mind-reading ability: beliefs and performanceq - utjyri/en/jrp2003_mindreading.pdf · mind-reading...

JOURNAL OF

ESEARCH IN
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Journal of Research in Personality 37 (2003) 420–445

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PERSONALITY

Mind-reading ability: Beliefs and performanceq

Anu Realo,* J€uuri Allik, Aire N~oolvak, Raivo Valk, Tuuli Ruus,Monika Schmidt, and Tiina Eilola

Department of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tiigi 78, Tartu 50410, Estonia

Abstract

Every adult possesses and uses to a various extent, a powerful tool, a theory of mind. The

ability to recognize emotions, intentions, and thoughts of others is an important component of

social competence. The use of personality questionnaires implies that people are aware of their

personality traits, experienced emotions, values, and attitudes. Therefore, it is reasonable to

expect that a normal adult is aware of his or her mind-reading abilities and can estimate, in

relation to the others, how good he or she is at judging other person�s traits, states of mind,

emotions, and intentions. In this study we have demonstrated that a person�s beliefs about

their own mind-reading ability forms a single and unitary dimension. If a person believes that

he or she is competent in forming judgments about another person�s personality traits then he

or she has a relatively high opinion of their abilities to read another person�s thoughts and

emotions. However, the results of our research show that the self-reported mind-reading abil-

ity was not correlated with actual performance. Those who believe that they are good at read-

ing others� minds are generally neither (1) significantly better than the others in recognition of

emotions expressed in face or speech, nor (2) superior in their estimation of the personality

traits of a stranger. The self-reported mind-reading ability was correlated with personality

traits but not with psychometrically measured intelligence. On the contrary, the actual

mind-reading performance was correlated with IQ scores. It is discussed why individuals

are relatively accurate in estimation of their own personality but lack metaknowledge about

their mind-reading abilities.

� 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

qThe first and the second authors were fellows at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the

Social Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden) during the preparation of this article. This study was supported by

grants from the Estonian Science Foundation to Anu Realo (3059 and 3919) and in part, by a grant from

the Estonian Ministry of Education to J€uuri Allik (0180543). We thank Monika Luik and Tiia Riispap for

their help with data collection and conducting the experiments. We are also grateful to the Earl of Carlisle

for his helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.* Corresponding author. Fax: +372-7-375900.

E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Realo).

0092-6566/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00021-7

mail to: [email protected]

A. Realo et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 37 (2003) 420–445 421

Keywords: Mind reading; Empathic accuracy; Social competence

1. Introduction

All normal human adults and perhaps some talented apes (Premack & Woodruff,

1978) possess and use a powerful tool—a theory of mind (Flavell, 1999). The theory

of mind is normally viewed as a competence, a specific capacity of the mind geared to

understand ourselves and others in terms of mental states. The theory of mind pro-

vides the owners of this capacity with the ability to establish a relationship between

external states (expressions, gestures, signals, etc.) and internal states of mind. Themost important consequence of this relationship is a capacity to predict behavior

of other individuals in various social settings. The capacity to recognize emotions,

intentions, and thoughts of others, can be seen as an important ingredient of a

broader set of abilities that has been called social competence or intelligence. Like

many other skills, very young children apparently lack this ability and it takes at

least a couple of years before they become ‘‘mind readers,’’1 both of their own as well

as others (Gopnik, 1993; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997). Pathological processes can im-

pede the development of mind-reading ability. It was proposed, for example, that thecentral component of autism is a specific deficit in ‘‘mind reading,’’ not an impair-

ment of general cognitive abilities (Baron-Cohen, 1995).

Natural languages provide, beside the description of mental states, an extensive

set of words that the members of a language-speaking community have invented

to describe personality traits they find important (Goldberg, 1993). Only a few schol-

ars still have a pessimistic view that personality attributes, expressed in adjectives or

personality questionnaire items, exist solely in the head of the person who uses them,

not in the person one tries to characterize. Many theories, like psychoanalysis for in-stance, deny the human ability to perceive veridically the personality traits of our

friends, our acquaintances and ourselves, and therefore, discredit self-reports as a re-

liable source of data. On the contrary, the use of personality questionnaires generally

implies that, most of the time, people are aware of their psychological make-up in-

cluding their lasting tendencies and dispositions to behave and act in a certain man-

ner (McCrae & Costa, 1996). Empirically grounded personality psychology is based

on an assumption that personality is a relatively stable and a coherent structure re-

siding within a person and in that sense is viewed as a ‘‘concrete entity’’ that, to acertain extent, is publicly accessible. This structure, however, is not directly visible,

1 In colloquial English, a ‘‘mind reader’’ is someone who ‘‘professes or is held to be able to perceive

another�s thought without normal means of communication’’ (Merriam-Webster OnLine; http://www.m-

w.com) and ‘‘mind reading’’ is defined as ‘‘guessing or knowing by intuition what somebody is thinking’’

(Hornby, 1987, p. 537). In this paper, however, following the works by several other authors (e.g., Baron-

Cohen, 1994; Baron-Cohen, 1995; Lee, Eskritt, Symons, & Muir, 1998), we decided to use the term ‘‘mind

reading’’ in a more general sense denoting the general ability to determine another individual�s state of

mind and to recognize another�s thoughts, intentions, emotions, and personality characteristics.

http://www.m-w.com

http://www.m-w.com

422 A. Realo et al. / Journal of Research in Personality 37 (2003) 420–445

being only partially revealed through social behavior and as a result, can be de-

scribed and understood by other people to a certain degree of accuracy (Funder &

Colvin, 1997). In spite of the former period of skepticism, it is generally agreed that

self–other congruence in personality ratings is a robust phenomenon which fails to

occur only under unfavorable conditions when, for example, the judges and their tar-gets have had no chance to become sufficiently acquainted (Funder, Kolar, & Black-

man, 1995). It is also argued that the most valid source of personality judgment are

not necessarily the self-reports but a consensus of the judgment between the knowl-

edgeable others (Kolar, Funder, & Colvin, 1996).

In addition to personality traits, at least three other types of mind-reading ac-

curacy tasks have been studied: the ability to make judgments about someone�s(1) mental state (both affective and nonaffective), (2) behavior, and (3) roles, iden-

tity, and/or status (Davis & Kraus, 1997). Among all mind-reading tasks, the rec-ognition of emotions is perhaps the best known and the most thoroughly studied.

The ability to recognize emotions in faces, stories or paintings is also an essential

part of the definition of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000;

Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Research carried out during the last three decades pro-

vides firm evidence that posed facial expressions, such as fear, sadness, happiness,

disgust, anger, surprise, and contempt, are recognizable almost universally across

different cultures (Ekman, 1994; Ekman & Friesen, 1971; Ekman, Sorenson, &

Friesen, 1969), including Estonia (Niit & Valsiner, 1977). Compared with facial ex-pressions, vocal expressions of emotions have received much less attention. Never-

theless, data show that vocally expressed emotions are also recognizable well above

chance level (Scherer, 1989; Van Bezooijen, 1984). The recognition accuracy is

highest for anger, sadness and happiness, moderately high for fear, and lower

for disgust, shame and contempt (Banse & Scherer, 1996). As in the case of facial

expressions, the ability to infer at least four different emotions and a neutral state

from vocal portrayal (using content-free utterances) appears to be universal across

languages and cultures: highly similar levels of recognition and the error patternsin confusion matrices were observed in different languages (Scherer, Banse, &

Wallbott, 2001).

