PSY 239 401 Chapter 6 SLIDES

© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

The Personality PuzzleSixth Edition

by David C. Funder

Chapter 6: Personality Assessment II: Personality

Judgment in Daily Life

Slides created byTera D. LetzringIdaho State University

Objectives

• Discuss why the assessments you make of your personality and that of others are important

• Discuss the criteria that can be used for assessing accuracy

• Discuss the four moderators of accuracy and the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM)

2© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Think About It

• What is your reputation? How does it affect you?

• Do you wish your reputation could be different? How might you change your reputation?

• Think of a time when you made a personality judgment about someone that turned out to be wrong. What was the cause of your mistake?


Consequences of Everyday Judgments of Personality

• Opportunities– Employment, friendships– Examples: shyness, self-assuredness

• Expectancies– Intellectual expectancy effects

• Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968): climate, feedback, input, output

– Social expectancy effects• Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid (1977): self-fulfilling

prophecy4

© 2013 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Consequences of Everyday Judgments of Personality

• Expectancies– Expectancy effects in real life

• Where do expectancies generally come from?• Expectancies are likely to be correct.• Especially strong when held by more than one

important person for a long period of time


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment

• What criteria can be used to assess accuracy?– Answer from constructivism: None, personality is

a social construction.– Answer from critical realism: All information that

might be helpful


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: Criteria for Accuracy

• Same as that for assessing the validity of a test• Convergent validation

– The duck test– Interjudge agreement– Behavioral prediction


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: First Impressions

• Mostly automatic• Some validity based on the face

– Extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience

– Dominant vs. submissive and sexuality– Low vs. high agreeableness and extraversion (and

conscientiousness)


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: First Impressions

• Other visible signs of personality– Extraversion: fashionable dress, stylish haircut,

speaking in a loud voice– Openness: variety of reading material– Conscientiousness: neatness of bedroom– Musical preferences: inventive, imaginative,

tolerant, and liberal; curious, risk-taking, and physically attractive

– Handshakes: extraversion and emotional expressiveness; shyness and anxiety


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: Moderators of Accuracy

• Definition



• The good judge– Early findings: depends on the context or trait;

intelligent and conscientious– Accuracy of men vs. women: mixed findings– For males: extraverted, well-adjusted,

unconcerned with what others think of them



• The good judge– For females: open, wide range of interests, value

independence– High in communion; judge others favorably;

socially skilled, agreeable, and adjusted; attributionally complex, open, positive, expressive, and socially skilled



• The good target: stable and well-organized, psychologically well adjusted, extraverted, agreeable– Related to psychological health and happiness



• The good trait: easy to observe, highly visible– Evidence against the idea that peer judgments are

socially constructed and agreement is based on communication

– Possible evolutionary basis (sociosexuality)



• Good information: amount or quantity– The acquaintanceship effect and a boundary– Affects self-other agreement but not consensus




• Good information: quality– Weak vs. strong situations– Stressful or emotionally arousing situations– Best situation: one that brings out the trait you

want to judge– Thoughts and feelings vs. daily activities– Unstructured vs. structured situations


The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: The Realistic Accuracy Model

• One explanation for how accurate judgment is possible



The Accuracy of Personality Judgment: Implications of RAM

• Accurate personality judgment is difficult.• Moderators of accuracy must be the result of

something that happens at one (or more) of these four stages.

• Accuracy can be improved in four ways.


Think About It

• What does it really mean to be “accurate” about judging someone’s personality? If you think a person is dishonest, and the person thinks he is honest, can this kind of discrepancy ever be resolved? How?


Clicker Question #1

Personality judgments in daily lifea)are much less important than the results of personality tests.b)affect the opportunities that people are given.c)easily reach a high level of accuracy.d)have low accuracy for all judges.


Clicker Question #2Based on the four moderators of accuracy, it can be concluded thata)the good judge must have a specified set of characteristics.b)the trait that is being judged has the most influence on the level of accuracy.c)people who are easily judged tend to have psychological disorders.d)information quality will be high in weak, unstructured, and emotionally arousing situations.


Clicker Question #3

The Realistic Accuracy Modela)is useful for explaining how accurate judgments of personality are possible.b)includes five stages.c)implies that accuracy cannot be improved.d)is unrelated to the four moderators.


Education

PSY 239 401 Chapter 6 SLIDES