Changes in Self Estimates of Psychological Attributes as a Function of the Direction of Discrepancies between Initial Estimates and Reported Test Scores

Abstract

Estimates of amounts of aptitude, interest and personality possessed by the rater were collected from 75 males requesting vocational and educational guidance before and immediately after the interpretation to the counselees of paper-and-pencil psychological tests presumably measuring the estimate attributed. Estimates of the attributes were significantly closer to the test scores following feedback. The discrepancies between test scores and the estimates of attributes after feedback were significantly smaller for those Ss whose estimates before counseling were underestimates of the test scores than for those overestimating. Such differences between the under- and overestimators were most marked for estimates of ability, second for interest, but not significant for temperament.

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