Social perceivers are most likely to agree in their judgments of which of the following traits?

The path to accurate interpersonal personality assessment is a difficult one, yet many daily interactions require an attempt to traverse it. We may rely on subtle cues presented in the physical appearance of others or we may depend on a secondary source of information, such as another’s statement about the individual in question, to arrive at what we hope is the most accurate assessment of a target individual’s general traits and tendencies. To date, little research has addressed similarities and differences in how information, whether direct or indirect, affects personality judgment early in the person perception process. Although we know that people who are well-acquainted show better agreement than unacquainted individuals, we still have yet to determine the specific mechanisms that give rise to this effect. The current research examines some fundamental issues regarding the role of information and observation in establishing an understanding of another person.

The current study

This study examines the relative contributions of (a) increased exposure to a target and (b) increased information about a target to self-other agreement. First, replicating Borkenau and Liebler (1992), we used a still photo condition in which the participants viewed only a photo of the target and were asked to make global personality judgments. Then, in a second condition, we examined the effect of valid trait information, rather than simple exposure, on agreement by providing relevant

The target pool

Beer and Watson (2008b) conducted a study of stranger ratings in which each participant served as both a judge and a target in a round-robin exercise in which they assessed personality and various physical attributes. In addition, each participant was photographed (making a “neutral” facial expression) and was asked to read a statement while being videotaped. The video segment consisted of the participant walking up to a table, sitting down, and reading verbatim a passage taken from the

Descriptive statistics

Before turning to our formal hypotheses, we briefly examine the descriptive statistics and intercorrelations among the trait ratings to help clarify some of the results reported later. Table 1 provides the means and standard deviations for the Big Five ratings in each condition. There was a general trend towards more favorable self-ratings than peer ratings across all three conditions. Effects were strongest for Agreeableness in every condition (d = 1.47 in the still photo condition, 1.60 in the

Discussion

Personality judgments under conditions of limited acquaintance typically are largely inaccurate (Beer and Watson, 2008b, Watson, 1989). However, the literature suggests that Extraversion can be judged effectively even in such conditions (for a recent example, see Borkenau, Brecke, Mottig, & Paelecke, 2009). Based on these previous findings, we expected that Extraversion would show significant self-other agreement at the lowest levels of acquaintanceship. We aimed to determine what effect, if

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  First, not all personality traits are equally visible to perceivers. For example, studies indicate that personality traits which are more readily associated with distinct behavioral cues, such as extraversion, are more likely to be inferred accurately by perceivers in comparison to other traits (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993; Beer & Watson, 2010; Connelly & Ones, 2010). Second, even for these more visible personality traits, individuals may not necessarily exhibit behavioral cues typically associated with a specific personality trait.

• Why are moderators of self-other agreement difficult to establish?

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  For this reason, we cannot estimate directly assumed similarity, or the extent to which targets were described in a similar way to which judges viewed themselves. Although it is logical to assume that a shortage of information can be compensated for with assumed information (Beer & Watson, 2010; Beer, Watson, & McDade-Montez, 2013; Human & Biesanz, 2011; Kenny & Kashy, 1994; Lee et al., 2009; Paunonen & Kam, 2014; Rogers & Biesanz, 2015), a previous study has shown that assumed knowledge is almost irrelevant in self-other agreement (De Vries, 2010). In the present study, we also demonstrated that the ratio between normativeness and distinctiveness in self-other agreement remained approximately the same for a group of friends, family members, and partners.

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  After accuracy scores were calculated, they were transformed from correlations to z scores using Fisher’s r to z formula. This formula has been used to convert correlational accuracy scores in previous personality judgment studies (e.g., Beer & Watson, 2010). The three Dark Triad measures were scored individually according to their respective scoring requirements before being standardized using z scores and averaged to create an overall Dark Triad composite score.

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