Personal relevance of traits and things

Abstract

Subjects made self- and other-descriptiveness decisions about various trait adjectives, as well as self- and other-possession decisions for a series of concrete nouns. The self-other difference was significant only for adjectives, and appeared for both decision speed and recognition. For adjectives, the self-other latency difference was more pronounced for individuals high in private self-consciousness, but there was no self-consciousness difference for noun latencies. Individual differences in need for cognition also moderated the self-other latency effect for adjectives, but not for nouns. Neither self-consciousness nor need for cognition significantly moderated self-other differences in recognition, but the two dimensions seemed to affect recognition in different ways. © 1988, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.