Besides traits and states, the ability to recognize someone�s social role or identityhas also been studied, usually in the context of social competence or intelligence. For

example, in one of those studies visual vignettes portraying two persons in a partic-

ular social relationship were presented to a group of subjects whose task was to iden-

tify which of the two depicted persons occupied the dominant role in the dialogue

(Sternberg & Smith, 1985). However, compared with the amount of research onthe recognition of facial and vocal expressions, the number of studies in this area

is too small to form any firm conclusions.

With the exception of pathological cases, all people seem to have at least a rudi-

mentary mind-reading capacity. This, however, does not mean that all individuals

are equally proficient in recognizing facial expressions. Not all mind-reading

tasks are equally easy. For example, people cannot tell from demeanor whether oth-

ers are lying or not—only few can catch a liar! (DePaulo, 1994; Ekman, O�Sullivan,& Frank, 1999). Existing data also indicate that there are reliable individual


differences in the accuracy for any given task: good judges are generally more intel-

ligent, they tend to look at the world in a cognitively complex and sophisticated way,

and they are usually more gregarious and generally more responsible (Davis &

Kraus, 1997). Thus, mind-reading ability is not a binary, yes–no phenomenon but

a graduated ability with different degrees of success. Furthermore, there are alsomany reasons to suppose cultural variations in mind-reading ability (Lillard, 1998).

People are not only aware of their psychological make-up but they are also capa-

ble of metaperception, that can be defined as how others view them. Studies have

shown that people can indeed estimate how they are judged by other people (Kenny,

1994; Kenny & DePaulo, 1993; Malloy, Albright, Kenny, Agatstein, & Winquist,

1997). Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that people can also assess their own

mind-reading abilities: how accurate they are, compared to other people, in judging

traits, states, and intentions of others. Curiously, however, Ickes and his colleaguesfound that people seem to lack metaknowledge regarding their own mind-reading or

empathic accuracy; various self-report measures of empathic skills and empathic ac-

curacy were poor predictors of actual accuracy of inferring other people�s thoughtsand feelings. Even more so, most of these correlations between the self-reported abil-

ity and the actual mind-reading performance were negative (Davis & Kraus, 1997;

Ickes, 1993; Ickes, Stinson, Bisonette, & Garcia, 1990). Thus, these data suggest that

people seem to be unreliable judges of their own mind-reading or empathic abilities.

Although they differ significantly in their ability to accurately read the thoughts andfeelings of others, they have little insight with regard to their own relative level of

empathic skills (Ickes, 1993).

One obvious reason for such lack of metaknowledge is that, generalizability of the

mind-reading accuracy judging tasks and of the judged targets is rather weak (Davis

& Kraus, 1997; Kenny & Albright, 1987). This may, however, not be the whole story.

Ickes (1993) listed several other possibilities, including a motivation not to be accu-

rate in estimating one�s own mind-reading ability in certain circumstances. But even

then, incorrect assumptions may have important repercussions on people�s actionsand performances. Bandura and his colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated that

people�s beliefs in their own abilities and expertise in a variety of domains—some-

times adequate and sometimes wrong—are good predictors of many real-life out-

comes (Bandura, 1982).

The aims of the three studies in this paper are as follows: First, we wanted to

examine the structure and dimensionality of mind-reading beliefs. We are going

to demonstrate that mind-reading beliefs have a relatively simple structure, concen-

trating around only one generalized belief. The existence of this single generalizedbelief allowed us to develop a short indicator of the general mind-reading belief.

The second aim of our study concerned the relationship between the general

mind-reading belief and actual mind-reading tasks. More specifically, we were in-

terested in examining the relationships between the general mind-reading belief

and (a) the recognition of emotional expressions expressed in face and speech

and (b) the recognition of personality traits of a stranger. Thirdly, we examined

the relations between mind-reading beliefs and actual performance in the context

of personality and intelligence.


2. Samples

Altogether, 1802 individuals participated in our research. We divided them into 5

different samples. The first two samples are of the highest importance for this study

as the 559 individuals participated in our two main mind-reading experiments. Threeadditional samples, two from Estonia and one from Great Britain, were used to val-

idate the developed mind-reading belief measure.

Sample 1. Sample 1 consisted of 280 Estonians (212 women and 68 men). The

mean age of the participants was 29.1 years ðSD ¼ 11:4Þ, varying from 14 to 67 years.

Thirty-four percent of the participants were students ðn ¼ 94Þ, and the rest consisted

of people with different educational and social backgrounds. Most of the individuals

were recruited on a voluntary basis—they were offered either a small fee or feedback

(the results of their tests). Some students participated in the experiment as a part oftheir class requirements.

Sample 2. The second sample consisted of 279 Estonian participants (193 women

and 86 men). The mean age of the individuals was 30.8 years ðSD ¼ 12:8Þ, varyingfrom 17 to 64 years. Here again, about one-third of the participants were students

ðn ¼ 102Þ, and the rest consisted of people with different educational and social

background. As with the first sample, most of the participants were recruited on a

voluntary basis—they could choose either a small fee or feedback (the results of their

tests).Sample 3. This large sample which contained 802 participants (556 women and

246 men) living in Estonia served as a ‘‘normative’’ sample for the validation of

the Mind-Reading Belief Scale (MBS). The age of subjects ranged from 14 to 81 with

the mean age 27.2 years ðSD ¼ 11:8Þ. About a half of the participants (roughly 55%)

were undergraduate students either from the University of Tartu or the Estonian

Business School majoring in a variety of subjects. The rest of the sample consisted

of individuals with different socio-economical and educational backgrounds who

volunteered to participate in this study.Sample 4. This sample was assembled for the study of self–other congruence in

mind-reading ratings. One hundred and one individuals (81 women and 20 men) liv-

ing in Estonia served as ‘‘target-persons.’’ Their mean age was 21.9 years ðSD ¼ 4:1Þranging from 17 to 41 years. The majority of the participants were undergraduate

and graduate students of the University of Tartu, but the sample also included a

number of individuals from other spheres of life. Each target-person was estimated

by two judges/observers who were recruited from his or her peers and/or family

members. The mean age of the 202 judges (153 women and 49 men) was 26.0 yearsðSD ¼ 10:0Þ. All individuals ðn ¼ 303Þ volunteered to participate in this study and

received no compensation for their involvement. Each target-person completed

self-report forms of the MBS and the short version of the Estonian NEO Personality

Inventory (NEO-FFI; Allik, Laidra, Realo, & Pullmann, 2002), the two judges for

each person completed the ‘‘other’’-report forms of the two scales.

Sample 5 contained 138 native English-speaking participants, 82 women and 54

men (2 participants did not indicate their sex). The mean age of the participants

was 28.0 years ðSD ¼ 12:8Þ, varying between 12 and 71 years. The participants were


recruited from the Southeast Britain: through the Rochester Independent College,

Mid-Kent College, the Integrated Services Programme, Rochester Baptist Church

and from some private companies. About 38% of the participants were students.

The rest of the sample included individuals from different educational backgrounds,

varying from primary to postgraduate, the majority having, at least, secondaryeducation.

