The Effect of Information Quantity on Distinctive Accuracy and Normativity of Personality Trait Judgments

Abstract

Information quantity is an important moderator of personality judgment accuracy. Some evidence suggests that the amount of available information is positively related to accuracy. The current study utilized the social accuracy model to investigate the effects of differences in thin slices of information quantity on the distinctive accuracy and normativity of personality trait judgments. It was hypothesized that distinctive accuracy and normativity would increase as information quantity increased. Participants were 431 individuals who participated in an online study that varied the length of stimulus target observations (30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes), after which judges rated targets using other-report measures of the Big Five personality traits. For all traits combined, significant levels of accuracy were found for all observation lengths, but distinctive accuracy and normativity did not increase as video length increased. Findings varied for individual traits. For distinctive accuracy, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Extraversion and a non-linear relationship for Conscientiousness, while there was a linear decrease for Openness. For normativity, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Agreeableness and a non-linear relationship for Conscientiousness. There are important differences in how observation length affects distinctive accuracy and normativity for different personality traits.

Capturing Behavior in Small Doses: A Review of Comparative Research in Evaluating Thin Slices for Behavioral Measurement

“…There was a gain in accuracy in going from 60 to 300 s, but it was not substantive. Similar results were found in a study comparing 30-s, 1-, 3-, and 5-min slices in accurately perceiving personality traits (Krzyzaniak et al, 2019 ). When analyzing all traits combined, accuracy (referred to as distinctive accuracy within the study) did not improve with longer slice length, but there was notable exceptions within specific traits, suggesting that appropriate slice lengths depend on the construct being measured.…”

“…The idea is that the slice is representative of a target's behavior throughout the interaction and/or that the slice may reveal or predict a target's internal states, personality, or other social attributes. In this article, we review comparative thin-slice research involving dynamic stimuli 1 , which typically involves comparisons about different slice lengths (Murphy, 2005 ; Murphy et al, 2015 ; Krzyzaniak et al, 2019 ), as well as examination of slice locations (Carney et al, 2007 ; Fowler et al, 2009 ; Wang et al, 2020 ).…”

Accuracy in Judging Others’ Personalities: The Role of Emotion Recognition, Emotion Understanding, and Trait Emotional Intelligence

“…Second, if video clips are used, an appropriate setting in which the targets are presented must be chosen. Previous studies have used a variety of settings, including reading a standard text ( Borkenau and Liebler 1993 ), playing a word-guessing game ( Human and Mendes 2018 ), engaging in a getting-acquainted conversation ( Hall et al 2016b ) or in a mock job interview ( Krzyzaniak et al 2019 ). It is plausible that some settings provide better opportunities to observe cues relevant for a given trait than others ( Funder 2012 ), but little is known about which scenarios and which traits show the best “fit” in terms of judgeability.…”

“…The degree to which these variables can be accurately perceived depends both on whether they are expressed in observable cues (e.g., nonverbal behaviors or features of the appearance) in the target individuals and whether the perceivers (judges) detect and use valid cues to make their judgment ( Back and Nestler 2016 ; Funder 2012 ). Much research in impression formation has focused on verbal and nonverbal cues (e.g., Hirschmüller et al 2013 ; Koppensteiner 2013 ), on comparing different presentation formats (e.g., pictures, videos, face-to-face interactions; Krzyzaniak et al 2019 ), and on what makes a “good” (i.e., judgeable) target ( Colvin 1993 ; Funder 1995 ; Human and Biesanz 2013 ).…”

Core self-evaluation moderates distinctive similarity preference in ideal partner’s personality

“…Firstly, the variable-centered approach and person-centered approach, when applied to the same dataset, produce the same results, if proper standardization is made (Allik, Borkenau, Hřebíčková, Kuppens, & Realo, 2015). Nevertheless, we still decided to examine personality similarity using both approaches, in order to provide information not only for researchers studying similarity on individual personality traits, but also for those interested in personality profile CORE SELF-EVALUATION MODERATES DISTINCTIVE SIMILARITY PREFERENCE similarity (e.g., Krzyzaniak, Colman, Letzring, McDonald, & Biesanz, 2019). Secondly, the two similarities are both indexed by personality items, which capture more variances of personality (Mõttus, Kandler, Bleidorn, Riemann, & McCrae, 2017).…”