David Funder
Riverside, CA

I am continuing to do research on accuracy in interpersonal judgment, now based upon the Realistic Accuracy Model (RAM; Funder, Psychological Review, 1995). This model, inspired by Brunswik's lens model, proposes that accurate personality judgment is a function of four stages that lie between the distal stimulus (an actual attribute of personality in a target person) and a veridical judgment.

These stages are relevance, availability, detection, and utilization. The empirical and theoretical basis of this model, and some new extensions, are described in my book-Personality Judgment: A Realistic Approach to Person Perception-just published by Academic Press.

My latest work on this model involves extending it to the question of self knowledge (how can we know ourselves accurately?) and the task of improving judgmental accuracy.

Contact D. Funder