The illusory nature of Implicit Personality Theory: Logical and empirical considerations

Mirels (1976) demonstrated that derivations from Implicit Personality Theory were compromised by marked absolute discrepancies between subjects’ estimates of the coendorsement of personality items and the empirical relations between the items. Arguments presented by Jackson, Chan, and Strieker (1979) in a recent critique of this demonstration were shown to be based on an arbitrary and severely restrictive view of implicit theory. Logical and empirical considerations were brought to bear in the present paper to indicate that (a) empirical conditional probabilities of test item coendorsement are an appropriate comparison standard for estimates of those probabilities, (b) large absolute discrepancies between estimated and empirical coendorsement must be regarded as seriously impugning the accuracy of IPT, and (c) exclusive reliance on the correlational correspondence between estimated and empirical coendorsement results in an overly sanguine view of the accuracy of IPT. Moreover, it was shown that subjects fail to discriminate between highly asymmetrical conditional probabilities, a finding directly at variance with the assertion that the presumably veridical postulates of implicit theory are inductively extracted from experience. Also discussed were the relation between IPT and everyday social judgments, and the influence of IPT on behavioral ratings.