Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between the personality trait of social participation and the interior design of subjects' home entertainment areas. In all, 50 men and 41 women enrolled in an MBA Program completed the Social Participation scale from the Jackson Personality Inventory and drew a diagram of their home entertainment areas. Correlations were calculated between Social Participation scores and the number of seats per square foot in the entertainment area (r = .24, p < .05) and Social Participation scores and ratio of chairs to seats in the entertainment area (r = -.23, p < .05). Female respondents showed a significantly stronger r = -.39 than males r = -.06. These general results are interpreted as supporting behavior-setting theory as a mediator in the personality-situation controversy.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Diener, E. , Larsen, R. J. , & Emmons, R. A. (1984). Person × Situation interactions: Choice of situations and congruence response models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 580-592.

Darden, W. R. , & Lumpkin, J. R. (1984). Psychographic and demographic profile of convenience food store users: Why people convenience shop. Review of Business and Economic Research, 19, 68-80.

Gormly, J. (1983). Predicting behavior from personality trait scores. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 267-270.

Jackson, D. N. (1977). Reliability of the Jackson Personality Inventory. Psychological Reports, 40, 613-614.

McElroy, J. C. , Morrow, P. W. , & Ackerman, R. J. (1983). Personality and interior office design: Exploring the accuracy of visitor attributions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68, 541-544.

Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: John Wiley.

Monson, T. C. , Hesley, J. W. , & Chernick, L. (1982). Specifying when personality traits can and cannot predict behavior: An alternative to abandoning the attempt to predict single-act criteria. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 385-399.

Pervin, L. A. (1985). Personality: Current controversies, issues, and directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 36, 83-114.

10.

Snyder, M. , & Gangestad, S. (1982). Choosing social situations: Two investigations of self-monitoring processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 123-135.

Personality Traits Expressed

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References