| Most accuracy research relies on situationswhere judges have no information about a target before the initial personality judgment. In this studyjudges where given either true, false, or no information about a target prior to watching a recorded interview of thetarget and then making personality judgments. Giving judges true prior information led to greater distinctive accuracy, but not greater normativity, compared to a control group(no prior information); and giving false prior information led to less distinctive accuracy and normativity compared to a control group. When accuracy was broken down by trait, the true conditionled to no better accuracy than the control condition for most traits,andthe false conditionled to decreases in both normativity and distinctive accuracyfor most traits. These results highlight the importance of using reliable and accurate sources when trying to form accurate impressions of others.Key Words: Psychology, Personality, Judgment, Accuracy, Social, Prior information |