Social Styles of Students and Professors: Do Students’ Social Styles Influence Their Preferences for Professors?

Abstract

This article uses Merrill and Reid’s classification of social styles as drivers, analyticals, expressives, and amiables to examine differences between the personalities of different business majors and student choices of favorite professors. Significant differences were found in the social styles of different business majors. Furthermore, one’s major interacted with his or her gender to have a significant effect on the student’s social style. Students relied on cues both inside and outside the classroom to determine a professor’s social style. They were fairly accurate in guessing a professor’s level of assertiveness and responsiveness and, to a lesser extent, a professor’s specific social style. Students’ social styles and specific majors had a significant effect in preferences for specific faculty chosen as “favorites.” Recommendations are included on how marketing professors can develop a classroom persona to minimize personality conflicts in courses containing a mix of business majors.