Strangers' ratings of the five robust personality factors: Evidence of a surprising convergence with self-report.

Attempted to replicate and extend the results of Passini and Norman (1966), who found surprising evidence ofconver~nt validity (i.e., significant correlations with the targets' self-ratings) in strangers' judgments of 5 broad personality factors. In the current study, 250 previously unacquainted Ss were run in small, same-sex groups of various sizes. Ss rated both themselves and their fellow group members on the same set of 20 bipolar trait scales used by Passini and Norman. Consistent with previous research, significant self-peer agreement correlations were obtained for Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Ratings of Agreeableness also sho~xt significant convergent validity when a sufficient number of peers rated the target. More generally, self-peer agreement correlations tended to rise as the number of peer raters increased. Possible explanations for the validity of strangers' trait ratings are discussed.