Abstract
Popular belief and recent findings suggest that dogs look like their owner - but are such pairs necessarily look-alikes or do we recognize their affiliation based on other information? We asked judges to match automobiles with their owners. They were able to identify the pairs above chance. The correlational analyses of actual information about owners' and automobiles' characteristics and their estimations suggest that stereotypes with respect to external clues about the owner and the automobiles were available to judges. People's appearance and certain characteristics of their possessions apparently carry information beyond physiognomic resemblance and these clues help to make inferences about their affiliation. The different mechanisms that judges might use to make connections between people and their cars are discussed.
References
(2004). Narcissism guides mate selection: Humans mate assortatively, as revealed by facial resemblance, following an algorithm of “self seeking like.rdquo;. Evolutionary Psychology, 2, 177–194
(1987). Furnishing and status attributes: A sociological study of the living room. Environment and Behaviour, 19, 228–249
(1999). Accuracy of judgments of sexual orientation from thin slices of behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 538–547
(1992). Thin slices of expressive behavior as predictors of interpersonal consequences: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 111, 256–274
(1999). Differences between pickup truck and automobile driver-owners. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 31, 67–76
(1982). Developmental recognition of consumption symbolism. Journal of Consumer Research, 9, 4–17
(1982). The eye of the beholder: Individual differences in perceptions of consumption symbolism. Advances in Consumer Research, 9, 523–530
(2002). Talis pater, talis filius: Perceived resemblance and the belief in genetic relatedness. Psychological Science, 13, 213–218
(1999). Vehicles driven by teenagers in four states. Journal of Safety Research, 30, 25–30
(2005). The influence of car and driver stereotypes on attributions of vehicle speed, position on the road, and culpability in a road accident scenario. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 10, 45–62
(1982). Effect of automobile body styles on perceived characteristics of their owners. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 55, 1051–1054
(2002). A room with a cue: Personality judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 379–398
(1968). Perception of self, generalized stereotypes, and brand selection. Journal of Marketing Research, V, 58–63
(1998). The self-concept and image congruence hypothesis: An empirical evaluation in the motor vehicle market. European Journal of Marketing, 32, 1110–1123
(2005). Universal appeals with local specifications. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 14, 14–28
(1992). Consensus at zero acquaintance: Replication, behavioral cues, and stability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 88–97
(2005). Do dogs resemble their owners? A reanalysis of Roy and Christenfeld (2004). Psychological Science, 16, 83–84
(1983). Personality and interior office design: Exploring the accuracy of visitor attributions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68, 541–545
(2005). Self seeks like: Many humans choose their dog pets following rules used for assortative mating. Journal of Ethology, 23, 15–18
(2005). Dogs still do resemble their owners. Psychological Science, 16, 743–744
(2004). Do dogs resemble their owners?. Psychological Science, 15, 361–363
