Those Shoes are so You! : Personality Expressed in Shoes

Abstract

People express their personality traits and attitudes in many ways. People express themselves in the way they speak and carry themselves, what they post on social media, the leisure activities they pursue, the music they prefer, and even the clothes they wear. We aim to determine whether shoes are a systematic form of self-expression. Only one other research team has pursued this question6; in that study, men and women completed a brief (10-item) personality inventory and submitted a photo of the shoes they wear most often. The researchers showed that characteristics of people’s shoes are tied to their gender (more feminine shoes) and income (more expensive shoes), but they found very few links between people’s personality traits and shoe characteristics. In the current study, we extend past research by using a comprehensive personality inventory, asking participants to report on their shoe purchasing and decision-making behaviors, and asking participants to submit a photo of the shoes they think best represents their personality. In this poster, we present the results of analyses designed to test two hypotheses: (1) The shoes that people wear are tied to their personality (e.g., more conscientious people wear cleaner and well-maintained shoes); and (2) People’s shoe-buying and shoe-decision-making behaviors are tied to their personality traits (e.g., more extraverted people own more shoes and spend more money on their shoes).