Perceiver Effects in Person Perception Reflect Acquiescence, Positivity, and Trait-Specific Content: Evidence From a Large-Scale Replication Study

Abstract

Person judgments reflect perceiver effects: differences in how perceivers judge the average person. The factorial structure of such effects is still discussed. We present a large-scale, preregistered replication study using over 1 million person judgments (different groups of 200 perceivers judged 200 targets in one of 20 situations, using 30 personality items). Results unanimously favored a model comprising three systematic components: acquiescence (endorsing all items more than other perceivers), positivity (endorsing positive over negative items), and trait specificity (endorsing items reflecting a specific trait more). The latter two factors each accounted for approximately a quarter of the variance in perceiver effects, and acquiescence accounted for less than 10%. Positivity was more influential for evaluative items and was strongly associated with how likable perceivers found their targets to be ( r = .55). With considerable statistical power and generalizability, our findings significantly improve the knowledge base regarding the structure of perceiver effects.

Trait-specificity versus global positivity: A critical test of alternative sources of assumed similarity in personality judgments

“…As a consequence, the general factor labelled "positivity" also tapped acquiescence variance, that is, differential tendencies to prefer positive or negative response options irrespective of an item's content. Whereas prior research has shown that positivity differences contribute more to perceiver effects than do acquiescence differences (Heynicke et al, 2021;Rau, Carlson, et al, 2021), we were not able to separately test the influence of either tendency when computing assumed similarity correlations.…”

“…None of the present authors were involved in data collection. Parts of the data used here have already been included in other publications on interpersonal perception (Heynicke et al, 2021;Wiedenroth, Unkelbach, et al, 2021;Wiedenroth & Leising, 2020). Crucially, none of these previous papers and analyses used the perceivers' self-reports.…”

“…Contrary to existing theoretical accounts of assumed similarity, recent evidence on the factorial structure of perceiver effects has fundamentally challenged the view that assumed similarity is specific to the content of certain traits. Specifically, it has been shown that perceiver effects are, in large part, driven by unspecific judgment tendencies such as acquiescence and, more importantly, individual differences in global positivity in otherperceptions (Heynicke et al, 2021;Rau, Carlson, et al, 2021;Srivastava et al, 2010). Some individuals generally tend to see others in favorable ways across traits whereas others generally tend to see others in less favorable ways.…”

Everyday perceiver-context influences on impression formation: No evidence of consistent effects

“…It may reflect stable, trait-level idiosyncrasies such as personality, stereotype knowledge, response style, or state-like influences such as affective state, evaluative context, external environment, or psychological situations. Recent work suggests that perceivers' stereotype knowledge and lay theories of personality play a role (Stolier et al, 2018(Stolier et al, , 2020Xie et al, 2021), as well as their degree of acquiescence and positivity bias (Heynicke et al, 2021). However, these factors do not explain all perceiver variance, and other sources of perceiver-level variance are likely important.…”

The judgment of personality: An overview of current empirical research findings

“…Estimates of the total influence of different types of perceiver variance on personality judgments often range around 30% (Kenny, 2020;Rau et al, 2021). However, when studies do not permit interaction between perceivers and targets, estimates can be considerably lower (e.g., Heynicke et al, 2021). One reason for this could be that, in studies with previous interactions, the variation between perceivers' judgment styles may be increased by variation in the average target's behavior toward particular perceivers (e.g., one perceiver actually being treated more nicely by everyone than another perceiver).…”