Evaluating Others: The Role of Who We Are Versus What We Think Traits Mean

Abstract

Three studies explored the relative roles of the self and self-serving definitions of social traits in social judgment. In Study 1, participants evaluated the applications of prospective college admittees more favorably when those applicants shared their own competencies, even after general liking for these applicants had been controlled statistically. In Study 2, participants tended to describe the leadership styles of famous leaders (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr.) but not nonleaders as similar to their own. In Study 3, participants completed measures of self-description, trait definition, and social judgment. Self-serving trait definitions completely explained the relation between the self and social judgment. Together, these findings suggest that self-serving trait definitions are not epiphenomenal but rather play an important role, independent of the self, in judgments of others.