Predicting personality and behavior: a boundary on the acquaintanceship effect.

Recent research has shown that interjudge agreement in personality ratings increases with acquaintanceship. The present study sought to replicate and extend this finding by investigating the relation between acquaintanceship and behavioral prediction. A total of 138 undergraduate targets were videotaped while interacting with an opposite-sex partner in 3 situations. The targets also completed 5 personality measures. Results indicated that acquaintances' judgments predicted personality scores much better than did strangers' judgments, but acquaintances' and strangers' judgments did equally well at predicting behavior. Implications for research on the accuracy of personality judgments are discussed.