Attention, extraversion, and

stimulus-personality congruence 1

PAUL BAKAN, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSlTY BRUCE T. LECKART, OHIO UNIVERSITY

In this study Ss classified as extraverts, ambiverts or in­ dimension. Time spent looking at the pictures was troverts on the Mauds ley Persona lity Inventory looked at studied as a function of the extraversion-introversion photographs rated as extravert, ambivert, or introvert for as level of Ss, Itwas predictedthatSs would look relatively long as they wished. It was hypothesized that there would be longer at pictures congruent with their extraversion­ a tendency for Ss to look relatively longer at pictures con­ introversion status. gruent with their personality characteristic. Support for this hypothesis was found in a significant picture by personality Method interaction. Extraverts clearly looked longer at extravert pic­ Subjects. Sixty ss, 30 male and 30 female, were tures and introverts showed a very slight preference for intro­ selected from an introductory psychology course on the vert pictures. Ambivert pictures were looked at the longest basis of scores on the extraversion scale of the Mauds­ by all groups. Thishigh looking time for ambivert pictures and ley Personality Inventory. Ss were unaware of the basis the small difference between the looking time at extravert and for their selection. Selection of Ss was from the top, introvert pictures by introvert Ss is explained in terms of middle, and bottom 15% of the distribution of extra­ version scores resulting in six sub-groups as shown in greater complexity of the ambivert and extravert pictures used Table 1. in this experiment. Apparatus. Stimuli were black and white photographs An important problem in the area of attentional from national magazines, mounted on white 3x5 cards, behavior is the study of determinants of individual enclosed in clear plastic. The cards were stacked face differences in the stimuli attended to. Given the same down in a black wooden holder, so that S could remove set of potential stimuli, different individuals may dif­ one card at a time for viewing. A small rectangular ferentially select from them to constitute a set of cardboard box was provided into which S placed the effective stimuli. As William James has said, "my pictures after looking at them. experience is what I agree to attend to" (James, 1890, A total of 42 pictures was selectedby the experiment­ p.402). ers to cover the range of extraversion-introversion. The problem of individual differences in attention or For example, a picture of a group of people at a party stimulus selection may be approached by studying the was considered an extravert picture; a pictureofa man interaction between personality variables and stimulus reading a book was considered an introvert picture; a variables. McReynolds (1963) for example has shown a picture of a group of people workingin a laboratory was relationship between schizophrenic withdrawal and considered an ambivert picture. There was at leastone attention to novel stimuli. Zamansky (1956, 1958) has person in all but one of the pictures. The pictures ap­ shown relationships between both homosexuality and peared in an apparently random order subject to the paranoia and attention to picturesof females. Christian­ restrictions that no three successive pictures of one sen (1961) has shown a relationship between hetero­ type should occur together, and thatpicturesof one type sexual interpersonal contacts of psychiatric patients should not cluster in any part of the series. and attention to pictures with heterosexual content. Looking time for each picture was measured by a The present study was designed to testthe hypothesis continuously running stopwatch. The watch was not that normal Ss will tend to select or attend to stimuli visible or audible to Sand Ss were not told that their which are congruent with their personality characteris­ looking time was being measured. tics. The time spent looking at a stimulus in a free Procedure. Ss sat individually at a table on which was looking task is used as a measure of attention. Three placed the stack of pictures and the discard box. E sat groups of Ss varying on the dimension of extraversion­ at a second desk at a right angle to and behind S, out of introversion were allowed to look freely at a set of his line of vision. S was instructed to look at the pic­ pictures judged to varyon the extraversion-introversion tures one at a time, viewing each one for as long as he Table 1. Mean Extraversion Scores wanted. He was instructed to discard each picture in the box provided before picking up the riextone. He was Male Female told that the experiment was not a test of memory and Extravert 39.2 39.5 that he would not be askedto recallor answer questions Ambivert 28.9 29.2 about any of the pictures. However, he was told that Introvert 12.7 12.1 there was a second part to the experiment. This second

Perception & Psychophysics, 1966, Vol. 1 Copyright 1966, psychonomic Press, Goleta,Calif· 355 Table 2. Mean Looking Time in Seconds Discussion The results of this study supportthe general hypothe­ Personality Sex Extravert Ambivert Introvert sis that Ss will spend more time looking at stimuli