3. Study 1: The structure of mind-reading beliefs

3.1. Method

3.1.1. Item development of the Mind-Reading Belief Scale

In order to measure the structure of mind-reading beliefs, a pool of items was

compiled which consisted of 63 self-report statements. In general, we aimed to de-

velop a scale that would measure people�s generalized beliefs about their ability to

read others� minds as well as judge the others� characters, their emotional and other

states of mind, and to anticipate their intentions and actions. More specifically, the

item pool was generated in order to cover four large thematical groups of mind-read-

ing beliefs as proposed by Davis and Kraus (1997): an ability to read the others� (1)personality traits, (2) mental states, (3) roles, identity, or status and to predict their(4) future behavior. The first group of the statements concerned stable and enduring

individual characteristics such as personality traits (e.g., ‘‘I can determine someone�spersonality traits at first sight’’), for instance. The second group of items focused on

the ability to understand passing states of mind (e.g., ‘‘I can understand others� feel-ings even if they try to hide them’’). The third group of the items dealt with the abil-

ity to identify social roles and identities (e.g., ‘‘I�m able to judge if the person comes

from a city or from the countryside’’). Finally, the last group of items questioned the

ability to predict behavior (e.g., ‘‘Usually, I know beforehand what my conversationpartner is going to say’’). The responses were given on a 5-point Likert-type scale

ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). The pool of items was admin-

istered to Sample 1 ðn ¼ 280Þ.

3.2. Results

3.2.1. The structure of mind-reading beliefs

A principal component analysis (followed by varimax rotation) was applied to theset of 63 items. The results showed that in addition to the first factor that explained

19.0% of the total variance, two other factors also exceeded the chance level of eigen-

values determined by permutations of the original raw data set. These two factors

added 7.6 and 3.7% to the amount of explained variance, respectively. Although

the parallel analysis (Horn, 1965) suggested the three-factor solution, two last factors

were difficult to interpret. Four thematical groups that were used to classify the items

were not systematically related to any of those three factors. It was also difficult to

see any other obvious grouping principle.


A hierarchical factor analysis (Wherry, 1984) revealed that these three factors

were not strictly orthogonal. They all shared variance with the common, secondary

factor. The correlations between the first oblique factors were from .44 to .70 and

most items had moderate to high loadings on this secondary factor. The existence

of only one dominating factor was further corroborated by the fact that 52 itemsof 63 (82.5%) had loadings higher than j:30j on the first principal component (the

mean loading was .42). These observations suggested that the thematical variation

of the whole set of items can be fairly well represented by a single factor.

Consequently, the MBS was developed consisting of 8 items. Several criteria were

used to select the items: the items should have high loadings on the first principal

component, the scale should include an equal number of direct and reversed items,

the items should cover different thematical groups and they should be different in

their wording. The final set of 8 items is shown in Table 2 (note that the items weregenerated in Estonian and then translated into English). As expected, the principal

component analysis demonstrated the existence of only one factor, accounting for

33.5% of the total variance. Also the parallel analysis indicated that the first factor

was the only one exceeding the chance level; the eigenvalue of the second factor was

already close to the value that can be obtained on a randomly permuted set of ori-

ginal data.

Next, we conducted a series of analysis to verify that the selected 8 items were in-

deed good and undistorted representatives of the total item-pool. First, we calculatedthe total scores of the eight items and the remaining 55 items. There was a high cor-

relation between the two scores, r ¼ :75 (p ¼ :000), especially where the Pearson co-

efficient of correlation was even higher than the internal consistency reliability of the

8-item version of the MBS (Cronbach a ¼ :70). To further check the correspondence

between the factor structures of the 8 and of the remaining 55 items, the correlations

between factor scores of the two solutions were calculated. In this case, the correla-

tion was even higher than the correlation between the two total scores, r ¼ :79(p ¼ :000). Thus, we can conclude that the 8 items chosen for the MBS representedquite accurately the larger set of items from which they were selected. The factor

structure of the MBS is also shown in Table 2.

3.2.2. Psychometric properties of the Mind-Reading Belief Scale

In order to test the generalizability of our findings, the MBS was administered to

four other samples. The means, standard deviations, and Cronbach as are shown in

Table 1. Because of its size and composition, Sample 3 ðn ¼ 802Þ can be regarded as

fairly representative of the Estonian general population. As in the case of Sample 1,the principal component analysis of the MBS items revealed the existence of a single

dominant factor accounting for 43.3% of the total variance. One-factor solution

yielded a simple factor structure, resulting in all 8 items loading above .50 on the first

single unrotated factor (see Table 2). The structures of loadings in all five samples

were very similar. For example, Tucker coefficient of congruence between the factor

structures obtained in Sample 1 and Sample 2 was .99, displaying an almost perfect

fit between the two structures. In all similar comparisons the Tucker congruence co-

efficients between different samples were no smaller than .98.

Table 2

Factor loadings (PCA, Varimax) and items of the MBS for five samples of this study

# Item Sample

1 2 3 4 5

Self Other

#1 Usually, I know beforehand

what my conversation partner

is going to say

.52 .57 .70 .55 .72 .40

#2 I can read people�s intentionsin their faces

.73 .75 .78 .76 .78 .73

#3 It is possible to deduce from

a person�s attitude what they

are going to do next

.51 .58 .61 .68 .63 .40

#4 A stranger�s character isrevealed to me at first sight

.61 .66 .67 .71 .75 .69

#5 It is hard for me to tell a

person�s thoughts by their

looksR

.64 .73 .73 .77 .68 .57

#6 I do not think I am good at

knowing human nature/

judging peopleR

.65 .76 .61 .55 .60 .55

#7 It is hard to judge if

somebody is lying or not by

their appearanceR

.40 .61 .61 .62 .57 .57

#8 It is not possible to say what

a person actually feels by

their covert behaviorR

.52 .62 .52 .68 .60 —

Percent explained 33.5 44.0 43.3 45.1 44.9 32.7

n 280 277 802 101 202 138

Note. PCA¼Principal component analysis. R ¼ Item reversed for scoring.

Table 1

Means, standard deviations, and Cronbach as of the MBS for five different samples used in this study

Sample

1 2 3 4 5

Self Other

Mean 1.90a 2.19b 1.93a 1.90a 2.10b 2.06b

SD .62 .73 .72 .73 .53 .61

Cronbach a .70 .81 .81 .82 .82 .64�

n 280 279 802 101 202 138

Note. Two means with different superscripts are significantly different ðp < :05Þ.* In Sample 5, the MBS included only 7 items. If one item is added, the internal consistency reliability

of the scale would be .67 (the calculation is based on the assumption that the intercorrelations among the

new item and the old items are equivalent to that of the old items).


To examine the long-term stability of the MBS, 61 participants in Sample 3 (53

females and 8 males) were re-tested at a time interval of approximately 3 and a half

years. During the first administration of the scale, all participants (mean age¼ 20.3,


SD ¼ 2:3) were undergraduate students of psychology at the University of Tartu.

The long-term stability coefficient of the MBS was .61 ðp ¼ :000Þ.In addition, an experiment was conducted in which social desirability of the

MBS items were measured. We presented 8 MBS items intermingled with 60 items

from the Estonian NEO-FFI (Allik et al., 2002) measuring five personality dimen-sions (i.e., Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscien-

tiousness), to 21 ‘‘experts’’ (mainly graduate and postgraduate students of

psychology) who answered for each item how socially desirable, in their opinion,

it was to answer affirmatively to that particular question. The 5-point scale ranged

from 0 (very undesirable) to 4 (very desirable) with the middle value of 2. The mean

social desirability of 8 MBS items was 1.83 ðSD ¼ :46Þ. Compared with the esti-

mated social desirability of personality traits, this was a rather intermediate value.

