Some people heed advice less than others: Agency (but not communion) predicts advice taking

Across three studies (total N = 793), we investigated the link between two fundamental dimensions of personality, agency and communion, and advice taking in quantity estimation tasks. We complemented the analyses of the individual studies with meta-analyses across all three studies in order to gain insight into the robustness of our core results. In line with our expectations, agency was associated with less advice taking, and this effect was mediated by individuals’ perceptions of their own competence. Contrary to what we expected, we did not find consistent evidence that communion systematically relates to advice taking. Analyses of judges’ initial accuracy further suggested that agentic judges’ lower willingness to heed advice was justified by greater initial accuracy as compared with their less agentic peers. Our data, thus, provide evidence of individual differences in advice taking and shed some light on the question which individuals are more inclined to heed advice than others.

OSF link containing data, code for analyses, and the preregistration for Study 3: <a href="https://osf.io/5qcre">https://osf.io/5qcre</a>