Who do you think I think I am? Accuracy in perceptions of others’ self-esteem

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Journal of Research in Personality 42 (2008) 386–398

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Who do you think I think I am? Accuracyin perceptions of others’ self-esteem

Stephen E. Kilianski

Department of Psychology, Drew University, Hannan House 302, Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940, USA

Available online 14 July 2007

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess the accuracy of perceptions of others’ self-esteem and toexamine the potential moderating variables of target gender, perceiver gender, and degree ofacquaintance. Degree of acquaintance was the only hypothesized moderator reliably related to accu-racy. An overall tendency to overestimate targets’ self-esteem was evinced, but was not related to anyof the hypothesized moderators. The data suggested that perceivers are influenced by a false consen-sus effect when estimating others’ level of self-esteem, independent of their degree of acquaintancewith targets. Implications of the findings and directions for future investigation are discussed.� 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Interpersonal accuracy; Self-esteem; Person perception; Personality traits; False consensus

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‘‘Ain’t no tiger baby, ain’t no little lamb, Suppose you tell me, mama, who do youthink I think I am’’ -Don Henley, I Will Not Go Quietly

1. Introduction

Representations of others’ self-concepts are essential building blocks of our socialknowledge networks. An accurate understanding of how others view themselves is indis-pensable in carrying on harmonious relationships and avoiding social faux pas. Perhapsmore critical than knowing the beliefs others hold about their own traits, abilities, and lim-itations, is inferring how in the broadest sense they evaluate themselves and their worth;i.e., their level of self-esteem.

566/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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S.E. Kilianski / Journal of Research in Personality 42 (2008) 386–398 387

Our society has come to view high self-esteem as the sine qua non of mental health andsubjective well-being, as well as foundational to adaptive social behavior (e.g., CaliforniaTask Force to Promote Self-Esteem & Social Responsibility, 1990; Leary, 1999; Mecca,Smelser, & Vasconcellos, 1989; Taylor & Brown, 1988). Among all of the traits that con-stitute personality, it could be argued that self-esteem, at least in popular belief, is the mostimportant of all. If self-esteem is a trait we wish to cultivate in those for whom we care,and when waning, we wish to bolster in them, an ability to assess it accurately in our dailyinteractions with others is certainly most critical. Yet how good are we at judging others’subjective evaluations of themselves?

Research on accuracy in interpersonal perception has a rich history and comprehen-sive scope (e.g., Adams, 1927; Dymond, 1950; Estes, 1938; Funder, 1999; Kenny, 1994;Taft, 1955; Vernon, 1933). However, accuracy in judging the self-esteem of others hasbeen studied infrequently, with only a few notable exceptions (Demo, 1985; Savin-Wil-liams & Jaquish, 1981; Schor, Stidley, & Malspeis, 1995). One reason is likely to bethat self-esteem is not what Funder (1999) would classify as a ‘‘good trait,’’ one thatis high in what he referred to as visibility. Unlike, for example, extraversion, where out-ward, observable actions in social settings constitute the very definition of the charac-teristic, self-esteem is an internal, subjective phenomenon, a person’s affectiveexperience of him- or herself. Thus it is not readily manifest in terms of unambiguousbehaviors that can be witnessed by perceivers.

1.1. The accuracy debate

The brouhaha over accuracy is the proverbial ‘‘800-lb gorilla in the room’’ in researchon interpersonal perception, although unlike that metaphorical beast researchers are atleast aware of and acknowledge its presence. Assessing accuracy in interpersonal percep-tion of any trait presents a researcher with numerous challenges. Most earlier studies usedeither perceiver-target agreement (e.g., Bender & Hastorf, 1950; Funder, 1980; Taft, 1955)or consensus among multiple perceivers (Albright, Kenny, & Malloy, 1988; Kenny, 1991;Kenny, Horner, Kashy, & Chu, 1992; Park, 1986) as the standard for accuracy. Perceiver-target agreement involved a judge (perceiver) making predictions about how a targetwould respond on a self-report measure of some trait, and then assessing the correspon-dence between those predictions and the target’s actual self-report. Consensus involvedhaving a set of perceivers making a judgment about some trait of an individual targetand computing their degree of agreement with one another.

