Have you ever heard of a superstitious banana or an honest coffee cup? You might subconsciously characterize these objects in this way if someone was eating a banana while describing their fear of black cats, or drinking coffee while they praised a friend who returned a lost wallet.
Psychologists know that we associate traits with people through a process known as spontaneous trait transference. For example, you might deem a political candidate untrustworthy if he describes his opponent as dishonest. But researchers were divided as to whether trait transference is an automatic process, or the result of "birds of a feather flock together" logic.
Rick Brown, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, maintains that these associations are made with inanimate objects, as well, proving that trait transference is automatic. "We measured associations that the individual might not be able to consciously retrieve," he explains.
