Following the fast spread of Covid-19 across Europe and North America in March 2020, many people started stockpiling commodities like toilet paper. Despite the high relevance for public authorities to adequately address stockpiling behavior, empirical studies on the psychological underpinnings of toilet paper stockpiling are still scarce. In this study, we investigated the relation between personality traits, perceived threat of Covid-19, and stockpiling of toilet paper in an online survey (N = 996) across 22 countries. Results suggest that people who felt more threatened by Covid-19 stockpiled more toilet paper. Further, a predisposition towards Emotionality predicted the perceived threat of Covid-19 and affected stockpiling behavior indirectly. Finally, Conscientiousness was related to toilet paper stockpiling, such that individuals higher in Conscientiousness tended to stockpile more toilet paper. These results emphasize the importance of clear communication by public authorities acknowledging anxiety and, at the same time, transmitting a sense of control.

When judging others’ personalities, perceivers differ in their general judgment tendencies. These perceiver effects partly reflect a response bias but are also stable and psychologically important individual differences. However, current insights into the basic structure of perceiver effects are ambiguous with previous research pointing to either a unidimensional structure (i.e., people see others as globally positive vs. negative) or a multidimensional structure (i.e., people see others as high or low on specific traits). Here we provide a large scale investigation of the structure of perceiver effects that spans more than 100,000 personality judgments across 10 studies in which a total of N = 2,199 perceivers judged others on several trait domains (i.e., the Big Five, agency & communion) and in different judgment contexts (i.e., level of involvement with targets, level of exposure to targets). Results suggest that perceiver effects are hierarchically structured such that they reflect both a global tendency to view others positively versus negativity and specific tendencies to view others as high or low with respect to trait content. The relative importance of these components varied considerably across trait domains and judgment contexts: Perceiver effects were more specific for traits higher in observability and lower in evaluativeness and in context with less personal involvement and higher exposure to targets. Overall, results provide strong evidence for the hierarchical structure of perceiver effects and suggest that their meaning systematically varies depending on trait domain and possibly the judgment context. Implications for theory and assessment are discussed.

Whenever groups form, members readily and intuitively judge each other’s agentic characteristics (e.g., self-confidence or assertiveness). We tested the hypothesis that perceiving others as low in these characteristics triggers agentic interpersonal behavior among perceivers, which benefits their own reputation in terms of agency. We analyzed data from a longitudinal field study (Study 1, n = 109), a multiwave laboratory study (Study 2, n = 311), and a preregistered experimental laboratory study (Study 3, n = 206). In Study 1, low other-perceptions of agency predicted agentic reputations at zero acquaintance and the reception of leadership nominations later in time. In Study 2, low other-perceptions of agency predicted within-person increases in agentic reputations over time. In both studies, effects of other-perceptions on reputations were mediated by hostile-dominant interpersonal behaviors. In Study 3, experimentally induced low other-perceptions of agency did not predict hostile-dominant behavior, which calls for more research on the proposed mechanism. By emphasizing the role of other-perceptions, the current research provides a new perspective on reputation formation and leadership emergence.

Person judgments reflect perceiver effects: differences in how perceivers judge the average person. The factorial structure of such effects is still discussed. We present a large-scale, preregistered replication study using over 1 million person judgments (different groups of 200 perceivers judged 200 targets in one of 20 situations, using 30 personality items). Results unanimously favored a model comprising three systematic components: acquiescence (endorsing all items more than other perceivers), positivity (endorsing positive over negative items), and trait specificity (endorsing items reflecting a specific trait more). The latter two factors each accounted for approximately a quarter of the variance in perceiver effects, and acquiescence accounted for less than 10%. Positivity was more influential for evaluative items and was strongly associated with how likable perceivers found their targets to be ( r = .55). With considerable statistical power and generalizability, our findings significantly improve the knowledge base regarding the structure of perceiver effects.

How positively or negatively people generally view others is key for understanding personality, social behavior, and psychopathology. Previous research has measured generalized other-perceptions by relying on either explicit self-reports or judgments made in group settings. With the current research, we overcome the limitations of these past approaches by introducing a novel measurement instrument for generalized other-perceptions: the Online-Tool for Assessing Perceiver Effects (O-TAPE). By assessing perceivers’ first impressions of a standardized set of target people displayed in social network profiles or short video sequences, the O-TAPE captures individual differences in the positivity of other-perceptions. In Study 1 ( n = 219), the instrument demonstrated good psychometric properties and correlations with related constructs. Study 2 ( n = 142) replicated these findings and also showed that the O-TAPE predicted other-perceptions in a naturalistic group setting. Study 3 ( n = 200) refined the nomological network of the construct and demonstrated that the O-TAPE is invulnerable to effects of social desirability.