The generality of accuracy and response sets in interpersonal perception.

In experiment I, 15 measures of Ss' perception of other people were obtained. Only 8 of the intercorrelations were significant. In experiment II, Ss' judgments of other people were obtained in 3 sessions distributed over a school year. Comparison of the 3 sets of judgments indicated low relationship among accuracy scores, high relationship among response-set scores. Assumption of general ability of interpersonal perceptiveness is untenable; reliability of interpersonal perception may be due to consistency in response set rather than in ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)