Who do we think of as good judges? Those who agree with us about us

Abstract The present research considered what leads perceivers to evaluate someone as a good or poor judge of people. In general, we found a substantial role for agreement: perceivers evaluated another person as a good judge when he or she agreed with their perception of someone's characteristics. Importantly, the effect of agreement depended on who this “someone” was. We found that perceivers' evaluation of another individual as a good judge was more heavily shaped by agreement about their own characteristics than by agreement about a third-party target's characteristics. This effect emerged across a range of samples and research designs, including multi-rater evaluations among developing business professionals, experimentally controlled settings, and a survey in which US adults reported on existing relationships. Moderation analyses suggested that the effect of agreement was particularly strong in situations where the agreement could more effectively satisfy perceivers' motives to (a) feel relational connectedness and (b) verify the accuracy of their perception.