Behavioral Manifestations of Personality: An Ecological Approach to Judgmental Accuracy

The present study concerns connections between personality traits, the behaviors by which they are manifest, and the behaviors by which they are judged. One hundred forty undergraduate Ss were videotaped in 2 social interactions, and 62 behaviors were coded from each tape. Separately, personality descriptions were obtained from knowledgeable informants. A pair of "strangers" viewed each videotape then also provided personality descriptions. Other Ss rated the diagnosticity of the 62 behaviors for each of the Big Five personality traits. The diagnosticity ratings predicted how behavioral cues would be used by strangers and were closely related to their actual relevance as indexed by their correlations with informants' judgments. These findings speak to the general accuracy of personality judgments, the development of methods to improve accuracy, and the value of reintegrating traditionally separate concerns of personality and social psychology.