The causality implicit in traits

•Traits are ambiguously descriptions of behaviors or persons, or causes of behaviors.•Past research suggests traits function as causes, when people judge causal relations.•But would this occur if “causality” were not explicit in the instructions.•Lexical decisions were faster for behaviors primed by traits in causal lists.•Results suggest automatic activation of causal relations between traits and behaviors.•Traits’ meanings implicitly include causing behaviors.

Are personality trait concepts merely descriptive of behaviors or do they describe causes? Social psychologists have differing views. Thus we looked at lexical decision response times (RTs) in a list context paradigm, which presents prime–target pairs embedded in lists of different contexts. In lists of associated pairs, traits did not affect RTs to related behaviors. But in lists of causally related pairs, traits primed RTs to behavioral words. Causality was never mentioned, and RTs were short enough to suggest automatic processing. This is consistent with other research on priming thematic relations. It also indicates that traits are implicit causes rather than mere descriptions of behavior, at least among Western participants. This challenges some current formulations in the social psychology of impression formation.