Figuring Out How Others See Us

Abstract

We have a natural desire to know what other people think of us and, thus, we form beliefs regarding other people’s impressions of us, called meta-perceptions. The extent to which these beliefs are accurate is called meta-accuracy, and is related to whether people like us, as well as the quality of our relationships with others. As a result, meta-accuracy has become a topic of interest in the literature on personality judgment. This chapter reviews how researchers study and index meta-accuracy and the results of the existing work on meta-accuracy. Further, it proposes studying meta-accuracy by using the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM) as a framework. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, we use the RAM to outline the cues used in the formation of meta-perceptions, the potential moderators of meta-accuracy, and future avenues of research.