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(Article Originally Published in Psychological Bulletin 1955)
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What are the factors related to the ability to judge accurately such behavioralcharacteristics as the abilities, traits, action tendencies, motives, and emotions of other people? Are there some persons who consistently demonstrate good ability to judge others accurately and, if so, what are the correlates of such ability? These arethe general questions to which this review is addressed. The practical importance of the above questions in psychology is obvious, especially when we consider the role of the psychologist's personality in determining the validity of the observations andinferences with which he works.(Note: J stands for judge and S for subject. Throughout this review, the term "subject"refers to the person being judged).
METHODS OF MEASURING ABILITY TO JUDGE OTHERS
The number of differing methods of measuring ability to judge others that have beenused in the experiments in this area may partly account for the varied and sometimesconflicting results found. The distinction between analytic and non-analytic judgments(Wallin, 75) appears to be a particularly important one. In analytic judgments, the judge (J) is required to conceptualize, and often to quantify, specific characteristics of the subject (S) in terms of a given frame of reference. This mainly involves the processof inference, typical performances of J being rating traits, writing personalitydescriptions, and predicting the percentage of a group making a given response. Innonanalytic judgments, J responds in a global fashion, as in matching persons withpersonality descriptions and in making predictions of behavior. An empathetic processis usually involved in nonanalytic judgments.
A Classification of Tests of Ability to Judge Others
The classification that follows is based on that suggested by Notcutt and Silva's reviewof the experimental approaches (54).1. Perception of emotional expressions in photographs, drawings, models, and movies.This method has been used to study ability to judge in a number of studies (2 [ch. 8
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10], 3, 13, 18, 25, 26, 30, 33, 37, 38, 39, 73, 76, 78). The required response may be amultiple-choice, a one-word free response, or a completely free response. The criteria
 
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are usually S's intention, or the judgment of psychologists. Less controversial criteriawere used by Coleman (18), where J had to select from a check list the situation towhich S was responding. This type of test usually evokes a nonanalytic judgment,although, as F. H. Allport (2) has demonstrated, these judgments can be madeanalytically. The method has the advantage of being neat, but the expressions tend tobe culturally stereotyped. In real-life situations the expression of emotions may beidiosyncratic (38, 42) and thus their recognition may require a different type of abilityfrom the recognition of stereotyped responses.2. Rating and ranking of traits.This is an analytic method, and has the advantage of clear-cut quantification. It alsohas the virtue of requiring a performance which is frequently used in psychologicalwork. It suffers from all the drawbacks of ratings in general, particularly the lack of consensus about the meaning of terms and the quantitative standards to be used.A further difficulty with this method of measuring ability to judge others is theestablishment of criteria. Two different approaches to these criteria may bedistinguished: (a) Peer judgments, i.e., pooled judgments made by the Ss themselves,which may or may not include the self-ratings (1, 6, 17, 24, 27, 32, 60, 67, 73, 81). Theuse of this type of criterion suffers from the doubt whether we are measuring ability to judge or simply the degree to which J conforms to the criterion group; thenonconformist would score poorly, but might in fact be a good judge. (6) Externalcriteria
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these may be judgments made by other observers who may or may not bewell acquainted with the Ss; or they may be derived from test results (3, 17, 23, 40, 52,53, 67, 71, 73, 78). (Only Cogan et al. [17], Estes [23], and Vernon [73] used tests aswell as ratings to provide the criteria.) Taft (67) obtained an intercorrelation of .72between ratings using each of the two types of judgmental criteria, peer judgmentsand external judgments.3. Personality descriptions.The J is provided with some data about S and required to write a description of hispersonality. The data provided might be a brief interview with S, observation of S in
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