Fundamental questions in behavior observation: Amount and overlap of information, sequence effects and perceiver-induced consistency

虽然行为观察在社会科学的许多分支中起着重要的作用，但关于这种方法的几个基本问题仍然没有得到回答。本研究包括一个创新的研究设计，使它有可能回答这些问题：（1）信息重叠：不同的感知者必须观察一个人的完全相同的行为，以达到对该人的类似判断，或者它是否足够，如果他们判断同一个人，但不同的行为？ (2)序列效应：如果首先通过观察他人的行为来校准对一个人的行为的判断，那么对一个人的行为的判断是否会更好地相互吻合，并与外部有效性标准相一致？在一系列判断的早期阶段，观察者是否倾向于避免极端的判断？(3)感知者诱导的一致性：同一感知者的行为判断的跨情境一致性在多大程度上反映了目标人特征的实际稳定性（与感知者倾向于使他/她的感知相互一致相反）？(4)信息量：有可能复制这样的发现，即基于非常有限的行为信息（即，平均而言，六个简短的情况）？如果所有的判断都是由同一个人提供的，那么这种情况（如何）会发生变化？为了解决这些问题，我们将实施一个严格控制的研究设计，其中200人在20个标准化情况下的行为被录像，然后由零相识的观察者进行判断（即，观察者没有关于目标的其他信息，也不与目标互动）。研究设计的一个关键要素是将观察者随机分配到两组中的一组：在一组中，同一个观察者在各种情况下判断同一个人，在另一组中，观察者在同一情况下判断不同的人。此外，不同的观察者暴露于关于目标的相同或不同的行为信息的程度，以及信息呈现的顺序，都是实验性的。这项研究将为我们理解行为观察做出重要贡献，从而使该技术在未来的研究中得到更有效的利用。最重要的是，这项研究使人们有可能调查一些核心的有效性，但未经检验的原则，最有影响力的模型的人的看法。

Although behavior observation plays an important role in many branches of social science, several fundamental questions in regard to this method remain yet to be answered. The present study comprises an innovative research designs that makes it possible to answer these questions: (1) Information overlap: Do different perceivers have to observe the exact same behaviors of a person in order to arrive at similar judgments about that person, or does it suffice if they judge the same person, but different behaviors? (2) Sequence effects: Will judgments of a person's behavior agree better with one another, and with external validity criteria, if they were calibrated by observing the behavior of other persons first? Do observers tend to avoid extreme judgments in the early stages of a sequence of judgments? (3) Perceiver-induced consistency: To what extent does the trans-situational consistency of behavior judgments by the same perceiver reflect the actual stability of the characteristics of the target person (as opposed to the perceiver's tendency to make his/her perceptions consistent with one another)? (4) Amount of information: Is is possible to replicate the finding that relatively accurate person judgments are possible based on very limited behavioral information (i.e., six brief situations, on average)? And (how) does this change if all judgments are provided by the same person? To address these questions, we will implement a strictly controlled research design in which the behavior of 200 persons in each of 20 standardized situations is videotaped and then judged by observers at zero acquaintance (i.e., the observers have no other information about the targets and do not interact with them either). A crucial element of the research design is the random assignment of observers to one of two groups: In one group, the same observer judges the same person across various situations, in the other group, an observer judges different persons in the same situation. In addition, the extent to which different observers are exposed to the same or different behavioral information about a target, and the order in which that information is presented, are experimentally manipulated. The study will make an important contribution to our understanding of behavior observation, and thus enable a more efficient use of that technique in future research. Above all, the study makes it possible to investigate the validity of some central yet untested tenets of the most influential models of person perception.