As Cronbach (1955) observed, there are several reasons why such approaches maylead to overestimates of interpersonal accuracy. Methodological and analyticapproaches were subsequently formulated to overcome these difficulties (Bernieri, Zuck-erman, Koestner, & Rosenthal, 1994; Costanzo & Archer, 1989; Kenny, 1994; Rosen-thal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979). However, the problem of whatconstitutes the appropriate criterion (what is the measure with which perceiver judg-ments should correspond?) remains a vexing one. The prevailing opinion would appearto be that behavioral measures of the trait in question, despite their acknowledged defi-ciencies, should serve as the ultimate criterion for accuracy (Funder, 1987, 1999;Kenny, 1994). Relative to other traits (e.g., any of the Big Five), the nature of self-esteem renders assessment of accuracy more problematic if one considers behavioralmeasures to be the ideal criterion.

388 S.E. Kilianski / Journal of Research in Personality 42 (2008) 386–398

1.2. Why agreement with self-reports should be the criterion for accuracy in judging self-

esteem

In keeping with the ‘‘gold standard’’ of perceivers’ agreement with targets’ actual behavioras the criterion for accuracy, previous researchers have used observed actions as measures ofself-esteem and argued that they are more valid than self-reports. For example, Savin-Wil-liams and Jaquish (1981) constructed a list of observable behaviors that their respondentsbelieved to be indicative of high self-esteem. These included ‘‘Expresses opinion,’’ ‘‘Maintainseye contact during conversation,’’ ‘‘Initiates friendly contact with others,’’ etc. In subsequentstudies, Savin-Williams and Jaquish found that these items were highly reliable in rating tar-gets and correlated strongly with perceivers’ judgments of targets’ self-esteem. However, theywere only weakly (and not significantly) correlated with targets’ scores on the Rosenberg(1965) self-esteem inventory. Moreover, scores on the self-report measure were not relatedto peer judgments. Savin-Williams and Jaquish argued that the behavioral measures weresuperior because self-reports of self-esteem could be contaminated by social desirability,defensiveness, and the general fallibility of introspection (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).

Demo (1985) obtained results largely consistent with those of Savin-Williams andJaquish (1981). Undergraduate ‘‘big brothers/sisters’’ completed a behavioral checklist(comprising the same behaviors used by Savin-Williams and Jaquish) for ninth and tenthgrade targets. Low, non-significant correlations were found between checklist ratings andtarget scores on the Rosenberg (1965) and Coopersmith (1967) self-esteem inventories.However, Demo did report significant, but modest, correlations between peer ratingsand scores on the self-report measures.

Both Demo (1985) and Savin-Williams and Jaquish (1981) drew a distinction betweenexperienced self-esteem and presented self-esteem. In their formulation, self-report instru-ments assess the former, while behavioral measures, including peer ratings, measure thelatter. Demo concluded that self-esteem was a multidimensional construct necessitatingmulti-method assessment.

While these objections and caveats are warranted, the problem with behavioral mea-sures of self-esteem is that self-esteem, by definition, is not a set of behaviors (such asextraversion or conscientiousness) or some form of quantifiable performance (such asintelligence). It is an attitude, a set of beliefs and feelings about the self. While that attitudeis associated with and is likely to be causally linked to many, if not all, of the behaviorsenumerated by Demo (1985) and Savin-Williams and Jaquish (1981), it is not explicitlydefined as those acts. The behaviors are only an indirect measure of the attitude, andcan be affected by a nearly infinite variety of other causal factors. Despite the problemscited by earlier researchers, self-reports of self-esteem, although flawed, represent the mostdirect, and hence most valid, way of measuring an individual’s self-esteem.1 Therefore,

1 It has also been postulated that self-esteem has an automatic or non-conscious dimension inaccessible via self-report (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Research on implicit self-esteem suggests that this dimension is independentof explicit self-esteem (Farnham, Greenwald, & Banaji, 1999; Koole, Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 2001;Spencer, Jordan, Logel, & Zanna, 2005). Debate remains unresolved as to whether implicit measures or self-reports are more valid assessments of self-esteem; however, studies have found that explicit measures are moreclosely related to subjective well-being, both self- and other-assessed (Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000;Schimmack & Diener, 2003) and that scores on various implicit measures of self-esteem are often uncorrelated(Bosson et al., 2000; Jordan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2003); hence the choice of a self-report measure in this study.Implicit self-esteem is considered in greater depth in Section 4.


agreement between perceiver judgments and target self-reported self-esteem was used asthe index of accuracy in the study reported herein.