The least socially desirable were Neuroticism items (M ¼ 1:08, SD ¼ :36) and themost socially acceptable were items from Conscientiousness scale (M ¼ 3:20,SD ¼ :36).

3.3. Discussion of Study 1

It is known, for example, that self-efficacy beliefs are generally multifactorial. At

least three relatively separate domains of self-efficacy beliefs—academic, social, and

self-regulatory—can be found across different ages and nations (Bandura, 1990; Pas-torelli et al., 2001). For instance, people�s beliefs in their capability to attain good

academic results tell us very little if anything about their beliefs concerning their so-

cial capabilities. On the contrary, the results of our first study showed that people�sbeliefs about their mind-reading abilities circle just around one dominant theme. If

people believe that they are good judges of other people�s character then they also

have a relatively high opinion of their abilities to read the thoughts of others, emo-

tions and behavioral intentions. In other words, there appears to be a relatively gen-

eralized belief about one�s mind-reading abilities; knowing mind-reading efficacybeliefs in one domain is enough to predict beliefs in some other domain. Thus, peo-

ple�s beliefs about their mind-reading abilities appears to be unidimensional. Taking

into account a relatively large number of diverse samples involved in Study 1, we can

claim (with certain reservations of course) that this unidimensionality of mind-read-

ing beliefs can be generalized across demographic variables and perhaps even across

languages.

At first sight there is a discrepancy between multifaceted self-efficacy beliefs and

unidimensionality of mind-reading beliefs. Suppose, for example, that the abilityto read emotions from other people�s faces is not transferable to the ability to iden-

tify personality traits. One task may require a judge to determine the position of fa-

cial muscles and on that basis, to infer the target�s current emotional state, while

another task may require observation of behavior and on that basis making judg-

ments about some aspect of the subject�s personality. Although we can make obser-

vations and inferences about internal, invisible mental states (emotions and

personality traits, respectively), there is no guarantee that skills accomplished in

one mind-reading domain can be immediately transferred over to other domains.


Researchers have also noticed that the mind-reading accuracy has a tendency to vary

across different tasks. Summarizing available research findings, Davis and Kraus

(1997) concluded that the evidence for a generalized mind-reading accuracy is rather

weak, which however does not exclude this possibility in principle. At least in a rel-

atively similar tasks, like the recognition of emotions in visual (face) and auditory(music) stimuli, performances are positively correlated and appear to form a coher-

ent factor (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998). Similarly, the ability to detect deceit

seems also be transferable across different deception situations (Frank & Ekman,

1997).

Nevertheless, provided that there may be separate, specialized mind-reading skills

the existence of a generalized and unitary belief about these skills may be perceived

as a puzzle. This puzzle can be resolved by a demonstration by Ickes and his col-

leagues that various self-report measures of empathic accuracy are rather poor pre-dictors of actual mind-reading accuracy across various tasks (Ickes, 1993). People

are surprisingly poor at predicting their own mind-reading abilities; the appraisal

of these abilities is perhaps nowhere except in the eye of beholder. With this fact

in mind, the disparity between unidimensional beliefs and many-sided performances

is not totally surprising. Nevertheless, the relationship between mind-reading beliefs

and real performance has seldom been examined and therefore, more studies are

needed to substantiate this tentative conclusion.

4. Study 2: Relationship between mind-reading beliefs and actual performance

The main purpose of Study 2 was to examine how mind-reading beliefs are re-

lated to actual mind-reading performance. Because beliefs are not necessarily re-

flecting all mind-reading tasks neither are they formed on the basis of

performance in all tasks, it is vital to select the most relevant prototypes from

the whole spectrum of mind-reading tasks. Two obvious candidates, accordingto these criteria, concern mind-reading performance in the domains of emotions

and personality. Emotions are generally understood as organized and structured

reactions to an event that is relevant to needs, goals, and survival of the organism.

An emotion contains several distinct yet interrelated components, one of which is a

prototypical form of expression (e.g., facial and vocal expressions). The ability to

recognize emotions expressed either in face or speech is one of the most central so-

cial capacities, a very important core of social or emotional intelligence (Mayer

et al., 2000; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). On the other hand, the prediction of some-one�s behavior is vital to social adaptation. In order to achieve their goals, individ-

uals need to know what to expect from people with whom they socially interact.

Can I trust a stranger with whom I become acquainted? Does she loose her control

in a stressful situation? Is my conversation partner open-minded enough to accept

an unorthodox proposal? These and many similar questions cannot be answered

without observing people�s overt behavior and inferring from these observations

their general manner to think, feel, and behave in various situations. The under-

standing of personality traits is important not only with regard to persons we


already know and interact in everyday life but also in situations where we meet

strangers.

Based on these general considerations, we selected two types of mind-reading tasks

for the study of the relationship between beliefs and actual performance. The first is

the recognition of emotions expressed in face and speech. The second task is the rec-ognition of personality traits of a stranger portrayed in videotape interviews.

4.1. Method

4.1.1. Participants

Two samples, Sample 1 and Sample 2, participated in this study.

4.1.2. Mind-reading tasks

Both samples participated in the following two emotion recognition tasks:

Facial Expression Measure (FEM). The facial expression measure consisted of 32

35-mm slides from the slide sets JACFEE and JACNeuf (Matsumoto & Ekman,

1988), each slide portraying one of the seven basic emotions (anger, contempt, dis-

gust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) or a neutral expression. All slides have

been coded by Ekman and Friesen�s Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to ensure

the validity of the slides at portraying the intended emotion, and comparability of

expression intensity levels (Ekman & Friesen, 1978). In this study, every emotionwas represented in four slides, whereas the expressions were represented by models

of two visibly different racial backgrounds—two photos of each emotion depicted

posers of either Caucasian or Japanese descent (2 males and 2 females). Each slide

was shown to the respondents for 10 s and they were asked to check on their answer

sheets one of the seven emotion terms (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness,

sadness, and surprise) or a neutral expression that best described the emotion por-

trayed. Cronbach as for accuracy of judgment for the whole set of 32 slides were

a ¼ :58 (Sample 1) and a ¼ :74 (Sample 2), respectively.Voice Expression Measure (VEM). To measure the recognition of emotions in

speech, an audio-test was used in which two speakers, a male and a female, recited

4 sentences (with a neutral meaning) either in a neutral, happy, sad, or angry man-

ner. Each sentence was repeated twice. Thus, altogether the stimulus material con-

sisted of 64 sentences (i.e., 8 twice repeated sentences� 4 emotions� 2 speakers).

Participants were asked to tick on their answer sheets one of the three emotion terms

(anger, happiness, and sadness) or a neutral expression to indicate which emotion the

speaker was trying to express. For the set of 64 sentences, Cronbach a for accuracyof judgment was a ¼ :71.

Sound recordings were analyzed by means of the Computerized Speech Lab

(Model 4300). Eight acoustic parameters were determined: the mean, standard devi-

ation, and range of fundamental frequency (F0) and of intensity; the relative speech

rate; and the mean frequency of the first formant (F1). The eight measured acoustic

parameters accounted for 44, 55, 50, and 60 of the variance of the responses in the

neutral, happy, sad, and angry categories, respectively. This relatively high propor-

tion of the explained variance indicates that the subjects� decisions could be based on


objectively measured acoustic parameters. For example, the use of the neutral cate-

gory was most strongly predicted by the (slow) rate of speech. The best predictors of

the happiness were the speech rate (high) and the mean frequency of the first for-

mant, F1. Sadness was best predicted by variance and the range of the fundamental

frequency, F0. Finally, anger could be best predicted from the speech rate, standarddeviation of F0 and the means of energy and F1.

