Accuracy and bias in newlywed spouses' perceptions of each other's personalities

This study investigated moderators of newlywed spouses' accuracy in judging each other's personality. Spouses in 154 predominantly Hispanic newlywed couples rated their own and their partners' personality traits. Full‐sample results showed significant associations between perceivers' and targets' personality ratings (“truth force”/“tracking accuracy”). Positive directional bias (perceivers' mean trait ratings of targets exceeding targets' self‐ratings) also was evident. Positive directional bias occurred when perceivers had little familiarity with their spouse prior to dating and when perceivers had high self‐esteem. Truth force/tracking accuracy increased with less time spent cohabiting and higher perceiver self‐esteem. Positive associations between perceivers' self‐esteem and ratings of partners on positively valenced traits were reduced when partners had had greater opportunities to observe one another's behaviors.     

Detecting Perceiver Expectancies: The Role of Perceiver Distraction in Spontaneously Triggering Identity Negotiation

To examine whether social interaction processes can trigger naturally-occurring identity negotiation, the current research manipulated perceiver distraction and valence of perceivers' expectations about targets. Nondistracted perceivers corrected their behaviors and impressions for the influence of their expectancies. Distracted perceivers corrected their overt information-gathering behaviors, but appeared to exhibit their biases in subtle ways. Targets detected distracted perceivers' negative expectancies, and showed signs of engaging in identity negotiation processes by behaving contrary to their perceivers' expectancies. The results suggest that distraction may facilitate the emergence of subtle expectancy-biased perceiver behaviors, and may trigger targets to intuitively engage in identity negotiation processes.     

Studying Stereotype Accuracy from an Integrative Social‐Personality Perspective

This article proposes an integrative framework for understanding the accuracy and inaccuracy of stereotypes. Specifically, we highlight research issues and traditions from social and personality psychology that do not often intersect, but which can be mutually informative. Within this framework, the social psychologist's interest in the accuracy of group stereotypes is conceptually much like a personality psychologist's interest in the accuracy with which perceivers can identify types of individuals, for example extraverts. Both fields make use, implicitly or explicitly, of personal attributes and behaviors (cues) in assessing accuracy of beliefs about group or individual traits. By using Brunswik's lens model perspective in combination with concepts from signal detection theory, judgments of stereotypes can be discovered to be accurate or inaccurate depending on how perceivers judge or use the cues. In drawing on research traditions and theoretical frameworks from both social and personality psychology, researchers can go beyond an all‐or‐nothing stance regarding stereotype accuracy to achieve a more nuanced understanding of when, how, and to what extent stereotypes are accurate.     

Communicating Without the Face: Holistic Perception of Emotions of People With Facial Paralysis

People with facial paralysis (FP) report social difficulties, but some attempt to compensate by increasing expressivity in their bodies and voices. We examined perceivers' emotion judgments of videos of people with FP to understand how they interpret the combination of an inexpressive face with an expressive body and voice. Results suggest that perceivers form less favorable impressions of people with severe FP, but compensatory expression is effective in improving impressions. Perceivers seemed to form holistic impressions when rating happiness and possibly sadness. Findings have implications for basic emotion research and social functioning interventions for people with FP.     

Janus‐faced nature of colorblindness: Social dominance orientation moderates the relationship between colorblindness and outgroup attitudes

Colorblindness is a popular diversity ideology promoted as a means to intergroup harmony in ethnically diverse nations. While some research suggests that colorblindness reduces intergroup bias, other work suggests that colorblindness may increase it. The present research utilizes a national sample of European New Zealanders to examine whether the relationship between colorblind endorsement and outgroup attitudes is moderated by perceivers' individual differences in social dominance orientation (SDO). Data revealed that for participants low in SDO, colorblind beliefs predicted more negative attitudes toward ethnic minorities. However, for those high in SDO, colorblind beliefs predicted more positive attitudes toward ethnic minorities. Taken together, these findings suggest that colorblindness is not all good or bad for intergroup relations—instead, its effects may depend on perceivers' own egalitarian sentiments.     

