Relative influence of perceivers and perceived on attribution of person concepts

In several studies the relative influence of the perceiver and the perceived on the categories of person perception has been examined, but relatively little is known about descriptive relationships between the self and others. Discrepancies between the implicit personality theory attributed to others and to oneself were examined among 20 participants for 8 lists of trait words. Findings showed that within-subject congruency in self-other descriptions exceeded agreement between subjects, and that participants tended to be consistently congruent or incongruent for all traits. Discrepancy in self-other attributions appears to be functionally related to the purposes and outcomes of interaction and the perception of social roles in terms of significant and generalized others.