Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Does Writeing Rite Matter? Effects of Textual Errors on Personality Trait Attributions

  • Published:
Current Psychology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Adult participants (n = 224), mostly undergraduates, were randomly assigned to three major conditions representing three levels of textual errors (none, few, many). They read a text requesting financial assistance, then rated the writer on the Big Five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability), and on three personality domains (Social Evaluation, Intellectual Evaluation, Potency). Finally, they judged the likelihood that the writer’s request would be granted, and gave reasons for their decision. Generally, textual errors created an overall negative impression, which was mainly accounted for by Conscientiousness. However, textual errors did not affect the financial judgments, which were predicted mainly by Conscientiousness and Intellectual Evaluation. Participants who cited writing errors in their reasons for their financial judgment gave a lower rating for the likelihood that the request would be honoured. For those who were more accurate at detecting errors, textual errors created a negative impression on the Big Five traits, accounted for by Conscientiousness, and on the three personality domains, accounted for by Intellectual Evaluation. There was also a negative effect of textual errors on the financial judgment, which was mediated mainly by Intellectual Evaluation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for these suggestions.

References

  • American Psychological Association. (1992). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct. American Psychologist, 47, 1597–1611.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258–290. doi:10.1037/h0055756.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beason, L. (2001). Ethos and error: How business people react to errors. College Composition and Communication, 33–64. doi:10.2307/359061.

  • Boland, J. E., & Queen, R. (2016). If You’re house is still available, send me an email: Personality influences reactions to written errors in email messages. PloS One, 11(3). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149885.

  • Borkenau, P. (1992). Implicit personality theory and the five-factor model. Journal of Personality, 60, 295–327. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1992.tb00975.x.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell, D. F., & Burger, J. M. (1998). Personality characteristics of job applicants and success in screening interviews. Personnel Psychology, 51, 119–136. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1998.tb00718.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chaney, L. H., & Martin, H. S. (2007). The essential guide to business etiquette. Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (1977). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (rev. ed.). New York: Academic Press.

  • Cole, M. S., Feild, H. S., & Stafford, J. O. (2005). Validity of resume reviewers’ inferences concerning applicant personality based on resume evaluation. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 13, 321–324. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2389.2005.00329.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Damhorst, M. L. (1990). In search of a common thread: Classification of information communicated through dress. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 8, 1–12. doi:10.1177/0887302X9000800201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Groot, T., & Gooty, J. (2009). Can nonverbal cues be used to make meaningful personality attributions in employment interviews? Journal of Business and Psychology, 24, 179–192. doi:10.1007/s10869-009-9098-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Vries, R. E. (2011). No evidence for a general factor of personality in the HEXACO personality inventory. Journal of Research in Personality, 34, 229–232. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.12.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeYoung, C. G., Quilty, L. C., Peterson, J. B., & Gray, J. R. (2014). Openness to experience, intellect, and cognitive ability. Journal of Personality Assessment, 96, 46–52. doi:10.1080/00223891.2013.806327.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Figueredo, L., & Varnhagen, C. K. (2005). Didn’t you run the spell checker? Effects of type of spelling error and use of a spell checker on perceptions of the author. Reading Psychology, 26, 441–458. doi:10.1080/02702710500400495.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furnham, A., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Callahan, I. (2003). Does graphology predict personality and intelligence? Individual Differences Research, 1, 78–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gill, A., & Oberlander, J. (2003). Perception of email personality at zero acquaintance: Extraver- sion takes care of itself; Neuroticism is a worry. Proceedings of the 25th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 456–461). Hills- dale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

  • Goldberg, L. R., Johnson, J. A., Eber, H. W., Hogan, R., Ashton, M. C., Cloninger, C. R., & Gough, H. C. (2006). The International personality Item Pool and the future of public-domain personality measures. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 84–96. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Jr, S. (2003). A very brief measure of the big-five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gow, A. J., Whiteman, M. C., Pattie, A., & Deary, I, J, (2005). Goldberg’s ‘IPIP’ big-five factor markers: Internal consistency and concurrent validation in Scotland. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 317–329. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.01.011

  • Graham, L. T., & Gosling, S. D. (2012). Impressions of world of Warcraft players’ personalities based on their usernames: Interobserver consensus but no accuracy. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 599–603. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2012.05.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hancock, J. T., & Dunham, P. J. (2001). Impression formation in computer-mediated communication revisited: An analysis of the breadth and intensity of impressions. Communication Research, 28, 325–347. doi:10.1177/009365001028003004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoover, B. (2013). Good grammar should be everyone’s business. Harvard Business Review: HBR Blog Network https://hbr.org/2013/03/good-grammar-should-be-everyon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huck, G. J. (2015). What is good writing? New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190212957.001.0001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • International Personality Item Pool (2017) A scientific Collaboratory for the development of advanced measures of personality traits and other individual differences (http://Ipip.Ori.Org/). Internet Web Site.