Extravert Male 8.08 8.59 6.97 congruent with their personality. The relation between Female 5.48 5.81 4.55 a personality trait and attention or stimulus selection Total 6.78 7.20 5.76 suggests that a trait may be conceivedof as a relatively Ambivert Male 5.94 6.00 5.67 permanent readiness to respond selectively to stimuli Female 9.59 10.03 8.49 congruent with the trait. Total 7.76 8.01 7.08 The results of the experiment raise a number of 8.21 Introvert Male 8.59 9.04 questions, however. First, why were ambivert pictures Female 6.46 7.36 6.92 Total 7.53 8.20 7.56 looked at longest by all groups? Second, why did ambi­ vert Ss prefer extravert pictures to introvertpictures? Third, why was there so little difference for introvert part consisted of sorting the pictures into two, not Ss in their looking time at introvert and extravert necessarily equal, piles. Ss were instructed to place all pictures? of the pictures they thought were extravertinto one pile lnspection of the pictures classified as extravert, and all of the pictures they thought were introvert in ambivert, and introvert suggesteda possible explanation the other pile. The second part was administered of these findings. It turns out that ambivert pictures, immediately after S finished looking at the pictures. on the average, had more people in them than either On the basis of Ss classifications of the pictures, the extravert or introvertpictures (medianof sevenpeople) . pictures were classified into three groups of 14 each, Extravert pictures had a median of two people in them an extravert group, an ambivert group, and an introvert and most of the introvert pictures had only one person. group. The classification of the pictures was essentially It seems that with the particular set of pictures used, the same for all three groups of Ss and was in agree­ extraversion-introversion and number of people were ment with a classification made by the experimenters. confounded or correlated. It is likely also that the more people in the picture, the greater is its complexity. Results Since complexity of stimuli has been shown to be posi­ The mean looking time by groups and pictures is I. tively related to looking time (Berlyne, 1958, 1963; presented in Table 2. Analysis of variance applied to Leckart & Bakan, 1965) it is assumedthatpicture com­ this data showed significant effects for pictures, F= plexity was influencing the results of this experiment. 26.5, df= 2/104,p< .01, Picturesby Personality F= 29.1, This analysis helps to answer the question raised df=4/104, p< .01, and Sex by Personality, F=3.8, about the results of the experiment. The ambivert pic­ df = 2/54, P< .05. The pictures effectwas due to different tures, since they were the most complex were looked looking times elicited by the different kinds of pictures. at the longest by all subject groups. The fact that ambi­ The looking time for ambivertpictures was considerably vert Ss looked longeratextravertpictures than at intro­ longer than for either extravert or introvert pictures; vert pictures follows from the greater complexityof the this was true for all three subject groups. A possible extravert pictures. Finally, the small difference in explanation of this result will be considered' below. PIC TURE TYPE The significant (p < .05) interaction between Person­ INTROVERT ality and Sex is due to a tendency for Ss in the ambivert AMBIVERT female group to have longer looldngtimes than Ss in the w 9 EXTRAVERT a: ambivert male group; an opposite tendency was found :> in the introvert and extravert groups. No reason for f- ~ 8 ,,------this interaction is apparent. a, Most interesting in view of the hypothesis that led to this study is the significant Personality by Picture interaction, illustrated in Fig. 1. For the extraverts there is a distinct preference for extravert over introvert pictures; for the introverts there is a very slight preference for introvert over extravert pictures. lntroverts spend almost as much time looking at extravert pictures as they do looking at introvert pictures. Though Ss in the ambivert group look longer at extravert pictures than they do at intro­ EXTRAVERT AMBIVERT INTROVERT vert pictures, theyare intermediatebetweenthe extreme PERSONALITY TYPE groups in terms of the discrepancy between time spent looking at extravert and introvert pictures. Fig. 1. Looking time as a function of personality and picture type.

356 Perception & Psychopbysics, 1966, Vol. 1 looking time between extravert and introvert pictures. Psychol., 1963, 17, 274-290. which was found for introvertSs, could also be explained Christiansen, K. C. Response duration as a measure of ambivalent in terms of a relatively inflated looking time elicited response tendencies. J. PeTS., 1961, 29, 115-123. James, William, The principles oj psychology. London: Macmillan, by extravert pictures due to their higher complexity. 1890, Vol. 1. Despite the likely confounding of complexity with Leckart, Bruce T., & Bakan, Paul. Complexity judgments of photo­ extraversion-introversion in the pictures, there was graphs and looking time. Percetx. mot. Skills. 1965, 21, 16-18. still enough difference in the looking behavior of the McReynolds, P. Reactions to novel and familiar stimuli as a func­ tion of schizophrenic withdrawal. Percept. mot. Skills, 1963, subject groups to yield the significant Personality by 16, 847-850. Picture interaction which supports the hypothesis re­ Zaman sky. H. S. A technique for assessing homosexual tendencies. lating attention and stimulus-personality congruence. J. Pers., 1956, 24, 436... 448.

Zamansky I H. S. An 'investigation of the psychoanalytic theory of paranoid delusions. J. Pers., 1958, 26, 410-425. References NOle Berlyne, D. E. The influence of complexity and novelty in visual 1. This research was in part supported by Public Health Fellowship figures on orie nting resjn ns es. J. ex»..P sy cho1., 1958, 55, 289~ 1-F1-MH..21, 559-{)1 awarded the junior author by the National 296. Institute of Mental Health. Berlyne, D. E. Complexity and incongruity variables as determi­ nants of exploratory choice and evaluative ratings. Catuui. J. (Accepted JOT publication, August 15, 1966.)

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