Profile Shape Over Trait Content: Evidence for Holistic Heuristics in Personality-Based Collaborator Selection

When selecting collaborators on the basis of personality, do people evaluate candidates trait by trait or respond to holistic profile features? In a preregistered experiment (N = 253), participants selected four-person teams from 19 personality profiles under creative, analytical, or neutral task framings using a conditional logit discrete-choice paradigm. Despite a validated manipulation, the preregistered hypotheses were not supported: task framing did not significantly alter trait weighting or team composition after false discovery rate (FDR) correction. However, exploratory analyses revealed that holistic profile features were the strongest predictors of selection. Within-profile trait variability (OR = 0.23) and distance from an ideal prototype (OR = 0.18) dwarfed individual trait effects. These configural heuristics operated alongside a stable ideal-collaborator prototype anchored by Emotional Stability (OR = 1.78) and pervasive similarity-attraction across all five personality dimensions (ORs = 1.12–1.33). Qualitative data suggested a dissociation: participants reported strategic, task-driven selection while their choices reflected heuristic defaults. These exploratory findings, which require replication, indicate that personality-based collaborator evaluation may be governed by holistic cognitive shortcuts rather than deliberate trait calibration.