The Extended Social Relations Model: Understanding Dissimilation and Dissensus in the Judgment of Others

Abstract

The Social Relations Model (SRM), which has been an important tool for personality researchers, presumes the variabilities in the SRM components, perceiver, target, and relationship effects, are consistent across perceivers and targets. We introduce the extended SRM (eSRM) to examine individual differences in the variances of each component of the SRM. We explore the tendency for perceivers to see targets in different ways, Dissimilation, and the tendency for targets to be viewed in different ways, Dissensus. Furthermore, slopes are used to tap the extent to which perceivers agree with other perceivers, Sensitivity, and the extent to which target judgments depend on how perceivers generally see others, Prototypicality. Moreover, the correlation of a perceiver’s judgments with how the target is generally viewed measures Accuracy, and the correlation of judgments of a target with how the perceiver generally views others measures Amplification. Standard deviations assess how a perceiver uniquely views targets, Differentiation, and how a target is uniquely viewed by perceivers, Volatility. A study illustrates the utility of these elements to understand response styles, the accuracy of judgment, and the meaning of SRM effects. The eSRM is discussed in relation to Funder’s Realistic Accuracy Model and Biesanz’s Social Accuracy Model.

Applying multimodal social relations analyses in personality pathology research.

“…In the classic SRM, this possibility is not given because the model assumes homoscedasticity of residuals. However, a recent extension to the SRM proposed by Kenny et al, (in press) relaxes this assumption, thus enabling an examination of perceiver differences in dissimilation (how variable they see other people) and target differences in dissensus (how variable they are seen by other people). Applying these concepts to PD research may uncover additional instances of how interpersonal dysregulation manifests interpersonally.…”

“…This type of design is technically not a round-robin (because professionals would not be asked to rate one another) but a block design, thus requiring slightly different statistical treatment (cf. Kenny et al, 2006). Nevertheless, patients' own reports on their experience would not only be complemented by several others' reports of the patients' experiences but also by the patients' perceptions of multiple others and by the reports of multiple others on their own experiences with these patients.…”

Examining individual differences in metaperceptive accuracy using the social meta-accuracy model.

“…Perceivers generally reach some level of consensus about what Mia is like, especially if they have access to similar cues about her and share similar meaning systems about those cues. Nonetheless, it has been shown that consensus is higher for some targets than for others (Kenny, 2004; Kenny et al, 2023). Perceivers might agree more about Mia’s personality than about Mark’s personality.…”

Individual Differences in Dissimilation: Do Some People Make More Distinctions Among Targets’ Personalities than Others?

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Objective. People differ in how positively they tend to see others' traits, but people might also differ in how strongly they apply their perceptual styles (Kenny et al, 2023). In two studies (Ns = 355, 303), the current research explores individual differences in how variable people's first impressions are across targets (i.e., within-person variability), how and why these differences emerge, and who varies more in their judgments of others.

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“…For example, if Pam perceives Tim positively on some trait, part of her perception can be attributed to her general tendency to see people in positive ways on that trait. These tendencies, called perceiver effects, essentially describe individual differences in people's average impressions of other people (Kenny, 2019), but perceivers might also differ in how much their impressions vary across targets (Kenny et al, 2023). Take the example of Pam and Polly who both see others in more positive ways on average than most people do on the trait intelligence.…”