1.3. Accuracy in judging self-esteem relative to other traits

Previous research suggests that the trait of extraversion is the dimension of personalityon which perceivers are most accurate (Albright et al., 1988; Borkenau & Liebler, 1993,1995; Funder & Colvin, 1988; Lippa & Dietz, 2000; Watson, 1989). Correlation coeffi-cients are usually in the moderate range, even for unacquainted dyads (Ambady, LaPlante,& Johnson, 2001). Given the lower correlations between perceiver judgments of self-esteem and target self-reports found by Demo (1985) and Savin-Williams and Jaquish(1981), I hypothesized that accuracy would be greater for extraversion than for self-esteem.

Although the other Big Five personality factors are also hypothetically more visiblethan self-esteem (i.e., more conceptually consistent with observable behavior), there wasno compelling empirical basis for predicting differences in accuracy among self-esteem,neuroticism, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

1.4. Potential variables moderating accuracy and bias in judging others’ self-esteem

1.4.1. Acquaintance

Consistent with previous research on accuracy in judging personality traits (Funder &Colvin, 1988; Kenny, Albright, Malloy, & Kashy, 1994; Paunonen, 1989), it was hypoth-esized that a higher degree of acquaintance would be associated with greater accuracy inperceiving targets’ self-esteem. Although research on ‘‘thin slices’’ of behavior suggeststhat reasonable accuracy can be attained with brief observations of and relatively super-ficial information about targets (Ambady, Bernieri, & Richeson, 2000; Ambady, Hallahan,& Rosenthal, 1995), it stands to reason that a more representative sample of targets’behavior across time and situations can enhance perceivers’ accuracy. Greater acquain-tance also affords increased opportunity for disclosure which, for a subjective, non-obser-vable trait like self-esteem, should enhance accuracy.

A second prediction with respect to acquaintance involved bias (systematic error).When interacting with strangers, people present themselves in more self-enhancing waysthan they do with those they know (Tice, Butler, Muraven, & Stillwell, 1995). Ticeet al. (1995) concluded that familiar others have had more frequent opportunities to wit-ness our foibles, failures, missteps, and deficiencies, so our self-presentations to them mustbe less distorted by social desirability. High self-esteem is a socially desirable characteristicthat enhances a person’s likeability, so it follows that presenting oneself as high in self-esteem (or at least not low) would constitute the trend among strangers. Therefore, inaddition to greater acquaintance being related to higher accuracy, it was also hypothesizedthat error among the unacquainted would be more likely to tend toward overestimation(i.e., judgments of target self-esteem that were higher than target’s actual self-esteem).

1.4.2. Gender

While some studies on accuracy in judging the personality traits of others have foundwomen to be superior to men (Ambady et al., 1995; Bernieri et al., 1994; Vogt & Colvin,2003), others have failed to reveal any gender difference (Kolar, 1995; Lippa & Dietz,


2000). However, dispositional communality has been found to be predictive of accuracy ininterpersonal perception (Funder & Colvin, 1997), and traits related to communality aremore consistently attributed to women than to men (Bem, 1974; Spence & Helmreich,1978; Williams & Best, 1990). Moreover, women are superior to men in both encodingand decoding non-verbal expressions of psychological states (Feldman Barrett, Lane,Sechrest, & Schwartz, 2000; Hall, 1978). Women are also more likely to receive personaldisclosures from others (Dindia & Allen, 1992). Predicated on these principles, it washypothesized that women would be more accurate than men in assessing the self-esteemof targets.

