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Trait inferences: Sources of validity at zero acquaintance.

1992; American Psychological Association; Volume: 62; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1037/0022-3514.62.4.645

1939-1315

Peter Borkenau, Anette Liebler,

Personality Traits and Psychology

Consensus between self-ratings and stranger ratings of personality traits was investigated. A sample of 100 adults was videotaped while entering and walking through a room, sitting down, looking into the camera, and reading a standard text. The targets then provided self-descriptions on 5 personality factors. A sample of 24 strangers who had never seen the targets before was given 1 of 4 types of information on the targets: (a) sound-film, (b) silent film, (c) still, or (d) audiotape. Strangers rated various physical attributes and 20 traits of each target. Level of information influenced the validity but not the reliability of the stranger ratings, which were most valid for extraversion and conscientiousness. Extraversion covaried most strongly with physical attributes, and implicit theories on the covariation of traits with physical attributes were more accurate for extraversion and conscientiousness than for agreeableness, emotional stability, and culture. If judges indicate their impressions of other people, their judgments usually correlate with the self-reports of the ratees. Moreover, the correlations between self-ratings and ratings by judges tend to be higher the more the judges know about the targets (Cloyd, 1977; Funder & Colvin, 1988; Norman & Goldberg, 1966; Paunonen, 1989). The highest correlations are usually found between self-reports and ratings by spouses. McCrae and Costa (1989) report correlations between self-ratings and spouse ratings from .53 to .60, whereas they report somewhat lower correlations, ranging from .32 to .54, between self-reports and ratings by a single peer. These findings indicate that (a) personality ratings reflect actual attributes of the target persons rather than illusions that exist only in the eye of the beholder, and (b) self-ratings and ratings by others agree more the more that both reflect shared information concerning the targets' personality. Consensus at Zero Acquaintance This raises the question of how much information is required in order that ratings by others possess some validity. We use the term valid to indicate that ratings by strangers or acquaintances correlate substantially with the targets' self-reports. At first glance, this is a curious usage of the idea of validity because self-reports are usually more suspect than observer ratings and are therefore frequently validated against observer ratings. But we have a special case here: Because the observers are strangers, the self-ratings are the more dependable measure of the actual personality of the ratees.