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.