This study examined the extent to which self-reports of uniqueness moderate self-peer agreement on personality trait ratings. A high level of uniqueness implies that the individual differs from the rest of the population on a particular trait. The results showed that ratings of uniqueness were (a) independent of three previously identified trait-specific moderator variables consistency, relevance, and observability—and (b) associated with higher levels of self peer agreement. In addition, self-peer agreement was higher for traits that subjects viewed as relevant and observable, replicating previous work in the area.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York: Holt.
2.
Baumeister, R. F. , & Tice, D. M. (1988). Metatraits. Journal of Personality, 56, 571-598.
3.
Bem, D. J. (1983). Constructing a theory of the triple typology: Some (second) thoughts on nomothetic and idiographic approaches to personality. Journal of Personality, 51, 566-577.
4.
Bem, D. J. , & Allen, A. (1974). On predicting some of the people some of the time: The search for cross-situational consistencies in behavior. Psychological Review81, 506-520.
5.
Cheek, J. (1982). Aggregation, moderator variables, and the validity of personality tests: A peer-rating study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 1254-1269.
6.
Costa, P. T., Jr. , & McCrae, R. R. (1985). The NEO Personality Inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
7.
Epstein, A. (1983). Aggregation and beyond: Some basic issues on the prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality, 51, 360-392.
8.
Kenrick, D. T. , & Braver, S. L. (1982). Personality: Idiographic and nomothetical A rejoinder. Psychological Review, 89, 182-186.
9.
Kenrick, D. T. , & Stringfield, D. O. (1980). Personality traits and the eye of the beholder: Crossing some traditional philosophical boundaries in the search for consistency in all of the people. Psychological Review87, 88-104.
10.
McCrae, R. R. , & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1985). Updating Norman's "adequate taxonomy": Intelligence and personality dimensions in natural language and in questionnaires. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 710-721.
11.
McCrae, R. R. , & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 31-90.
12.
Mischel, W. (1968). Personality assessment. New York: Wiley.
13.
Mischel, W. , & Peake, P. K. (1982). Beyond deja vu in the search for cross-situational consistency. Psychological Review, 89, 730-755.
14.
Paunonen, S. V. (1988). Trait relevance and the differential predict-ability of behavior. Journal of Personality;, 56, 599-619.
15.
Paunonen, S. V. , & Jackson, D. N. (1985). Idiographic measurement strategies for personality and prediction: Some unredeemed promissory notes. Psychological Review, 92, 486-511.
16.
Rosenthal, R. (1978). Combining results of independent studies. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 185-193.
17.
Rosenthal, R. (1984). Meta-analytic procedures for social research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
18.
Rosenthal, R. , & Rubin, D. B. (1982). A single general purpose display of magnitude of experimental effect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 166-169.
19.
Rosenthal, R. , & Rubin, D. B. (1986). Meta-analytic procedures for combining studies with multiple effect sizes. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 400-406.
20.
Tellegen, A. (1988). The analysis of consistency in personality assessment. Journal of Personality, 56, 621-663.
21.
Tellegen, A. , Kamp, J., & Watson, D. (1982). Recognizing individual differences in predictive structures. Psychological Review, 89, 95-105.
22.
Zuckerman, M. , Bernieri, F., Koestner, R., & Rosenthal, R. (1989). To predict some of the people some of the time: In search of moderators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 279-293.
23.
Zuckerman, M. , Koestner, R., DeBoy, T., Garcia, T., Maresca, B. C., & Sartoris, J. M. (1988). To predict some of the people some of the time: A reexamination of the moderator variable approach in personality theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1006-1019.
