What’s on your head and what’s in your mind? Personality profiles and the aesthetic and functional profiles of hats

The study investigates the relationship between people’s personality and the types of hats they like and would be willing to wear. The question is of interest for the psychology of personality and aesthetic preferences, empirical aesthetics, and potentially also for marketing studies. 539 Italian adults completed an on-line questionnaire showing black and white images of 34 iconic types of hat (set 1) and 8 types of baseball caps (set 2) one at a time. For each hat, they were asked to rate how much they liked it and how likely it was that they would wear it. The rating referred to a continuous scale ranging from 0 to 100. The order of the two sets and the hats in each set was randomized between participants. The Big Five Inventory-2 was used for personality evaluation. In both sets 1 and 2, significant associations were found between all five personality traits (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) and the preference and willingness to wear ratings. For example, participants who had a high score for Openness reported liking and being willing to wear a particularly wide range of hats. Those who had high scores for Neuroticism (i.e., with greater emotional instability) were willing to wear extravagant hats (such as a fascinator or a turban), but did not rate these as favorites in terms of preferences.

本研究探讨个体性格与其偏好及愿意佩戴的帽子类型之间的关系。此问题对人格心理学、审美偏好、实证美学研究具有重要意义，亦可能对市场营销研究有所裨益。539位意大利成年人参与了一项在线问卷调查，问卷中展示了34种标志性帽子（第一组）和8种棒球帽（第二组）的黑白图像，每种帽子依次呈现。针对每种帽子，受访者被要求对其喜爱程度及佩戴的可能性进行评分，评分采用0至100的连续尺度。两组帽子的顺序以及每组的帽子顺序在参与者之间随机排列。本研究采用了五大人格量表（Big Five Inventory-2）对人格进行评估。在两组数据中，均发现所有五种人格特质（开放性、责任心、外向性、宜人性、神经质）与偏好及愿意佩戴的评分之间存在显著关联。例如，具有较高开放性评分的参与者表示喜欢并愿意佩戴广泛的帽子种类。而神经质评分较高（即情绪稳定性较差）的参与者愿意佩戴华丽帽子（如发饰或头巾），但在偏好方面并未将这些帽子列为首选。