A comparison of individuals versus groups in judging personality

Abstract

186 individuals divided into 62 groups of 3 persons each tried to predict the responses of people seen in moving pictures. Individual and independent predictions were first made; and then after group discussion, the consensus predictions were made. "A comparison was made of the accuracy of (a) the average of the total accuracy scores of the independent predictions made by each of the three persons composing the group, (b) the group consensus predictions, (c) the accuracy of an 'artificial group' derived through the statistical combination of the independent item by item predictions of these same three persons, and (d) the accuracy of the 'best judge' from each group. The results indicated that the average accuracy of the individuals is significantly inferior to any of the three procedures… . the pooling of several independent judges' ratings (by items) appeared to be the most satisfactory procedure." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HE50C. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)