Personality Judgment at Zero Acquaintance: Agreement, Assumed Similarity, and Implicit Simplicity

Abstract

Previously unacquainted participants (N = 218) were assessed in small-group sessions in which they rated themselves and each other on (a) the Big Five (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992) and (b) an instrument assessing various traits not traditionally measured in the Big Five taxonomy as well as sociopolitical attitudes. Replicating earlier research, we obtained a significant self–stranger correlation on Extraversion; in addition, we found significant agreement on ratings of thriftiness, athleticism, traditionalism, conservatism, and attractiveness. Assumed similarity correlations were substantial for Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness; furthermore, consistent with previous findings, there was a strong inverse relation between agreement and assumed similarity across the assessed characteristics. Finally, the correlations between Neuroticism, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were significantly greater in the strangers' ratings than in the self-ratings, indicating that these peer judgments are less complex. We also compared our Big Five findings with those from previous samples of varying acquaintanceship; these analyses indicated that the strangers' ratings were characterized by lower levels of self–other agreement (for all traits except Extraversion) and somewhat higher levels of assumed similarity (for ratings of Neuroticism and Agreeableness).

Acknowledgments

We thank Anna Nedtwig, Zachary Smith, and Daniel Eldrenkamp for their skillful and diligent assistance in collecting these data. Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by a Ballard Seashore Dissertation Year Fellowship from the University of Iowa Graduate College to Andrew Beer.

Notes

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

¹We must acknowledge, however, that these comparisons are complicated by the fact that we used a different Big Five measure than those employed in Watson et al. (2000); specifically, these participants were assessed using the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) for the married and dating samples and the Big Five Inventory (John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991) for the friendship sample. Mooradian and Nezlek (1996) compared the NEO to Saucier's (1994) “mini-markers” and found the scales to be similar but not identical. Disattenuated convergent correlations between the two sets of scales were all stronger than .70.

^a N = 215.

^b N = 208.

*Indicates t is significant at .05 level.

**Indicates t is significant at .01 level.

²We also included measures of 8 physical attributes in an attempt to determine which cues individuals might be utilizing in their judgments. Only 2 of the 40 self-rating correlations between these attributes and the Big Five exceeded |.20|, and only 1 of the peer-rating correlations was above |.20|. We found a few significant but low correlations; however, controlling for them in a lens-model analysis had a negligible effect on the Extraversion agreement correlation.

³For most analyses in this study, there are two ways to define a peer rating. The first, which we call grouping within judges, refers to the method of averaging each individual judge's ratings of the other group members to form a peer rating index (e.g., in the case of a four-person group, this would involve computing each person's mean ratings of the other three participants). The other, which we call grouping within targets, refers to the method of averaging the ratings of each target made by other group members (continuing the earlier example, this would involve averaging the scores that each person received from the other three participants). In most cases, these estimates will yield similar results, so we simply chose the method that made the most sense psychologically for each analysis.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

*p < .05.

* p < .01.

* p < .01.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.