Do we know how much people like one another?

Metaperception is a person's perception about a second person's perception of a third person. The purpose of this article is to examine the accuracy of metaperceptions of liking. A related question concerns whether the heuristics of balance, reciprocity, and agreement are used by perceivers when forming such judgments. The authors present analyses from 5 diverse research studies that used an adaptation of the social relations model for triads (C.E. Bond et al, in press). The results indicate that people know how much people like one another, even with small amounts of information. Although there is evidence for the use of heuristics, particularly reciprocity and agreement, accuracy is sometimes enhanced by using these heuristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)