In the next task, only Sample 1 took part.

Personality Perception Measure (PPM). In addition to the two emotion recogni-

tion tasks, the subjects (‘‘judges’’) in Sample 1 were asked to watch three short vid-

eoclips portraying interviews with three different persons (so-called ‘‘target

persons’’), two men and one woman. The aim of the experiment was to measure

the judges� ability to recognize the personality characteristics of a stranger. The three

videoclips were selected from a larger set of interviews by a panel of 10 ‘‘experts’’(postgraduate students and the research personnel of the Psychology Department

of the University of Tartu) in order to maximize variability and expressiveness of

the ‘‘Big Five’’ personality traits. Interviews were recorded on videotape in interview

sessions each of which lasted about half an hour. The interviews were conducted by

the same-sex interviewers (a man and a woman) who were previously trained to con-

duct such semi-structured interviews. The targets had to answer different questions

about their attitudes and behavior in different situations that would most likely re-

veal their basic personality tendencies. The recorded video-material was mountedinto three 5-min videoclips with the target persons� answers to the questions posed

by the interviewer. Videotape segments portrayed the target persons� full bodiesand included both audio and visual information; the verbal content of the interviews

was similar across the three clips. All targets were asked to complete the Estonian

NEO-FFI (Allik et al., 2002). The personality of each target-person was also de-

scribed by two persons who were their close acquaintances, using the Estonian

NEO-FFI in a third-person format. To evaluate the personality characteristics of

the target-persons, the judges were asked to complete the Semantic Differential Ques-tionnaire after each videoclip. The questionnaire consisted of 20 bipolar pairs of ad-

jectives measuring the five main personality traits (four bipolar adjectives for each

trait). It was developed on the basis of the Norman�s Semantic Differential (Norman,

1963) and was validated against the Estonian version of the Revised NEO Personal-

ity Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Kallasmaa, Allik, Realo, & McCrae, 2000). The respon-

dents were asked to rate each target-person by choosing one of the seven positions

between the 20 bipolar adjectives such as ‘‘adventurous–cautious’’ or ‘‘consistent–in-

consistent,’’ for instance. The Cronbach as of the five subscales were the following:Neuroticism (N), a ¼ :74; Extraversion (E), a ¼ :86; Openness to Experience (O),

a ¼ :71; Agreeableness (A), a ¼ :65; and Conscientiousness (C), a ¼ :81.To obtain the accuracy indices, the four items measuring each personality trait

were averaged. The accuracy of personality perception was defined in terms of con-

sensus, that is, as a correlation of each judge�s ratings of the three targets on 5 trait

scales with the mean ratings of all judges (consensus accuracy) of the same targets on

the same scales. Thus, a profile consisting of 15 mean scores (5 scales/traits� 3 tar-

gets) for each judge was compared with the profile that was averaged across all


judges. We also found a trait accuracy index, that is, the degree to which the judges�ratings agreed with the judgments of two peers who were close acquaintances of the

target and the target�s self-reported personality measured by the Estonian NEO-FFI.

Because the self- and knowledgeable other-reports were highly correlated (from .69

to .84), the mean scores of self and other reports were averaged and the correlationbetween the judge�s ratings and these averages were calculated.

4.2. Results

4.2.1. Emotion recognition tasks

The probabilities of recognition of facial and vocal expressions are shown in

Table 3. In both emotion recognition tasks, the ability scores were calculated as

the percentage of correct answers over the total number of questions. The mean rec-ognition rates of facial expressions were 71 and 69% in Sample 1 and Sample 2, re-

spectively, which are less than the corresponding percentage (90%) for the same set

of faces in the US sample (Biehl et al., 1997). However, the correlations between the

Estonian and the North-American percentages of the correct recognition for 32 fa-

cial expressions were reasonably high (r ¼ :69 and .82 for Sample 1 and Sample 2,

respectively), which indicate that the same emotions which were difficult or easy to

recognize in our two samples, were similarly perceived in the US sample. In Sample

1 and Sample 2, the mean recognition rates of vocal expressions were 69 and 68%. Inboth samples, the mean recognition scores of FEM and VEM were moderately cor-

related: r ¼ :28 and r ¼ :37, respectively (both correlations significant at p < :0001

Table 3

The mean probability and standard deviation of recognition of emotions and correlations with the MBS

Sample 1 Sample 2

Recognition % Recognition %

Mean SD MBS Mean SD MBS

Facial Expression Measure (FEM) .71 .11 .00 .69 .14 ).02Disgust .63 .22 .03 .72 .26 ).03Fear .70 .27 .01 .67 .28 ).06Anger .53 .27 ).05 .57 .32 ).02Sadness .80 .25 .00 .77 .29 .04

Surprise .90 .17 .03 .85 .20 .02

Happiness .97 .11 ).04 .93 .18 .02

Contempt .35 .29 .01 .41 .36 ).03Neutral .79 .21 .05 .63 .25 ).02

Voice Expression Measure (VEM) .69 .07 ).02 .68 .10 .16��

Neutral .82 .12 ).08 .81 .16 .10

Happiness .65 .11 ).06 .64 .12 .05

Sadness .65 .16 .04 .62 .16 .16��

Anger .63 .16 .02 .62 .15 .13�

* p < :05.** p < :01.


level). These correlations indicate that those individuals who were more successful in

recognizing facial expressions were also more successful in recognizing vocally ex-

pressed emotions. The amount of common variance allows us to speak of a common

theme shared by these two measures, the perception of affective content.

How was the ability to recognize emotions related to our subjects� judgment oftheir ability to read other people�s mind? The results are shown in the third and

the sixth columns of Table 3. In Sample 1, all correlations between the emotion rec-

ognition tasks and the MBS were close to zero. In Sample 2, however, two significant

(positive) correlations emerged. The subjects who had higher opinions about their

mind-reading abilities were also slightly more successful in recognizing sadness

and anger in VEM. These two correlations remained basically unchanged when

the effects of age and sex were partialled out. The relatively modest magnitude of

the two correlations that were found only in one of the two samples and the fact thatall other correlations were close to zero suggest that an individual�s beliefs about hisor her mind-reading abilities and the recognition of emotions are basically indepen-

dent characteristics.

4.2.2. Personality recognition task

The Pearson product moment correlation showed that these two accuracy indices,

consensus and trait accuracy, were congruent with each other (r ¼ :82, p < :01), in-dicating that the judges� consensus about personality traits was similar to ratings gi-ven by targets and their two acquaintances. The accuracy of trait recognition was

reasonably high for both the trait and consensus accuracy indices although the latter

was clearly superior. The mean trait accuracy was r ¼ :50 and the mean consensus

accuracy was r ¼ :79 (for both p < :001).How was the personality perception measure related to the two emotion per-

ception tasks? The correlations between personality perception (consensus and

trait accuracy) and the two emotion perception tasks (FEM and VEM) were

insignificant. In other words, personality and emotion perception tasks were notrelated.

How was the accuracy of personality perception related to the mind-reading be-

liefs? The correlation between the MBS and the both types of accuracy was practi-

cally zero. As for emotion perception tasks, both correlations were close to zero

which indicates that people�s beliefs about their mind-reading ability were not related

to their real performance, that is, to their ability to recognize personality traits of

strangers exposed in short videoclips.