The truth and bias model of judgment

We present a new model for the general study of how the truth and biases affect human judgment. In the truth and bias model, judgments about the world are pulled by 2 primary forces, the truth force and the bias force, and these 2 forces are interrelated. The truth and bias model differentiates force and value, where the force is the strength of the attraction and the value is the location toward which the judgment is attracted. The model also makes a formal theoretical distinction between bias and moderator variables. Two major classes of biases are discussed: biases that are measured with variables (e.g., assumed similarity) and directional bias, which refers to the extent to which judgments are pulled toward 1 end of the judgment continuum. Moderator variables are conceptualized as variables that affect the accuracy and bias forces but that do not affect judgments directly. We illustrate the model with 4 examples. We discuss the theoretical, empirical, methodological, measurement, and design implications of the model.     

The Flexible Correction Model: Bias Correction Guided by Naïve Theories of Bias

Psychological researchers have examined a broad array of biases and shortcomings of social perceivers. Less attention has been paid to how people react when they become concerned about the possibility of bias and attempt to correct or overcome the potential for bias. An early approach was to think of bias correction as “subtracting” information or reactions that are identified as coming from the biasing factor instead of the target. An alternative approach is to conceptualize bias correction as guided by social perceivers' naïve theories or perceptions of the bias at work. The subtraction theories were designed to deal with the assimilative biases typical of early priming experiments, but theory‐based corrections can readily deal with either assimilative or contrastive biases. We describe both types of correction theories, with a focus on the empirical support for theory‐based correction (and especially for the Flexible Correction Model). We also identify future directions for research on theory‐based correction.     

Our Followers Are Lions,Theirs Are Sheep: How Social Identity Shapes Theories About Followership and Social Influence

Two studies examine how self‐categorization theory can be used to refine our understanding of people's implicit theories about followership and social influence. Results from Study 1 show that perceivers regard followers of a group they themselves identify strongly with (rather than not at all) to be more representative of the prototype of effective followers (displaying enthusiasm, industry, good citizenship) and to be less representative of the antiprototype of effective followers (displaying conformity, incompetence, and insubordination). Results are replicated in a second experiment in which we compare the views of those self‐categorizing as either Republican or Democrat responding to followers of the Republican and Democratic Party. Results of Study 2 replicate those of Study 1 and also reveal qualitative differences in the preferred influence strategy for dealing with followers. Specifically, respondents seek to engage in persuasion when trying to change the behavior of ingroup followers, while resorting to coercion when trying to change the behavior of outgroup followers. Our results are the first to provide evidence that perceivers' theories about what followers are like and how they are influenced most effectively are structured by perceivers' identification (and dis‐identification) with the particular groups that leaders are championing.     

Theory-based bias correction in dispositional inference: The fundamental attribution error is dead,long live the correspondence bias

Social psychological research has repeatedly shown that perceivers draw correspondent dispositional inferences from observed behaviour even when this behaviour was highly constrained by situational factors (i.e., the correspondence bias). Even though this phenomenon has been proposed to be multiply determined, the most common explanation is still that perceivers ubiquitously consider situational factors to have little impact on human behaviour (i.e., the fundamental attribution error). The present chapter offers a critical analysis of the available empirical evidence on the correspondence bias from the perspective of theory-based bias correction. It is concluded that the correspondence bias results from a number of different processes associated with the application of perceivers' causal theories about situational influences on human behaviour. However, there is no evidence for the assumption that the correspondence bias is due to causal theories implying that situational factors have little impact on human behaviour. Theoretical and empirical implications are discussed.     

Seeing others through rose-colored glasses: An affiliation goal and positivity bias in implicit trait impressions

People infer traits from other people's behaviors without intention, awareness, or effort, and this spontaneous trait inference (STI) effect has been shown to be robust. The purpose of the present research was to demonstrate the flexibility of STIs despite the ubiquity. Specifically, we examined the effect of an affiliation goal on STI formation and found a positivity bias. In Experiment 1, perceivers with an affiliation goal formed more positive (versus negative) spontaneous trait inferences compared to those without this goal and those who had been primed with semantically positive, affiliation-unrelated words. Experiment 2 provided evidence that this effect was driven by a motivational state by showing that the positivity bias occurs only when a perceiver's goal to affiliate remains unfulfilled. The goal's interaction with trait valence showed focused, goal-relevant bias. These studies are the first to show that STIs form flexibly in response to perceivers' primed social goals supporting the functionality account of STIs in implicit impression formation.     

