Cognitive Strategies for Peer Judgments

How do people make judgments about characteristics of their peers? We investigate what cognitive strategies underlie peer judgments, what group-level patterns of judgments do these strategies produce, and whether they generate accurate judgments. We develop a general model that allows for comparison of different cognitive strategies including ego-projection, frequency-based, memory, and inference strategies. We apply it on a unique data set including self-reports and peer judgments of substance use among homeless youth (N=239). We find evidence for the adaptive use of strategies that are most appropriate given the information available from one’s personal experience and social environment. On the group level, the pattern of judgments sometimes resembles false consensus, but overall shows a high level of accuracy.