Another look at accuracy and confidence in social judgments

This study examined the relationship between accuracy and confidence on the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). This version of the IPT contains 1 5 brief, real-life scenes on videotape for which there are objectively corr ect answers to questions about status, intimacy, kinship, competition, and deception. A total of 241 participants were run in a 2 (high vs. low cognit ive demand) X 2 (first impression vs. nonverbal cues strategy) X 2 (sex of participant) design. Overall, no significant relationship was found when ac curacy scores were correlated with two between-participant measures of conf idence. There was, however, a significant relationship within-participants between accuracy and confidence. Thus, participants' rated confidence for e ach of the 15 scenes did predict accuracy in judgments about the scenes. In addition, a 2 X 2 X 2 ANOVA on participants' transformed accuracy-confiden ce correlations revealed a small, significant effect of strategy. Specifica lly, the accuracy-confidence correlations were higher when participants wer e instructed to attend to specific nonverbal cues in making their judgments than when they were told to rely on their first impressions. Although ther e were no differences between men and women in either their accuracy or the ir accuracy-confidence correlations, men rated their confidence significant ly higher than did women. The factors affecting the accuracy-confidence rel ationship and their role in automatic judgments are discussed.