ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the issues raised by the various interpretations of what is being measured by trait ratings, and aims to integrate the social psychological studies of the perception of personality with personality theorists’ work. Investigations into implicit personality theory have used trait ratings as a means of obtaining people’s beliefs about trait co-occurrence. The ratings of real people were regarded as measuring observed trait co-occurrences, the ratings of stereotypes were regarded as measuring believed trait co-occurrences, and the ratings of traits were regarded as measuring linguistic knowledge. The distinguishing feature of studies testing the epistemological status of implicit personality theory is that they all claim to compare people’s beliefs about the relations between traits with supposedly actual trait relations. Despite the conceptual and empirical weaknesses uncovered by the various responses to R. A. Shweder and R. G. D’Andrade’s views on trait ratings, the investigators have acknowledged that human observers are liable to some error and bias in encoding behaviour.
