Rationality Vs. Accuracy of Social Judgment

Abstract

This research examined the relation between the rationality and accuracy of nonhypothetical personality judgments. Experiment 1 examined the accuracy of subjects' inferences from dispositions to behaviors, ρ(BID), using extensive measures of targets' real-world behavior as criteria. Experiment 2 examined subjects' inferences from dispositions to behaviors and their inverse inferences from behaviors to dispositions, ρ(DIB), testing both the accuracy of these inferences and the degree to which they were consistent with normative principles (Bayes' Theorem). Although Bayesian consistency was modest, subjects' judgments predicted targets' behavior and accurately discriminated between dispositional categories. Subjects' accuracy in predicting real-world behavior depended less on their Bayesian consistency than on simpler measures of conservatism. Our methods illustrate how prescriptive models of inference can be coupled with the descriptive study of accuracy. Our findings illustrate the fact that people's social beliefs can be useful in predicting behavior, even when they violate normative principles.

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