In addition to the preceding hypotheses regarding accuracy, it was predicted that a gen-der difference in systematic error, a bias toward over- or underestimation of target self-esteem, would be found. Specifically, it was hypothesized that perceivers would tend tounderestimate the self-esteem of female targets. The following rationale is offered for thathypothesis.

Meta-analytic studies have revealed that women do report lower self-esteem than men(Feingold, 1994; Kling, Hyde, Showers, & Buswell, 1999). Research on gender stereotypessuggests that people more readily associate characteristics associated with high-esteem(proud, self-confident, etc.) with men (Bem, 1974; Spence & Helmreich, 1978; Williams& Best, 1990). The last couple of decades have seen a spate of books and studies presentedin the popular media that purport to document a crisis of low self-esteem in adolescentgirls (American Association of University Women, 1990; Orenstein, 1994; Pipher, 1994;Sanford & Donovan, 1985). Moreover, previous research has suggested that a norm formodesty influences women’s self-presentation (Daubman, Heatherington, & Ahn, 1992;Gould & Slone, 1982; Heatherington et al., 1993). Thus it follows that, particularly whenindividuating information about a target is unavailable or ambiguous (especially likely tobe the case with unacquainted targets), perceivers will be inclined to underestimatewomen’s self-esteem. Although the effect may be attenuated by countervailing influences,such as the tendency for unacquainted targets to present themselves in a more self-enhanc-ing fashion (Tice et al., 1995), a net bias in the aforementioned direction was expected.

1.4.3. False consensus

A final hypothesis is that when judging the self-esteem of others, perceivers may beinfluenced by a false consensus effect (Krueger & Clement, 1994). False consensus occurswhen we overestimate the extent to which others think, feel, and act as we do. Since self-esteem is a low visibility trait, perceivers are often confronted with impoverished or ambig-uous information about targets’ self-esteem, particularly when they are not acquaintedwith them. Therefore, they may use their own self-esteem as a basis for constructing per-ceptions of others’ self-esteem. A process somewhat akin to this has been referred to as‘‘projection’’ or ‘‘assumed similarity,’’ and was proposed as an artifactual cause of accu-racy among acquainted pairs (Cronbach, 1955; Hastorf & Bender, 1952). The distinctionhere between the latter notion and the former is this: Evidence of the hypothesized falseconsensus effect would consist of a positive correlation between perceivers’ predictionsof how targets respond and perceivers’ own self-reported self-esteem, while evidence ofthe ‘‘assumed similarity’’ principle would consist of a positive correlation between perceiv-ers’ self-reported self-esteem and targets’ self-reported self-esteem.

If target self-esteem is correlated with perceiver self-esteem, accuracy would beenhanced and rather than false consensus, the phrase ‘valid consensus’ might be more


appropriate. Due to the similarity-attraction principle, this might be most likely to occuramong those who have pre-existing relationships, i.e., whose degree of acquaintance ishigh. Although Funder, Kolar, and Blackman (1995) failed to find support for assumedsimilarity (among acquainted dyads, they found no relationship between perceivers’own self-reported traits and their targets’ self-reports), that possibility is worth examiningwith respect to interpersonal perceptions of self-esteem.

In this study, the final hypothesis was that perceivers’ own self-esteem would be posi-tively correlated with their estimates of targets’ self-esteem, while it would not be corre-lated with targets’ actual self-esteem.

1.5. Summary of hypotheses

To recapitulate, the following hypotheses were tested in this research: (1) perceiverswould be less accurate in judging targets’ self-esteem than in judging targets’ extraversion;(2) perceivers acquainted with their targets would be more accurate in judging targets’ self-esteem than would those unacquainted with their targets; (3) unacquainted perceiverswould be more likely to overestimate targets’ self-esteem than acquainted perceivers; (4)women would be more accurate than men in judging targets’ self-esteem; (5) an overallbias toward underestimation with respect to female targets’ self-esteem would be found;and (6) perceivers would exhibit a false consensus effect when rendering estimates of tar-gets’ self-esteem.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Introductory psychology students were recruited and participated for course credit ineither of two studies billed as ‘‘Knowing Friends’’ or ‘‘Reading People.’’ The formerrequired participants to bring a ‘‘close friend,’’ while individuals were randomly assignedto dyads in the latter. The sample comprised 176 women, and 90 men,2 constituting 83acquainted and 51 unacquainted dyads. Its ethnic composition was 39% Causasian/White/European-American, 11% Black/African/African-American, 18% SoutheastAsian/Asian-American (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino), 10% South-west Asian/Asian-American (Indian, Pakistani, Afghani), 15% Hispanic/Latino, and 7%other.

