Judging personal values and personality traits: Accuracy and its relation to visibility

Personality judgment research typically focuses on traits, and visibility of traits often predicts judgmental accuracy. However, visibility and accuracy of values are not well-explored. It was predicted that visibility and accuracy would be positively related, and values would be judged more accurately than traits. In groups of 3 acquaintances, 204 undergraduates completed self-report measures of traits and values, and other-reports of acquaintances. A separate sample of 247 participants assessed visibility. Values were rated as more visible than traits, but traits were judged more accurately than values. Correlations between visibility and item-level accuracy for both values and traits were small and non-significant. The ease with which people think values and traits can be judged may differ from the accuracy of judgments.