The Reliability And Consistency Of Complex Personality Judgements

Two separate tasks were used to investigate the ability of subjects to make reliable and consistent judgments of similarities among personalities. Ten social categories for which each subject specified persons known to him- self were used as concepts. Test-retest reliabilities were obtained for an 8 point similarity-dissimilarity scale and inconsistency was measured by the intransitive relations appearing in a triadic judgment test. Reliabilities and consistencies were judged sufficiently adequate for use of these types of judgments in a multidimensional scaling approach t o individual differences in social perception.