In person, online, and up close: the cross‐contextual consistency of expressive accuracy

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

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.

Intrapersonal Behavioral Coordination and Expressive Accuracy During First Impressions

What factors influence how accurately we express our personalities? Here, we investigated the role of targets’ nonverbal expressivity or the intrapersonal coordination between head and body movements. To do so, using a novel movement quantification method, we examined whether variability in a person’s behavioral coordination was related to how accurately their personality was perceived by naive observers. Targets who exhibited greater variability in intrapersonal behavior coordination, indicating more expressive behavior, were perceived more accurately on high observability personality items, such as how energetic and helpful they are. Moreover, these associations held controlling for other indicators of overall movement, self- and perceiver-rated extroversion, as well as how engaging and likable targets were perceived to be. This provides preliminary evidence that variability in intrapersonal behavioral coordination may be a unique behavioral indicator of expressive accuracy, although further research that replicates these findings and examines the causal associations is needed.

Is Meta-Accuracy Consistent Across Levels of Acquaintanceship?

Some people tend to be especially accurate about the personality impressions they make, but is meta-accuracy a consistent tendency that spans levels of acquaintanceship, or is it only observed within levels of acquaintanceship? Three studies suggested that meta-accuracy is consistent among close others but not across new acquaintances and close others. This pattern was observed for observable and unobservable traits and when accounting for people who made more consistent impressions on others (i.e., high consensus). Overall, meta-accuracy seems to be circumscribed within levels of acquaintanceship. The major implication of these results is that the mechanisms for meta-accuracy and the attributes of good meta-perceivers likely differ across levels of acquaintanceship.