Rw. Fuhrman et Dc. Funder, CONVERGENCE BETWEEN SELF AND PEER IN THE RESPONSE-TIME PROCESSING OF TRAIT-RELEVANT INFORMATION, Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(5), 1995, pp. 961-974
Research on ''self-schemas'' has extensively documented the effects of
these hypothesized cognitive structures on the processing of self-kno
wledge, but it has neglected to establish whether these structures cor
respond to knowledge other persons possess about an individual's perso
nality traits and whether this peer-knowledge is represented by cognit
ive structures similar to self-schemas. In the present study, ''schema
tic'' measures such as response time in self-ratings were compared wit
h traits attributed to participants by well-acquainted peers. Peer-rat
ings were nearly as accurate as self-ratings in predicting response-ti
me patterns in self-description. Moreover, extreme self-ratings by the
target individual were predictive of extreme peer-ratings and quick p
eer-judgments for the trait in question. This pattern of convergence d
id not depend on any similarity between the peer's own self-ratings an
d those of the target. These results indicate that the content and pro
cessing characteristics of knowledge structures developed of individua
ls by well-acquainted peers are remarkably similar to the content and
properties of the individual's own self-schemas.