Fact and Fiction in Implicit Personality Theory Peter Borkenau and Fritz Ostendorf Umversitcrt Bielefeld ABSTRACT This article reports two studies, where the accuracy of implicit personality theory (IPT) was investigated using on-line behavior counts as well as retrospective frequency estimates as standards of companson Eight discus- sion groups, each compnsmg six members, were videotaped Their act frequen- cies with respect to 16 types of behavior were judged on-line using two coding schemes, each one being applied by two independent raters Five other judges estimated the act frequencies retrospectively Furthermore, judges revealed their IPT by estimating the conditional likelihood of these types of behavior It turned out that (a) retrospective judges perceive different base rates accurately, (b) the correlations among retrospectively estimated and among on-line recorded act frequencies show high correspondences, (c)IPT accurately mirrors the correla- tions among retrospectively estimated as well as among on-line recorded act fre- quencies, and (^judges do not appropnately consider perceived base rates when estimating conditional prdjabilities It is concluded that IPT is considerably ac- curate m those respects that are important for the validity and structural fidelity of personality ratings It IS generally acknowledged that there exist common beliefs about the relationships among traits and behaviors that are usually referred to as implicit personality theory (IPT) If instructed appropnately, subjects express hypotheses and beliefs concenung the covanations among traits The researeh reported in this paper was supported by a grant from Deutsche Fbr- schungsgemeinschaft (Az Bo 774/1-1) to the first author We gratefully acknowl- edge the contnbutions of Ulnch Baumgartner, Knsuna Herzig, Connna Ruting, and Angelus Stulik who painstakingly performed the Iabonous on-hne judgment task We thank Alois Angleitner, Ramer Riemann, and Robert A Wicklund for their help- fill conunents on eariier drafts of this article Send correspondence to ftter Borkenau, Abteilung Psychologie, Universitat Bielefeld, Pbstfach 8640, D-4800 Bielefeld, Federal Republic of Germany Journal qfPersonality 55 3, September 1987 Copynght © 1987 by Duke University Press CCC 0022-3506/87/$! 50