A Methodological Note on Overestimates of Reaching Distance: Distinguishing Between Perceptual and Analytical Judgments

Previous research has shown that perceivers tend to overestimate whether an object is within reach. This exploratory study examined the hypothesis that this overestimate is a result of transforming what is typically a perception-action process into an analytical, reflective judgment. It was hypothesized that reaching estimates would be more accurate as analytical processes became less implicated in the judgment. The results indicate that when the judgment of reach was the focal task for perceivers, they overestimated their reach; but when the judgments were made a subsidiary part of aprimary task, with perceivers judging how reachable an object was in order to carry out some other task, their estimates of perceived reach were very accurate. These results support the hypothesis and suggest that perception-action prgcesses should be conceptualized as a complex mode of functioning that can operate independently of analytical processes.     

Anchoring,Familiarity, and Confidence in the Detection of Deception

Anchoring in judgments is the tendency for the final judgment to be biased toward the initial estimate through insufficient adjustment. In the context of the detection of deception, it has been used to explain phenomena such as negative absolute leakage and the truthfulness bias. We examined the influence of order of judgment type on attitude ratings, accuracy, and the truthfulness bias. Receivers of communications should tend to anchor their judgments on the sender's attitudinal position if asked to make attitude judgments first and on the sender's behavior if asked to make truthfulness judgments first. The results partly support these predictions. Negative absolute leakage, accuracy, and the truthfulness bias were not significantly different for those who made attitude judgments before truthfulness judgments. However, results show that accuracy decreased as the session continued and there was no difference in the confidence with which truth and deception judgments were made, but there was a positive relation between confidence and truthfulness bias.     

Improving the Accuracy of Group Judgment: A Process Intervention Combining Group Facilitation,Social Judgment Analysis,and Information Technology

Interacting groups fail to make judgments as accurate as those of their most capable members due to problems associated with both interaction processes and cognitive processing. Group process techniques and decision analytic tools have been used with groups to combat these problems. While such techniques and tools do improve the quality of group judgment, they have not enabled groups to make judgments more accurate than those of their most capable members on tasks that evoke a great deal of systematic bias. A new intervention procedure that integrates group facilitation, social judgment analysis, and information technology was developed to overcome more fully the problems typically associated with interaction processes and cognitive processing. The intervention was evaluated by testing the hypothesis that groups using this new procedure can establish judgment policies for cognitive conflict tasks that are more accurate than the ones produced by any of their members. An experiment involving 16 four- and five-member groups was conducted to compare the accuracy of group judgments with the accuracy of the judgments of the most capable group member. A total of 96 participants (48 males and 48 females) completed the individual part of the task; 71 of these participants worked in groups. Results indicated that the process intervention enabled small, interacting groups to perform significantly better than their most capable members on two cognitive conflict tasks (p < .05). The findings suggest that Group Decision Support Systems that integrate facilitation, social judgment analysis, and information technology should be used to improve the accuracy of group judgment.     

Seeing women as objects: The sexual body part recognition bias

Objectification theory suggests that the bodies of women are sometimes reduced to their sexual body parts. As well, an extensive literature in cognitive psychology suggests that global processing underlies person recognition, whereas local processing underlies object recognition. Integrating these literatures, we introduced and tested the sexual body part recognition bias hypothesis that women's (versus men's) bodies would be reduced to their sexual body parts in the minds of perceivers. Specifically, we adopted the parts versus whole body recognition paradigm, which is a robust indicator of local versus global processing. The findings across two experiments showed that women's bodies were reduced to their sexual body parts in perceivers' minds. We also found that local processing contributed to the sexual body part recognition bias, whereas global processing tempered it. Implications for sexual objectification and its underlying processes and motives are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pathways to intercultural accuracy: Social projection processes and core cultural values

The present research examines intercultural accuracy—people's ability to make accurate judgments about outgroup values—and the role of social projection processes. Across four studies, U.S. and British participants showed low overall levels of intercultural accuracy for Chinese students’ individualistic and collectivistic values. In line with recent changes toward individualism in China, we observed different levels of intercultural accuracy, hinging on whether the criterion values of Chinese were assessed before (2001) or after (2015) this shift. Important for the study of social projection, we observed that U.S./British participants projected their values onto the outgroup. Social projection tendency (measured in Study 2 and manipulated in Study 3) was associated with greater intercultural accuracy. The relationship between projection and accuracy also depended on the shifts in individualistic values of Chinese. Important for the study of intergroup relations, accuracy was positively associated with interest in future relationships with the Chinese.     