  • Jessmer, S. L., & Anderson, D. (2001). The effect of politeness and grammar on user perceptions of electronic mail. North American Journal of Psychology, 3, 331–346.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kreiner, D. S., Schnakenberg, S. D., Green, A. G., Costello, M. J., & McClin, A. F. (2002). Effects of spelling errors on the perception of writers. Journal of General Psychology, 129, 5–17. doi:10.1080/00221300209602029.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Langlois, J. H., Kalakanis, L., Rubenstein, A. J., Larson, A., Hallam, M., & Smoot, M. (2000). Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 390. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.126.3.390.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mairesse, F., Walker, M. A., Mehl, M. R., & Moore, R. K. (2007). Using linguistic cues for the automatic recognition of personality in conversation and text. Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, 30, 457–500. doi:10.1613/jair.2349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAleer, P., Todorov, A., & Belin, P. (2014). How do you say “hello”? Personality impressions from brief novel voices. PloS One, 9(3), e90779. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090779.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr., P. T. (2008). Empirical and theoretical status of the five-factor model of personality traits. In G. J. Boyle, G. Matthews, & D. H. Saklofske (Eds.), The sage handbook of personality theory and assessment, Personality measurement and testing (Vol. 2, pp. 179–198). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. doi:10.4135/9781849200462.n13.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Mook, D. G. (1983). In defense of external invalidity. American Psychologist, 38, 370–387. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.38.4.379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Musek, J. (2007). A general factor of personality: Evidence for the big one in the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 1214–1233. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2007.02.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 250–256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rushton, J. P., & Irwing, P. (2011). The general factor of personality: Normal and abnormal. In T. Chamorro-Premuzic, S. von Stumm, & A. Furnham (Eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Individual Differences (1 st ed.) (pp. 132–161). Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

  • Stiff, C. (2012). Watch what you write: How errors in feedback influence reputations, spending behaviour, and trust towards buyers and sellers on ecommerce websites. Journal of Internet Commerce, 11, 41–67. doi:10.1080/15332861.2012.650988.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1996). Using multivariate statistics (3rd ed.). New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical conduct for research involving humans. Medical Research Council of Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Ottawa: Ontario Public Works and Government. (1998). Available at: http://pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/Default/ Accessed March 30, 2011.

  • Uleman, J. S., & Kressel, L. M. (2013). A brief history of theory and research on impression formation. In D. Calston (Ed.), Oxford handbook of social cognition (pp. 53–73). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199730018.013.0004.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • van der Linden, D., te Nijenhis, J., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The general factor of personality: A meta-analysis of big five intercorrelations and a criterion-related validity study. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 315–327. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.03.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vazire, S., & Gosling, S. D. (2004). E-perceptions: Personality impressions based on personal websites. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 123. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.1.123

  • Vignovic, J. A., & Thompson, L. F. (2010). Computer-mediated cross-cultural collaboration: Attributing communication errors to the person versus the situation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 265–276. doi:10.1037/a0018628.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Warner, R. M., & Sugarman, D. B. (1986). Attributions of personality based on physical appearance, speech, and handwriting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 792–799. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.50.4.792.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ypofanti, M., Zisi, V., Zourbanos, N., Mouchtouri, B., Tzanne, P., Theodorakis, Y., & Lyrakos, G. (2015). Psychometric properties of the International personality Item Pool big-five personality questionnaire for the Greek population. Health Psychology Research, 3(2206), 41–47. doi:10.4081/hpr.2015.2206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zheng, L., Goldberg, L. R., Zheng, Y., Zhao, Y., Tang, Y., & Liu, L. (2008). Reliability and concurrent validation of the IPIP big-five factor markers in China: Consistencies in factor structure between internet-obtained heterosexual and homosexual samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 649–654. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.07.009.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Concordia University, 7141 Sherbrooke Street West, Montréal, QC, H4B 1R6, Canada

    Elizabeth Morin-Lessard

  2. Department of Psychology, Bishop’s University, 2600 College, Sherbrooke, QC, J1M 1Z7, Canada

    Stuart J. McKelvie

Authors
  1. Elizabeth Morin-Lessard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Stuart J. McKelvie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stuart J. McKelvie.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

This experiment was conducted with human participants. All procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution and of the Canadian Tri-Council Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research involving Human Participants (TCPS2), 1998.

Conflict of Interest

Elizabeth Morin-Lessard declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Stuart J. McKelvie declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Morin-Lessard, E., McKelvie, S.J. Does Writeing Rite Matter? Effects of Textual Errors on Personality Trait Attributions. Curr Psychol 38, 21–32 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9582-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9582-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation