January 1, 1993
View Full PaperDo people know how others view them? An empirical and theoretical account.
Key Points
- The study investigates how accurately people perceive others' views of them, emphasizing self-perceptions' role.
- Reviewed 8 studies using the social relations model (SRM) with 569 subjects.
- Analyzed how self-perceptions override feedback in determining perceived perspective.
- Examined consistency in perspectives from different targets.
- People overestimate the consistency of how different individuals view them.
- Individuals understand general perceptions better than unique views from specific persons.
Abstract
Meta-accuracy is the extent to which people know how others see them. Following D.A. Kenny and L. Albright (1987), we show how the social relations model (SRM) can be used to investigate meta-accuracy. The results from 8 SRM studies involving 569 subjects are reviewed. We argue that people determine how others view them not from the feedback that they receive from others but from their own self-perceptions. Consistent with this argument are the findings that (a) people overestimate the degree of consistency in the ways that different targets view them and (b) people are better at understanding how others generally view them than how they are uniquely viewed by specific individuals.