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Effects Of Communication, Information Overlap, And Behavioral Consistency On Consensus In Social Perception., Thomas Malloy, Fredric Agatstein, Aaron Yarlas, Linda Albright

Fredric C Agatstein

Three experiments (N = 69, 162, and 201, respectively) were conducted to test the mathematically derived predictions of the Weighted Average Model (D. A. Kenny, 1991) of consensus in interpersonal perception. Study 1 estimated the effect of perceiver communication, Study 2 estimated the effects of communication and stimulus overlap, and Study 3 estimated the effects of communication, overlap, and target consistency on consensus. The strongest consensus was found when perceivers communicated about highly overlapping information about targets who were cross-situationally consistent. Conversely, the lowest level of consensus was observed when perceivers did not communicate and had non-overlapping information about targets …