2.2. Procedure

Participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to examine people’s accu-racy in assessing the personality of others. To that end, all dyads (acquainted and unac-quainted) engaged in a 10 min interview, the explicit goal of which was ‘‘to find out asmuch as you can about each other’s personality to make accurate judgments later on.’’After 10 min the researcher re-entered the room and took one member of the dyad to a

2 Two participants from two separate pairs did not report their gender. The data from those dyads are excludedfrom any subsequent analyses involving gender.


separate room. After receiving verbal assurance of complete anonymity, each member ofthe dyad was asked (1) to rate on a 0 (not at all) to 10 (extremely well) scale how well theyknew their partner before the interview and (2) to complete a 35-item personality inven-tory as they thought their partner would. Then, after providing demographic information,they were asked to complete the same 35-item inventory for themselves. The tasks wereordered in this way so as to avoid inducing a false consensus effect by priming participantswith their own level of self-esteem. Had participants completed the inventory as a self-report first, evidence of false consensus could have been an artifact of task sequence.

2.3. Materials

The previously mentioned 35-item personality inventory was an amalgam of the tenitems from the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and five items for eachof the Big Five (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness)taken from a sample of the NEO-PI (McCrea & Costa, 1987). Sample items from the scalewere: ‘‘I worry a lot (Neuroticism),’’ ‘‘I am the life of the party (Extraversion),’’ ‘‘I have avery active imagination (Openness),’’ ‘‘I think most people I deal with are honest andtrustworthy (Agreeableness),’’ and ‘‘I persevere with my tasks (Conscientiousness).’’ Allitems were scored on a 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) scale, with greater scoresrepresenting a higher standing on each trait.

3. Results

3.1. Sample descriptives

All measures demonstrated at least marginally acceptable reliability, as indicated inTable 1. Both self-reports (M = 4.03) and judgments of target self-esteem (M = 4.18) weresignificantly above the scale midpoint, t(267) = 23.12, p < .001, and t(267) = 31.00,p < .001, respectively. The correlation for dyadic assessments of degree of acquaintancewith each other was quite strong, r(132) = .87, p < .001. There was no significant differencein reported self-esteem between men and women, Ms = 4.08 and 4.01, respectively,t(264) = .73, p = .46.

Table 1Reliability coefficients (a) for trait measures

Trait a

Self-esteem .92Extraversion .71Neuroticism .70Agreeableness .71Conscientiousness .68a

Openness .66

Note. In each case, coefficient a is based on self-report data, not partner’s predictions. Self-esteem was assessedwith the 10-item Rosenberg scale (Rosenberg, 1965); each of the other traits was assessed with five sample itemsfrom the NEO Personality Inventory (McCrea & Costa, 1987).

a One item was omitted to maximize reliability.

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

Extraversion Self-Esteem Neuroticism Agreeableness Openness Conscientiousness

Trait

Pea

rson

's r

Fig. 1. Target-Judge correlations on self-esteem and other traits.


3.2. Accuracy hypotheses

Consistent with the hypothesis, the Pearson correlation coefficient for target self-reportsand perceiver judgments of target self-esteem, r(266) = .36, p < .001, was lower than thatfor extraversion, r(266) = .49, p < .001, z = 1.83, p = .034. (See Fig. 1 for target-perceivercorrelations on all traits.) As predicted, accuracy was lower for unacquainted, r(97) = .12,p = .23, than for acquainted pairs, r(167) = .44, p < .001, z = 2.74, p = .003. The hypoth-esis regarding superior accuracy for female perceivers was not supported,rwomen (174) = .32, p < .001, vs. rmen (88) = .43, p < .001, z = .98, ns. Although thisdifference was not significant, it was in the opposite direction of what had been predicted.