Ekman and O�Sullivan showed to about 500 people, including law-enforcing per-

sonnel with a special interest in deception, 10 one-min samples from film interviews

where half of the subjects where lying about how they felt watching the film (Ekman

& O�Sullivan, 1991). Before and after seeing these interviews, people were asked to

respond to the following question: ‘‘How good do you think you are/were in

being able to tell if another person is lying?’’ When assessed, neither the observers�


predictions nor postdictions about their ability to tell when other people are lying

were correlated with their actual accuracy. Similarly, we first asked 559 subjects

from Samples 1 and 2 how good they think they are at telling what other people

feel and believe; or if they can assess a stranger�s on first sight, together with a cou-

ple of similar questions, and thereafter tested their actual performance in three dif-ferent mind-reading tasks. We found, in line with the Ekman and O�Sullivan�s (1991)findings that two emotion recognition tasks, FEM and FEM, and the person percep-

tion measure were not correlated with the self-reported predictions of mind-reading

ability.

The number of findings showing that the self-report measures of empathic or

mind-reading skills are poor predictors of actual mind-reading accuracy is, of

course, not limited to our study. For example, Levenson and Ruef found that

the actual accuracy to identify emotional reactions of videotaped targets was notrelated to self-report measures of empathic ability (Levenson & Ruef, 1992). Per-

haps the most illustrative is a series of studies by Ickes and colleagues who dem-

onstrated that people seem to have very little insight regarding their own empathic

skills (Ickes, 1993; Ickes & Barnes, 1977; Ickes et al., 1990; Marangoni, Garcia, Ic-

kes, & Teng, 1995). Summarizing results of a meta-analysis of 36 studies devoted

to the problem of empathic accuracy, Davis and Kraus (1997) concluded that it is

an ironic historical accident that the most frequently hypothesized link between

self-reported empathic skills and actual mind-reading abilities displays the weakestactual relationship. The self-reported empathic sensitivity was the weakest predic-

tor of the actual empathic accuracy. Our data seem to support this still surprising

conclusion that people, in general, are not very reliable judges of their own mind-

reading abilities.

Although the lack of correlations between beliefs and actual mind-reading perfor-

mance is in agreement with previous findings, it is necessary to secure that it was not

caused by any errors in which mind-reading abilities were examined in this study. In

this regard, it is appropriate to compare performance in the present study with per-formances in similar tasks reported by other researchers. In general, results were

comparable. For example, as in previous studies we found that happiness was the

easiest emotion to recognize and that judges demonstrated a significant degree of ac-

curacy when they judged the personality of a stranger. Relatively high correlations

between the Estonian and the North-American percentages of the correct recogni-

tion for facial expressions (about .70–.80) also indicate strong convergent validity

of the measuring procedure. The mean level of consensus accuracy in the recognition

of personality traits was .79 which is higher than that has been reported by otherstudies (for example .45 in Lippa & Dietz, 2000). All these similarities suggest that

our subjects performed in these mind-reading tasks very much like people do in other

analogous test situations.

The lack of correlation between mind-reading beliefs and objectively measured

mind-reading accuracy suggests that they belong to two different psychological

realms: knowledge and metaknowledge may originate from two different psycholog-

ical resources. To recognize and understand other people�s personality traits and

emotional states, it is necessary to rely on available intellectual resources. On the


other hand, metaknowledge or beliefs about one�s own mind-reading capacities may

be more like a personality trait. People may think about their mind-reading capac-

ities as inherent parts of their personality and therefore, they do not monitor, com-

pare, or keep track of their successes or failures of mind-reading experience in

everyday life. Therefore, we can propose that the actual skills of mind reading arerelated to psychometrically measured intelligence while beliefs about one�s mind-

reading abilities are more closely associated with personality variables.

5. Study 3: Personality and intelligence of mind-reading

Study 3 uses different samples and instruments with an aim to put mind-reading,

both beliefs and actual performance into a proper context of personality and intel-ligence measures. The separation between beliefs (metaknowledge) and abilities

makes this task necessary. Indeed, if people�s opinion about their ability to read oth-

ers� minds does not reflect their actual accomplishment then what does it reflect after

all? For the personality assessment, the most comprehensive personality measure of

the Big Five factors, the short version of the NEO Personality Inventory (Costa &

McCrae, 1992) was selected. In order to measure intelligence, the Raven�s StandardProgressive Matrices (Raven, 1981) were used.

The lack of correlations between mind-reading beliefs and skills seems to indicatethat efficacy beliefs are personal constructions and exist only in the mind of the be-

holder. As private constructions they are not accessible to an outside viewer. However,

it is not necessarily true. It is conceivable that even inadequate beliefs are nevertheless

accessible to outside observation through small signs and cues, not directly related to

the real accomplishment. For example, our ability to discriminate what a person is

from what he or she pretends to be, is crystallized in such words like feigning, pretense,

and fraud. Thus, in order to measure self–other congruence in mind-reading beliefs, a

group of individuals (‘‘targets’’) was selected who, in addition to other personality in-struments, rated their ability to read other people�s minds. Furthermore, they also

nominated two other persons (‘‘observers’’), their relatives or close acquaintances,

who filled out the same set of scales about them in the third person.

5.1. Method

5.1.1. Personality measures

NEO-FFI. In addition to theMBS, the participants inSamples 1, 2, and 4were askedto complete the EstonianNEO-FFI (Allik et al., 2002), which consists of 60 items, each

of the five major personality dimensions—Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Open-

ness to Experience (O), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C)—is represented

by 12 items. Although the Estonian NEO-FFI is very similar to the original English

NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992), the set of items are not completely identical.

The responses were given on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (strongly dis-

agree) to 4 (strongly agree). The internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach

as) were .89, .83, .82, .72, and .87 for N, E, O, A, and C subscales, respectively.


Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM). The general cognitive ability of the

respondents was assessed in Sample 1, using Raven�s Standard Progressive Matrices

(SPM) test (Raven, 1981). The SPM is commonly regarded as a high-quality measure

of pure nonverbal reasoning ability which is relatively independent of specific learn-

ing acquired in a particular cultural or educational context. This ability is generallyidentified with fluid intelligence and with g (e.g., Carroll, 1993; Jensen, 1998;

McGrew & Flanagan, 1998). The SPM is made up of a series of diagrams or designs

with a part missing and those taking the tests are expected to select the correct part

to complete the designs from a number of options printed beneath (Raven, 2000).

The same test can be employed on a wide range of ages, consisting of 5 sets of 12

different matrices, gradually increasing in difficulty. The SPM was standardized in

Estonia on a sample of 2689 12- to 18-year-olds (Lynn, Allik, Pullmann, & Laidra,

2002). In the current study, the mean score on the SPM was 50.42 ðSD ¼ 7:64Þ.

5.2. Results

5.2.1. Self–other agreement

Intercorrelations between the self-ratings (rows) and the average ratings of two

observers (columns) on the MBS and the Big Five personality dimensions are pre-

sented in Table 4. The self–other agreement was computed as a scale-by-scale ze-

ro-order correlation over all 101 target-observer pairs. As expected, the highestself–other agreement among the personality scales was observed in case of Extraver-

sion (.70) and the lowest in case of Neuroticism (.53). The correlation between the

self-ratings and the other-ratings on the MBS scale was not very high, r ¼ :34(p < :001), but definitely above pure chance level.

