Inferring competence from incompetence: An ironic process associated with person descriptors

To what extent is a competently‐functioning person also interested in the person descriptors associated with that competence? A thesis by Wicklund (1986a, b ) charges that a dwelling on static person qualities (overt appearance; superficial traits) is often to be found among individuals who are themselves incompetent in the performance area in question: several studies in recent years have supported this thesis, and one of these provides the basis of the present work: Wicklund, Braun and Waibel (1993) found that athletes, scientists, farmers and other groups were disinclined to characterize their performance areas in terms of the static traits of the expert. In sharp contrast, respondents who were relatively non‐skilled in a performance area (‘distant’ area) were inclined to depict the area in terms of static elements, such as overt appearance and traits. Each of the present subjects received two protocols from one of these previous subjects (above). In one protocol the earlier subject had depicted his own area (and thereby mentioned, on the average, relatively few static person descriptors); in the other protocol he depicted a ‘distant’ performance area (and usually made reference to one or more person descriptors). The present subjects' task was to infer the original subjects' competence in those two areas, and given that our subjects were inactive in both areas, they came systematically to the incorrect conclusion: they reacted to protocols laden with person descriptors as signalling the author's actual competence, a phenomenon consistent with the descriptions of technical societies in Sennett (1977) Subjects who evidenced some degree of competence in the pertinent areas did not commit this error.