David
A. Kenny
March 23, 2021
WARNING: Material on this page
is not easy to understand.
The perception that A has of B's perception of C or
A(B(C)) is a triadic perception. Person A is called the judge, person B
the perceiver, and person C the target. In one study, we asked judges to
estimate how much the characters of television show like one another. So
we asked a University of Connecticut undergraduate (judge) how much Carla
(perceiver) liked Cliff (target). There are some important special cases
of triadic perceptions:
-
A(B(A)): dyadic meta-perceptions (see meta-accuracy)
-
A(B(B)): judgment of how a person sees self
-
A(A(B)): how A thinks that A views B; normally the same
as A(B)
-
A(A(A)): how A thinks that A views A; normally the same
as A(A) or self perception
One important use of triadic ratings is in families. We
can ask mothers how they think their son relates to the father or M(S(F)).
Note that triadic meta-accuracy can be defined as M(S(F)) = S(F).
There are seven sources of variance in triadic ratings:
Individual
-
judge: a judge's general view of how people see others
- perceiver: how people think a person tends to see
others
- target: how people think a person is seen by others
Dyad
- judge by perceiver: disagreements between judges in how
a person sees others
- judge by target: disagreements between judges in how
a person is seen by others
- perceiver by target: agreement between judges in how
a person uniquely views a target
Triad
- judge by perceiver by target: most of this is likely error
There are 16 univariate correlations:
Individual
-
judge with perceiver (or i with j)
-
judge with target (or i with k)
-
perceiver with target (or j with k)
Dyad
-
JP with PJ (or ij with ji)
-
JT with TJ (or ik with ki)
-
PT with TP (or jk with kj)
-
JP with JT (or ij with jk)
-
JP with TJ (or ij with kj)
-
JT with PT (or jk with ik)
-
JP with TJ (or ij with kj)
-
JP with JT (or ij with ik)
-
JT with TP (or ik with kj)
Triad
-
ijk with ikj
-
ijk with jik
-
ijk with kji
-
ijk with jki or kij
The are so many bivariate correlations that they
are too numerous to describe. In general, each a variable can be correlated
with all other components at that level. So individual effects are correlated
with individual effects, dyadic with dyadic, and triadic with triadic.
Most of the work that I have done on triadic analyses
of perception has been with Charles
Bond. Many of the insights and almost
all of the math are due to him.
Bond, C. F., Jr., Horn, E. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1997).
A model for triadic relations.
Psychological Methods, 2, 79-94. doi:10.1037/1082-989X.2.1.79
Kenny, D. A., Bond, C. F., Jr., Mohr, C. D., & Horn, E. M.(1996).
Do we know how much people like one another?
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 928-936.
doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.5.928
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