One possibility is that the self–other agreement in estimation of mind-reading

abilities is simply caused by an extent to which ratings resemble the average rating

of any target. In order to control so-called ‘‘stereotype’’ ratings, we computed for

both targets and judges their squared deviation from the mean of their respectivesample. The semipartial correlation between the self-ratings and other-ratings on

Table 4

Correlations between the self- and observer-ratings of the MBS and the Estonian NEO-FFI scales

Scales No Eo Oo Ao Co MBSo

N .55�� ).02 .16 ).09 ).14 .10

E ).05 .70�� .02 .01 ).05 .23�

O .20� .18 .57�� ).03 ).05 .15

A ).08 ).11 .04 .59�� .10 ).09C ).28�� ).01 ).31�� ).10 .60�� ).01MBS ).05 .06 ).10 ).24� ).06 .34��

Note. Correlations at the diagonal are shown in bold type. N¼Neuroticism; E¼Extraversion;

O¼Openness; A¼Agreeableness; C¼Conscientiousness; MBS¼Mind Reading-Belief Scale; oObserver-

ratings.* p < :05.** p < :001.


the MBS scale after checking for the mean of the sample did not differ from the

unpartialled correlation.

5.2.2. Correlations with personality and intelligence measures

Correlations of the mind-reading beliefs and actual performance with personalityand intelligence measures are shown in Table 5. Inspection of this table reveals sev-

eral important regularities:

First, psychometrically measured intelligence was correlated with all three mind-

reading accuracy tasks but not with the mind-reading efficacy beliefs. Individuals

who were more accurate in recognition of facial or vocal expressions and who were

precise in personality descriptions had generally higher scores on the Raven�s intel-ligence test. On the contrary, the IQ score was not related to the general mind-read-

ing belief.Second, the associations between the mind-reading accuracy and personality traits

were rather weak and inconclusive. For example, extraverts and open-minded indi-

viduals were slightly better in recognition of both facial and vocal expression in Sam-

ple 2 whereas in Sample 1 these correlations failed to reach a level of significance.

Finally, inconsistent with mind-reading accuracy, people�s beliefs about their

mind-reading capability were relatively strongly related to personality measures.

People who scored high on Extraversion thought of themselves as being �good mind

readers.� And, in turn, those who did not have such a high opinion of their mind-reading capacities were on average more introverted, open-minded, conscientious,

and less neurotic.

Table 5

Correlations between mind-reading, intelligence, and personality measures

SPM N E O A C

Facial Expression Measure

Sample 1 .23�� .07 .00 .08 .05 .07

Sample 2 — .00 .13� .21�� ).07 ).02

Voice Expression Measure

Sample 1 .24�� ).03 .06 .11 .06 .06

Sample 2 — ).05 .15� .27�� ).01 .00

Personality Perception Measure

Sample 1 .16�� .01 .05 ).03 ).03 .13�

Mind-Reading Belief Scale

Sample 1 .06 ).26�� .27�� .18�� .00 .12�

Sample 2 — ).25�� .25�� .32�� .09 .31��

Sample 4 — .03 .23� ).01 ).19 .01

Note. SPM¼Raven�s standard progressive matrices; N¼Neuroticism; E¼Extraversion; O¼Open-

ness; A¼Agreeableness; C¼Conscientiousness. Sample 4 is the average of self and other ratings.

All significant correlations are shown in bold type.* p < :05.** p < :01.*** p < :001.



Findings of Study 3 indicate that mind-reading beliefs and actual mind-reading

abilities tend to belong to two separate psychological constructs. Beliefs are more re-

lated to personality and unrelated to psychometrically measured intelligence. On thecontrary, the actual mind-reading performance is linked to mental abilities and less

strongly and less systematically related to personality.

Previous studies have also shown that the self-report measures of empathic or

mind-reading accuracy and psychometrically measured general intelligence are basi-

cally unrelated. For example, in a recent study on a Dutch sample ðn ¼ 873Þ, resultsindicated that the correlations between self-report emotional intelligence measures

and IQ were very low, both for the total sample and for both sexes separately. These

findings indicate that the two measures are psychometrically independent, and thatthe self-reported emotional intelligence scale measures something different than gen-

eral intelligence tests (Derksen, Kramer, & Kazko, 2002). Another critical examina-

tion of popular emotional intelligence scales also revealed that they were not related

to IQ (Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000). Thus, it seems that typically, newly devel-

oped emotional intelligence measures are not related to cognitive abilities (Schutte

et al., 1998). In one of the most comprehensive studies, it was demonstrated that

the connection between cognitive abilities and emotional intelligence is very weak

(Davies et al., 1998).On the other hand, many studies have reported links between self-reported mind-

reading abilities and personality traits. Different self-reported measures of emotional

intelligence or empathy were associated with Openness to Experience (Ciarrochi

et al., 2000; Schutte et al., 1998), Extraversion and Neuroticism (Ciarrochi et al.,

2000; Davies et al., 1998; Davis, 1996), and Agreeableness (Davies et al., 1998).

The associations are usually strong and pervasive to a degree that it was possible

to conclude that emotional intelligence is indistinguishable from well-known and es-

tablished personality traits (Davies et al., 1998).Who are good readers of emotions from faces and speech? Previous studies have

demonstrated reliable correlations between the ability to recognize emotions and

personality dimensions. Matsumoto with colleagues found, for example, that, in gen-

eral, individuals who score high on Openness, Conscientiousness and Extraversion,

and low on Neuroticism are more successful in recognizing emotional expressions

(Matsumoto et al., 2000). Our own data did not contradict this conclusion although

we failed to find the same pattern of correlations in both samples.

Who then are good judges of other people�s personality? Reviewing early liter-ature on this subject, Taft concluded that the ability to judge others seems to be

higher in those persons who are intelligent, have drama and artistic interests and

who are both emotionally and socially well-adjusted (Taft, 1955). Summarizing re-

search conducted since the 1955 Cronbach critique (Cronbach, 1955), Davis and

Kraus (1997) concluded that good judges are intelligent, they see the world in a

cognitively complex, sophisticated way, and describe themselves as gregarious

and responsible. More recent studies have reached similar conclusions. For exam-

ple, the experimental design used by Lippa and Dietz (2000) was very similar to


one of our mind-reading personality tasks (‘‘judges’’ were shown brief video seg-

ments of target-persons with a task to estimate their personality traits). Lippa

and Dietz (2000) showed that judges� intelligence correlated significantly both with

consensus and trait accuracy in judging targets� personality traits. The overall ac-

curacy of judging Extraversion, Neuroticism, and masculinity-femininity correlatedstrongly with the scores of the Wonderlick Personnel Test (r ¼ :36, p < :01). Thus,like the results reported in this study, more intelligent people tended to be better

judges of personality.

6. General discussion

6.1. Mind-reading beliefs

The first important observation of this study is the relative thematic impoverish-

ment of mind-reading beliefs which seem to circle around mainly one general the-

me—a generalized belief of capability or incapability to penetrate into other

person�s mind irrespective of its compartment. If a person believes that on average,

she or he is better in reading other people�s emotions, she or he also tends to believe

that she or he is able to predict other people�s character, intentions and thoughts.

This kind of belief appears to be a rather egalitarian concept because neither mennor women, neither younger nor older people were remarkably different in their re-

ports about their mind-reading capacities. It may be so that this belief is generaliz-

able across languages and cultures as well.

By itself, the existence of a generalized mind-reading belief is not surprising.

