From personal goals disclosed to personality judgments composed: Trait perceptions made on the basis of idiographic goals

•We examined the consensus, validity, and cues of trait judgments made on the basis of targets' goals.•Targets (N = 409) generated lists of personal goals and rated their traits. Observers were provided with targets' (a) lists of goals, (b) first goals, or (c) fifth goals, and then reported trait judgments of targets.•Observers' perceptions of targets' traits were predicted by the emotional content of targets' goals.•Observer reports made on the basis of targets' list of goals corresponded with targets' self-reported traits, whereas observer reports made on the basis of single goals corresponded with some, but not all, self-reported traits.•These results provide evidence for the fact that idiographic goals contain information relevant to traits. In addition, multiple goals provide a more reliable signal of targets' traits, relative to that of single goals.

Traits and goals represent discrete units of personality. Here, we examined the consensus, validity, and cues of trait judgments made on the basis of targets' goals. Targets (N = 409) generated lists of personal goals and rated their traits. Observers were provided with targets' (a) lists of goals, (b) first goals, or (c) fifth goals, and then reported trait judgments of targets. Perceptions of targets, which were formed on the basis of the emotional content of goals, were largely consistent among observers. Furthermore, observer reports made on the basis of participants' lists of goals converged with self-reports of all traits whereas reports made on the basis of single goals converged with self-reports of certain (e.g., extraversion), but not all, traits.