Predictive Accuracy and Utilization of Cues: Study of the Interaction between an Individual's Cognitive Organization and Ecological Structure

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate whether increased matching between judges' cognitive and ecological structures was positively related to predictive accuracy in a convergent judgment task. Nineteen judges estimated the correlation between all pairs of six variables. These data were taken as expressions of each judge's cognitive organization in respect to the material in question. The six variables were four tests of intelligence, marks for matriculation examination, and study results in psychology. The judges were also asked to rate the study achievements in psychology of 50 students on the basis of their scores on the other five variables. The results implied (a) that measures of agreement between the cognitive organization of the judges and the ecological structure in data predicted individual differences in predictive accuracy, and (b) that the judges, on the basis of measures of agreement between their estimates of correlations, can be ordered in homogeneous groups, which differ with respect to utilization of cues. The result gives strong support for deductions that can be made from “implicit personality theories.”