Exploring the Generalization Process from Past Behavior to Predicting Future Behavior

Substantial evidence in social psychology documents that traits predict behavior. Research in behavioral economics establishes prior behavioral information—the actual behavior of another person in the past—influences future decision making, suggestive of the role of traits in guiding future behavior, but agnostic to the specific psychological mechanism. Yet the entire generalization process from past behavior to predicting future behavior has not been fully explored. Additionally, previous paradigms do not adequately dissociate prediction from explanation, and provide participants with trait information, or rely on participants to generate the appropriate trait. Here, we combine literature and experimental approaches in social psychology and behavioral economics to explore the generalization process from prior behavior that guides future decisions. Across three studies utilizing consequential economic game paradigms and online questionnaires, an initial group of participants (employees) played a time estimation game and a charity donations game before a second group of participants (employers) viewed the behavior of the first group, then decided whether to invest in employees in a trust game and rock guessing game. Although participants infer trait warmth and competence from the behavioral information in the first two games, estimates of normative behavior predicted investment decisions on the warmth-relevant games better than trait inferences. These results dissociate generalizations guided by warmth and competence behavioral information, and question the extent to which traits always serve as heuristics to predict behavior. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s web-site key words person perception; social decision making; trait inferences; norms People somehow predict what others will do after observing their prior behavior. Eighty years of social psychological research argues that trait inferences serve as heuristics— spontaneously generated mental shortcuts—to predict behavior, allowing people to generalize from prior behavior to predict future behavior (for early review, see Paunonen & Jackson, 1985; Pervin, 1985), often at the expense of base-rate normative information (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). However, it may be time to reconsider the extent to which people prefer trait inferences to normative information when making predictions. Prediction and explanation are not different sides of the same coin, and although personality traits may be valuable explanatory devices, people may not actually use them to generalize from one behavior in service of predicting another. This may particularly be the case when the other person’s behavior is consequential for the perceiver. Explanations require understanding abstract concepts, a feature that is unnecessary for prediction (Andrews, 2012). Instead, people may place more weight on a heuristic about the context to guide future interactions, as opposed to a more cognitively complex construct such as a personality trait inference. Stated differently, although personality traits are useful as folk explanatory conceptions, personality trait inferences may not be as useful as normative information when predicting behavior. Traits provide adequate explanation for behavior because they locate the person as the causal agent, holding him or her responsible for initiating the behavior. Therefore, traits are very useful as abstract concepts that allow meaning making of social behavior. Certainly, on aggregate, traits describe or explain people’s behavioral consistency over time (Beck, McCauley, Segal, & Hershey, 1988; Burke, Kraut, & Dworkin, 1984; Emmons & Diener, 1986; Funder & Colvin, 1991; Furr & Funder, 2004; Hettema & Hol, 1998; Koestner, Bernieri, & Zuckerman, 1989; Krahe, 1986; Leikas, Lonnqvist, & Verkasalo, 2012; Lippa & Mash, 1981; Magnusson & Ekehammar, 1978; Moskowitz, 1994; Welbourne, 2001). But traits only correlate with behavior across situations at r=+.30. Empirical results suggest methodological improvements could increase traits’ predictive power if they are used to predict behavior in a specific-enough social context; if the social context from which the trait is inferred (previous context) and the social context that was being predicted (future context) are similar enough, then correlation coefficients rise above the modest mark of +.30, and traits become better predictors (Baird & Lucas, 2011; Hemmelgarn, James, Ladd, & Mitchell, 1995; Magnusson, 1976; Paunonen & Jackson, 1986; Van Mechelen, 2009). However, traits may not be useful for generalizing from single or limited instances of behavior to predict another’s behavior in a less related social context. Traits could only serve as useful tools for prediction if people always behaved according to their traits. However, social psychology repeatedly demonstrates the power of the social context to influence behavior. Therefore, when asked to make predictions about another person’s behavior, people may also take into *Correspondence to: Pieter de la Court Building, 52 Wassennaarseweg, 2223AK, Leiden, Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, J. Behav. Dec. Making (2015) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/bdm.1889 account normative information about the social context to guide their decisions. Additionally, social neuroscience research is beginning to show dissociations in trait inference processing in the brain, suggesting that traits are not a homogeneous category. Most stable, enduring trait inferences activate a reliable pattern of brain activity, including medial prefrontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus, precuneus, and temporoparietal junction (see for review Amodio & Frith, 2006; Frith & Frith, 2001; Van Overwalle, 2009). These cortical brain regions also constitute nodes that contribute to other brain networks underlying cognitive processes such as economic valuation (Lee & Harris, 2013) and cognitive control (Botvinick & Cohen, 2014). However, inferring a person’s trustworthiness depends on the amygdala (Engell, Haxby, & Todorov, 2007; Said, Baron, & Todorov, 2009; Todorov, 2008; Todorov, Baron, & Oosterhof, 2008), a subcortical brain structure implicated in emotional learning, social biases, and vigilance (Whalen & Phelps, 2009). This brain structure receives almost immediate input from primary sensory cortex, whereas the cortical structures receive their information via a different, relatively longer, pathway from primary sensory cortex, via many more synapses (Milner & Goodale, 2008). Supporting evidence comes from research demonstrating that subliminal presentation of untrustworthy faces drives the amygdala (Winston, Strange, O’Doherty, & Dolan, 2002). This suggests dissociation between different types of traits; some of which may require more complex cognitive processing, and others where such processing is unnecessary. Only traits such as trustworthiness are inferences that may serve