Analyzing consensus in personality judgments: a variance components approach

Although peer raters of personality traits do tend to agree, the strength of their consensus is often modest. This article focuses on methods for analyzing determinants of consensus. Variance components methods adapted from generalizability theory have some untapped potential for understanding gradations in consensus. The methods allow explicit analysis of how social categories of targets might affect judgments of raters from the same or different social categories. Limitations of the variance components approach are also discussed. The methods are illustrated with artificial data.