The canny social judge: Predicting others' attitudes from sparse information

•Strangers in groups are accurate at judging the likes and dislikes of others.•Even without explicitly exposed to others’ attitudes toward specific targets.•These results are moderated by empathetic responding.•Both information gathering and mental simulation are needed to generate the effect.

We demonstrate a phenomenon we term ‘The Canny Social Judge.’ Specifically, we demonstrate that individuals have a remarkable ability to predict the attitudes of others in a social group even though those attitudes were never shared. In Experiments 1 and 2, we document this phenomenon. In Experiment 3, we adopt an individual difference approach and find that empathic responding moderates this phenomenon — it is individuals who are good at empathic responding who appear particularly able to display the ‘canny social judge’ effect. In Experiment 4, using an experimental manipulation of empathy, we provide greater internal validity to our claim. Finally, in Experiment 5, we parse empathic processing into the component parts to delineate the process further. These data paint a picture of a highly socially aware organism.