Hasty Generalizations: Traits Do Not Always Predict Behavior

People infer traits from others' behavior, and use past behavior to guide future social decisions. However, the proposed mechanism underlying this process-generalizations from one behavior to another based on trait inferences-has not yet been fully demonstrated. Research in social psychology establishes people form trait inferences from observed behavior, while research in behavioral economics establishes prior behavior influences future decision-making. Here, we combine the literature in both fields to explore the entire process-trait inferences from prior behavior as generalizations that guide future decisions. We explore the generalization process using the primary person perception dimensionstrait warmth and trait competence. Across two studies, an initial group of participants (employees) play a competence based time estimation game and a warmth based charity donations game. A second group of participants (employers) then viewed the behavior of the first group of participants before deciding whether to invest with them in a trust game (warmth) and rock guessing game (competence). This task structure allows for employers to form trait inferences of warmth and competence from prior behavior and test whether these inferences generalize to an unrelated decision-making task.We found thatwhilewarmth behavior led to trait inferences that guided future decisions in both trait domains, competence behavior led to trait inferences that guided future decisions in just the competence domain. These results demonstrate that people do make generalizations from prior behavior that guide future decisions, and suggests a dissociation when generalizing within warmth and competence domains.