On the accuracy of personality judgment: A realistic approach.

The accuracy paradigm for the study of personality judgment provides an important, new complement to the error paradigm that dominated this area of research for almost 2 decades. The present article introduces a specific approach within the accuracy paradigm called the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM). RAM begins with the assumption that personality traits are real attributes of individuals. This assumption entails the use of a broad array of criteria for the evaluation of personality judgment and leads to a model that describes accuracy as a function of the availability, detection, and utilization of relevant behavioral cues. RAM provides a common explanation for basic moderators of accuracy, sheds light on how these moderators interact, and outlines a research agenda that includes the reintegration of the study of error with the study of accuracy. Believe truth! Shun error!—these, we see, are two materially different laws; and by choosing between them we may end by coloring differently our whole intellectual life. (James, 1897/1915) Judgments of personality are attempts to identify the psychological properties of people, such as personality traits, that help to explain what they have done in the past and to predict what