What is surprising is that the lack of relationship between the mind-reading belief

and actual mind-reading performance. Those who believed that they are good at

putting themselves in another person�s shoes were in fact no better than average

in recognizing emotional expressions or personality traits of a stranger. This resultsupports the main conclusion of previous studies that people are unreliable judges

of their own empathic accuracy (Davis & Kraus, 1997; Ickes, 1993). In a compar-

ative perspective it is interesting to note that the studies of self-rated intelligence

have also reached a similar negative conclusion: self-reported measures of IQ are

not very useful for predicting actual performance in intelligence tests (Paulhus,

Lysy, & Yik, 1998).

The lack of correlation between beliefs and actual mind-reading capability may

suggest that beliefs are fictitious. For instance, mind-reading beliefs may be somekind of social or even personal construction that do not correspond to reality they

are supposed to describe. Although not totally unrealistic, this explanation is not

in harmony with two other observations. First, the beliefs about one�s mind-reading

abilities seem to be relatively stable in time. When people were asked twice about

their believed ability to read other people�s mind with a time interval of more than

3 years their answers were in harmony on both occasions. Although the test-retest

stability for the MBS was somewhat smaller than that is typical for general person-

ality traits like Extraversion or Openness (Costa, Herbst, McCrae, & Siegler, 2000),


it was still high enough to talk about its trait-like properties. Second, it is difficult to

maintain the view that the mind-reading beliefs are mere constructions in the light

that external observers can estimate these beliefs with a certain degree of accuracy.

The mind-reading belief, in the form it was measured in this study, is to some extent

a public article as the knowledgeable others were able to describe them. What a per-son thinks about his or her own ability to read others� mind is not as visible as, for

example, Extraversion or the other Big Five personality traits. Nevertheless, this be-

lief is still not completely hidden and is revealed by a person�s behavior and expres-

sions. It is unlikely that information about this belief is manifested in a form of direct

verbal communication. It is more likely that there are some outwardly observable

signs and cues on the basis of which it is possible to judge the presence of these be-

liefs, with a certain degree of accuracy.

What sort of information would be required for an external observer to tellwhether a person believes in her or his capacity to read other�s emotions, thoughts,

and intentions? On the basis of the data of this study alone, it is difficult to answer

this question. However, our data contained some hints suggesting in what direction

we should continue the study: the mind-reading belief scores demonstrated a moder-

ate but systematic relationship with personality traits. Individuals who were extra-

verted but also conscientious, open minded, and emotionally stable believed, in

general, that they can manage situations in which they need to evaluate other�s feel-ings, thoughts, or intentions. In turn, introverts, neurotics, and those who feel diffi-culties controlling their urgings are tending to believe that it is difficult if not

impossible to penetrate another person�s mind. If we now suppose that there is a ste-

reotype to assess what kind of people are good mind-readers, then it would be pos-

sible to explain why the knowledgeable others can tell something about views held by

another person. In short, we propose that beliefs about the mind-reading abilities are

stereotypes associated with a certain personality type.

6.2. Lack of metaknowledge

This study contributed further evidence to the growing understanding that vari-

ous self-report measures of empathic accuracy or mind-reading skills are disappoint-

ingly poor predictors of actual mind-reading skills. However, most instruments

intended for the measurement of emotional intelligence are based on self-report.

Only few attempts have been made so far to connect self-reported measures of emo-

tional intelligence to some actual performance (Mayer et al., 2000). Our results, how-

ever, clearly support those authors who found no relation between self-reportedmeasures of empathic accuracy and actual mind-reading abilities (Davies et al.,

1998; Davis & Kraus, 1997; Ickes, 1993). Even more, our study demonstrated that

mind-reading beliefs are not related to psychometrically measured intelligence.

Those who claimed that they can determine the character of a stranger at a first

glance or what a person actually feels were not more intelligent than those who be-

lieved that they do not possess these abilities. This is not a good news for supporters

of the emotional intelligence construct. For whatever reasons the subjects lack a real

insight into their mind-reading abilities, it imposes serious limitations on the use of


their self-reports regarding these abilities. In particular, this may be one of the main

reasons why the construct of emotional intelligence has been so elusive so far (Davies

et al., 1998).

There are several plausible interpretations for the lack of metaknowledge. In gen-

eral, possible explanations can be classified into two large groups: (1) The lack ofmotivation or (2) the lack of feedback.

Lack of motivation. It is plausible that people in general are not very interested to

judge their mind-reading abilities. As a result of this lack of interest, they do not

know the correct answer when they are asked about their mind-reading abilities. In-

deed, our results demonstrated that the mind-reading capacity is not evaluated as

something socially very desirable: the mean values of the MBS scale were always

close to the midpoint across different samples. Such a finding implies that in general,

approximately a half of the people tend to agree with the proposition that they canread other people�s minds whereas the other half is rather skeptical about their such

abilities. Consistent with everyday experience, studies have shown that people de-

scribe themselves in more laudatory terms than they are usually described by others.

For example in the United States, men believe that there are only 36% of the people

whose abilities are superior to their own (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Also Furn-

ham (2001) has shown that men�s self-assessed IQ scores tend to be higher than their

objectively measured IQs (Furnham, 2001). Thus, compared to intelligence and

other socially desirable attributes, the mind-reading beliefs appear to be free fromself-enhancement bias. The knowledgeable others awarded targets with only a

slightly higher mind-reading ability than those of the targets themselves and the

rated social desirability of the MBS items was neutral as well. For example, being

conscientious and emotionally stable was regarded much more desirable than being

a good mind-reader. Together, these findings suggest that the ability to read other

people�s minds is not regarded as a capacity for which to yearn. Thus, for some rea-

sons people simply do not have the incentive to monitor and remember how accu-

rate they were in their past reading about other person�s mental states. Even worse,Ickes proposed that under certain conditions, perceivers might be motivated to be

inaccurate in their inferences about target persons� thoughts and feelings (Ickes,

1993). For example, a general belief that others� behavior, at least if viewed from

an external vantage point, is basically unpredictable may induce a state of learned

helplessness which inhibits even the attempts to evaluate one�s abilities to penetrate

into others� mind.

Lack of feedback. Another explanation for self-reports which consistently fail to

predict actual mind-reading accuracy might be that people lack relevant feedbackabout their accuracy in inferring other people�s feelings and character (Ickes,

1993). There is a possibility that people limit their judgments to specific situations

not related to relatively artificial mind-reading tasks used in this study. People esti-

mate their empathic accuracy with respect to particular situations instead of a gen-

eralized capability. Indeed, we found nothing common between emotion and

personality perception tasks. Although this explanation cannot be excluded on the

basis of the present data, it is still rather unlikely for several reasons. As we saw

above, people have a rather generalized belief about their mind-reading and


empathic abilities. Ickes (1993) pointed to several other possibilities why people lack

relevant feedback about their mind-reading skills. For example, to avoid violating

privacy norms, people have rarely the opportunity to seek explicit feedback about

their mind-reading accuracy. Ickes also stresses that even if the feedback is available,

it rarely concerns an individual�s relative level of accuracy. It is also possible that of-ten the provided feedback is misleading.

6.3. Mind-reading ability

Our study provided little support for the view that actual mind-reading abilities

form a generalized trait. Different tasks demonstrated only a limited cross-situational

generalizability: those who were relatively good in recognizing facial expressions

were also better at recognizing vocal expressions but not equally as good at recogniz-ing the personality traits of a stranger. Thus, different mind-reading tasks appear to

be based on different skills and expertise.

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