actors have more superiority effect of association than others.(2) The reaction time of implicit trait and explicit trait of actors are significantly lower than stationary object. Result show that actors have more superiority effect of association than stationary object.(3) Whether the conditions is a consistent or inconsistent with the conditions under, compared to others, actors Induced greater N100amplitude, P200amplitude and of P300amplitude and longer latency. In this study, the following conclusions based on the above results:Spontaneous trait inferences have superiority effect of association. The study explored association of spontaneous trait inferences using method of behavioral experiments and ERPs, Providing a theoretical and empirical evidence to support the research of spontaneous trait inference. EEG data of normal individuals in ERP experiments will be useful in person inferences of social cognition. In addition, spontaneous trait inference plays an important role in Interpersonal and job candidates.