ANALYZING CONSENSUS IN PERSONALITY JUDGMENTS - A VARIANCE-COMPONENTS APPROACH

Although peer raters of personality traits do tend to agree, the stren gth of their consensus is often modest. This article focuses on method s for analyzing determinants of consensus. Variance components methods adapted from generalizability theory have some untapped potential for understanding gradations in consensus. The methods allow explicit ana lysis of how social categories of targets might affect judgments of ra ters from the same or different social categories. Limitations of the variance components approach are also discussed. The methods are illus trated with artificial data.