3.3. Bias hypotheses

Discrepancy scores were computed for each participant by taking the differencebetween the judged level of self-esteem and the target’s self-reported self-esteem. There-fore, negative scores represented underestimation and positive scores represented overes-timation, while a zero score represented the absence of bias. A 2 (Judge Gender) · 2(Target Gender) · 2 (Level of Acquaintance: Unacquainted vs. Acquainted) between-sub-jects ANOVA with discrepancy scores as the dependent variable revealed no significantmain effects or interactions (all Fs < 1.0, all ps > .50). Thus none of the bias hypotheseswere supported.

There was, however, a sample-wide bias in evidence that was independent of any of theproposed moderators previously examined. Overall, participants tended to overestimatethe self-esteem of their targets, M = 0.15, t(267) = 3.18, p = .002.

3.4. Testing the false consensus hypothesis

In order to test the hypothesis that people’s own self-esteem influences their perceptions ofothers’ self-esteem, judges’ estimates of targets’ self-esteem were regressed on targets’ actualself-esteem, the judges’ self-reported self-esteem, target gender, and judge gender. In order toexamine the extent to which degree of acquaintance was related to false consensus, a variablerepresenting the degree of acquaintance by judge self-esteem interaction was also included.


A significant amount of the variance in the criterion was accounted for by this set ofpredictors, R2 = .27, p < .001. Consistent with the hypothesis, judges’ self-reported self-esteem was significantly related to their estimates of targets’ self-esteem (b = .35,p < .001), independent of targets’ actual self-esteem (b = .34, p < .001), and gender ofjudge (b = .13, p = .014). None of the other predictors contributed significantly to the var-iance in the criterion; most importantly, the interaction term (Degree of Acquain-tance · Judge Self-Esteem) was not significant, b = .01, p = .820, suggesting that degreeof acquaintance did not moderate false consensus.

A second finding that lends further additional support to the false consensus hypothesisis that there was no relationship between targets’ and judges’ actual (i.e., their self-reported) self-esteem, either among acquainted or unacquainted dyads, r(167) = .06, ns,and r(97) = .02, ns, respectively. Thus the phenomenon of assumed similarity describedby Cronbach (1955) could not account for this result.

4. Discussion

This research was conducted to test several hypotheses regarding the accuracy of inter-personal perception with respect to self-esteem. Judgments of targets’ self-esteem exhibitedmoderate accuracy; accuracy was higher for extraversion, as hypothesized, but not for anyof the other five factors. Accuracy was higher among acquainted than among unac-quainted dyads as predicted. Women were no more accurate in making such judgmentsthan were men, contrary to what was hypothesized. An overall trend toward overestima-tion of others’ self-esteem was evident, but was not moderated by target or perceiver gen-der, or by level of acquaintance.

As hypothesized, evidence of a false consensus effect was found. When making judg-ments about others’ self-esteem, perceivers apparently rely substantially on their ownself-evaluations. False consensus occurred even for perceivers acquainted with their tar-gets, and it was truly ‘false’ consensus in that perceiver self-esteem was unrelated to targetself-esteem. The correspondence between judges’ own level of self-esteem and their esti-mates of their partners’ self-esteem was not close enough to conclude that people assumeothers have the same sense of self-worth that they do, but perhaps with a trait as subjectiveand lacking in reliable outward manifestations as self-esteem, people may use it as anostensibly reasonable place to begin in making judgments about others.

How well we assess one another’s level of self-esteem is of no small import. Errors insuch judgments may result in adverse consequences for both targets and judges. If we over-estimate someone’s positive feelings for and beliefs about themselves, what we intend asgood-natured ribbing may bring about hurt feelings and further negative affect towardthe self in them, and may unwittingly earn us the disliking of those we seek to befriend.Kidding a friend, relative, or neighbor about his receding hairline, paunchy midsection,or ungraceful golf swing might be fine if he generally accepts and likes himself in spiteof those minor shortcomings, but what if he does not?

