Rich contexts do not always enrich the accuracy of personality judgements

Wall, Helen and J. Taylor, Paul and Dixon, John and Conchie, Stacey and Ellis, David (2013) Rich contexts do not always enrich the accuracy of personality judgements. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49 (6). pp. 1190-1195. ISSN 0022-1031

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Abstract

We test the common assumption that information ‘rich’ contexts lead to more accurate personality judgments than information ‘lean’ contexts. Pairs of unacquainted students rendered judgments of one another's personalities after interacting in one of three, increasingly rich, contexts: Internet ‘chat’, telephone, or face-to-face. Accuracy was assessed by correlating participants' judgments with a measure of targets' personalities that averaged self and informant ratings. As predicted, the visible traits of extraversion and conscientiousness were judged more accurately than the less visible traits of neuroticism and openness. However, judgment accuracy also depended on context. Judgments of extraversion and neuroticism improved as context richness increased (i.e., from Internet ‘chat’ to face-to-face), whereas judgments of conscientiousness and openness improved as context richness decreased (i.e., from face-to-face to Internet ‘chat’). Our findings suggest that context richness shapes not only the availability of personality cues but also the relevance of cues in any given context.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Additional Information:
The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49 (6), 2013, © ELSEVIER.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3312
Subjects:
?? PERSONALITY JUDGMENTTRAIT VISIBILITYACCURACYCONTEXT RICHNESSCUE AVAILABILITYFIRST IMPRESSIONSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYSOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE ??
ID Code:
64755
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
24 May 2013 08:05
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Sep 2023 00:09