Antecedents and consequences of peer-rated intelligence

Abstract

The current study investigated the antecedents and consequences of peer-rated intelligence in a longitudinal round robin design following previously unacquainted members of small student work groups. Social relations analyses were used to calculate target effects as an index of peer-reputations. In addition, self-ratings, university grades, and objective indicators of intelligence were assessed. Results indicated that peer-reputations were reliable and stable and also accurate to some degree, being correlated with objective intelligence. On the other hand, they were also shown to be biased in terms of correlating with interpersonal liking (increasing across time) and idiosyncratic rating tendencies (decreasing across time). Agreement between self-ratings and peer-reputations increased, but this was likely due to "constructivist" identity negotiation processes, as peer-reputations did not become more accurate over time. Finally, it was shown that peer-rated intelligence reputations have important real-life consequences, being correlated with changes in academic achievement across two 4-month periods and with dropout from university after 8 months. Overall, the pattern of results demonstrates the utility of a socioanalytic perspective in analyzing personality and social processes.Keywords: Academic achievement, intelligence, social relations analysis, person perception, longitudinal study, interpersonal processes INTELLIGENCE PERCEPTIONS 3Much of personality psychology still uses participants' subjective reports on their own and others' personality, even though such reports have been criticized as biased (Baumeister, Vohs, & Funder, 2007;Schwarz, 1999). In the case of intelligence, the situation is strikingly different: Since the days of Binet and Simon, researchers have mostly relied on achievement tests, the outcomes of which hardly depend on participants' self-views. Because intelligence tests have a long and successful history in terms of predictive validity and objectivity (Kaufman & Lichtenberger, 2005), it seems understandable to rely on them instead of subjective perceptions of intelligence (Paulhus, Lysy, & Yik, 1998). However, there are both psychometric and substantive reasons to focus on the antecedents and correlates of peerrated intelligence, which we discuss in the following From a psychometric perspective, peer-ratings of personality have been treated more favorably than self-ratings. According to Hofstee (1994), such aggregated ratings are more reliable and valid than self-ratings and should be used as the gold standard of personality assessment (at least when it comes to traits such as the Big Five). In addition, such aggregated peer-ratings can be seen as personality reputations with important interpersonal and group outcomes (Hogan, 1996). In the case of intelligence, such outcomes may manifest themselves in the following contexts . For example subjective perceptions of other people's ability may lead to important consequences when they are formed in contexts such as unstandardized j...

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