The effects of domain knowledge on metacomprehension accuracy

In the present research, we examined the relationship between readers’ domain knowledge and their ability to judge their comprehension of novel domain-related material. Participants with varying degrees of baseball knowledge read five texts on baseball-related topics and five texts on non-baseball-related topics, predicted their performance, and completed tests for each text. Baseball knowledge was positively related to absolute accuracy within the baseball domain but was unrelated to relative accuracy within the baseball domain. Also, the readers showed a general underconfidence bias, but the bias was less extreme for higher knowledge readers. The results challenge common assumptions that experts’ metacognitive judgments are less accurate than novices’. Results involving topic familiarity ratings and a no-reading control group suggest that higher knowledge readers are not more likely to ignore text-specific cues in favor of a domain familiarity heuristic, but they do appear to make more effective use of domain familiarity in predicting absolute performance levels.     

The relationship between anti-gay prejudice and the categorization of sexual orientation

A relatively large literature has demonstrated that sexual orientation can be judged accurately from a variety of minimal cues, including facial appearance. Untested in this work, however, is the influence that individual differences in prejudice against gays and lesbians may exert upon perceivers’ judgments. Here, we report the results of a meta-analysis of 23 unpublished studies testing the relationship between anti-gay bias and the categorization of sexual orientation from faces. Aggregating data from multiple measures of bias using a variety of methods in three different countries over a period of 8 years, we found a small but significant negative relationship between accuracy and prejudice that was homogeneous across the samples tested. Thus, individuals reporting higher levels of anti-gay bias appear to be less accurate judges of sexual orientation.     

Patient Distress Undermines the Credibility of Illness Complaints1

Two studies examined the effects of telling lay perceivers about patients' n]onmedical problems. In Study 1, college students rated a male peer's report of a sore throat as less credible and more psychologically caused when these co-occurred with non-medical problems (midterm exams or insomnia), even when diagnostic results for strep throat were positive. In Study 2, perceivers received no diagnostic information, and gender of the stimulus patient was varied systematically. The patient was rated as less credible if insomnia was mentioned in a conversation, regardless of the patient's gender. Nonmedical problems also affected which health advice perceivers gave to the patient. These findings are compared with those of previous research on credibility judgment processes, and implications are traced for lay perceivers' m]ental models of illness.     

Retrospective and prospective metacognitive judgments in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)

A growing body of research suggests that some non-human animals are capable of making accurate metacognitive judgments. In previous studies, non-human animals have made either retrospective or prospective judgments (about how they did on a test or how they will do on a test, respectively). These two types of judgments are dissociable in humans. The current study tested the abilities of two rhesus macaque monkeys to make both retrospective and prospective judgments about their performance on the same memory task. Both monkeys had been trained previously to make retrospective confidence judgments. Both monkeys successfully demonstrated transfer of retrospective metacognitive judgments to the new memory task. Furthermore, both monkeys transferred their retrospective judgments to the prospective task (one, immediately, and one, following the elimination of a response bias). This study is the first to demonstrate both retrospective and prospective monitoring abilities in the same monkeys and on the same task, suggesting a greater level of flexibility in animals’ metacognitive monitoring abilities than has been reported previously.     

Person perception by active versus passive perceivers

Person perception research is dominated by studies of passive perceivers who exert no control over the information they receive. In contrast, perceivers in everyday life can often actively choose the type and quantity of information they receive. In this study, active and yoked passive perceivers formed impressions of individuals based on information from Facebook. Compared to active perceivers, passive perceivers reported greater confidence and ease in their judgments. Passive perceivers exhibited greater confidence (though not greater accuracy) with increased information, but active perceivers did not show this effect, placing a boundary condition on past research. Passive perceivers also liked targets more than active perceivers, a finding that is not explained by valence-dependant sampling by active participants, or by misattribution of fluency or greater sensitivity among passive participants. These provocative findings highlight the need to account for active and interactive processes in person perception rather than continuing to focus on passive perceivers.