Conversely, underestimating others’ level of self-esteem may have adverse consequencesas well. Copious compliments, intended to buttress what one may see as a ‘‘sagging ego’’ ina co-worker might be perceived as insincere flattery or ingratiation with some less thanbenign ulterior motive. Such conduct could even backfire and threaten a target’s self-esteem when she begins to question the reasoning behind it. ‘‘If the coach has to tell meI’m a good player that often, maybe I’m really not!’’


4.1. Directions for future research

Implicit self-esteem, not assessed in this study, presents some intriguing possibilities vis-a-vis future research. For example, compared to explicit self-esteem, implicit self-esteemmay be more closely related to behaviors such as those enumerated by Demo (1985)and Savin-Williams and Jaquish (1981), which, as previously mentioned, were unrelatedto target self-reports. Such behaviors may be used by perceivers as subtle cues indicativeof a target’s self-esteem. In addition to examining whether implicit self-esteem is related tosuch behaviors, future research should investigate the level of accuracy with which peopleperceive others’ implicit self-esteem.

Another very promising line of inquiry involves discrepancies between explicit andimplicit self-esteem, and accuracy in the perception of such disparities in targets. Forexample, the conjunction of high explicit and low implicit self-esteem is related to narcis-sism, defensive responding, and in-group bias (Bosson, Brown, Ziegler-Hill, & Swann,2003; Jordan, Spencer, Zanna, Hoshino-Browne, & Correll, 2003; Jordan et al., 2003;Spencer et al., 2005), while the conjunction of low explicit and high implicit self-esteemis related to task perseverance (Jordan et al., 2003) and ‘‘realistic’’ optimism (Bossonet al., 2003). From an evolutionary perspective, it would seem sensible that Homo sapienswould be equipped with a social-cognitive capacity for detecting such discrepancies in oth-ers, given its apparent value in adaptive social functioning.

Another question involves people’s judgments of their own efficacy in assessing others’self-esteem and how closely those judgments correspond to some objective measure oftheir accuracy. Do people tend to over- or underestimate the accuracy of their judgments?As is the case for other traits, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that perceivers will over-estimate their accuracy in assessing others’ level of self-esteem (Riggio & Riggio, 2001).However, an empirical test of this hypothesis remains to be conducted and an explorationof potential moderating variables is needed.

Finally, other than degree of acquaintance, what characteristics of perceivers, if any, arerelated to enhanced accuracy in judging others’ self-esteem? The hypothesis regardingsuperiority for women was not supported by the findings in this study. Although no a pri-

ori hypotheses were asserted vis-a-vis relationships between any of the Big Five and accu-racy, analyses were conducted to see if there were any, and none were found. Based onprevious studies searching for the qualities of the ‘‘good judge,’’ other, more narrowlydefined traits not tapped directly by measures of the Big Five, such as communal orienta-tion, empathy, etc., seem like plausible candidates (Adams, 1927; Funder, 1999; Vernon,1933; Vogt & Colvin, 2003). However, as Lippa and Dietz (2000) concluded, judgmentalaccuracy seems to be ‘‘trait specific,’’ meaning that perceiver characteristics that contributeto accuracy differ depending on which trait in the target is being judged. What makes for a‘‘good judge’’ of self-esteem is probably not identical to what makes for a ‘‘good judge’’ ofneuroticism, for example.

5. Conclusion

I have argued, hopefully without overstating the case, that reasonably accurate judg-ment of others’ self-esteem is an essential task of everyday social perception. Thisresearch constitutes a first attempt to answer some fundamental questions regardingaccuracy, bias, and the influence of a false consensus effect in the interpersonal percep-


tion of self-esteem. I trust that it will provoke curiosity and stimulate further researchon this topic.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the invaluable support provided by the Rutgers UniversityDepartment of Psychology in providing access to the participants, research assistants,and facilities required to carry out this research. Portions of this research were presentedat the annual conference of the Eastern Psychological Association in March, 2006.

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Who do you think I think I am? Accuracy in perceptions of others’ self-esteem