Rainer Riemann

Self-reports, peer reports, intelligence tests, and ratings of personality and intelligence from 15 video-taped episodes were collected for 600 participants. The average cross-situational consistency of trait impressions across the 15 episodes was.43. Shared stereotypes related to gender and age were mostly accurate and contributed little to agreement among judges. Agreement was limited mainly by nonshared meaning systems and by nonoverlapping information. Personality inferences from thin slices of behavior were significantly associated with reports by knowledgeable informants. This association became stronger when more episodes were included, but gains in prediction were low beyond 6 episodes. Inferences of intelligence from thin slices of behavior strongly predicted intelligence test scores. A particularly strong single predictor was how persons read short sentences. Consensus1 and accuracy of personality judgments are impor-tant both for applied and theoretical reasons (Funder & West, 1993). They are important for applied reasons because personality judgments have effects on interpersonal attraction as well as on personal and organizational decisions. To the extent that person-ality judgments are accurate, they are likely to improve the qualit