Predicting Individual Evaluations from Group Evaluations and Vice Versa

Abstract

We examined people's beliefs about how well an individual's evaluations can predict the average evaluations of a group and how well a group's average evaluations can predict those of an individual. The individual in question was either the self or a stranger. Subjects believed that the group predicts a stranger better than the stranger predicts the group, but believed that the self predicts the group as well as or better than the group predicts the self This asymmetry in estimates of predictability mirrors asymmetries found by other researchers for similarity judgments, suggesting that beliefs about predictability may be guided by similarity judgments. This may lead to errors in predictions about self and others, including the false consensus bias.