The Effect of Information Quantity on Distinctive Accuracy and Normativity of Personality Trait Judgments

Abstract

Information quantity is an important moderator of personality judgment accuracy. Some evidence suggests that the amount of available information is positively related to accuracy. The current study utilized the social accuracy model to investigate the effects of differences in thin slices of information quantity on the distinctive accuracy and normativity of personality trait judgments. It was hypothesized that distinctive accuracy and normativity would increase as information quantity increased. Participants were 431 individuals who participated in an online study that varied the length of stimulus target observations (30 seconds, 1 minute, 3 minutes, and 5 minutes), after which judges rated targets using other–report measures of the Big Five personality traits. For all traits combined, significant levels of accuracy were found for all observation lengths, but distinctive accuracy and normativity did not increase as video length increased. Findings varied for individual traits. For distinctive accuracy, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Extraversion and a non–linear relationship for Conscientiousness, while there was a linear decrease for Openness. For normativity, there was a linear increase with information quantity for Agreeableness and a non–linear relationship for Conscientiousness. There are important differences in how observation length affects distinctive accuracy and normativity for different personality traits. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology