THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST: EFFECTS OF SOCIAL PROJECTION AND DIALECTICAL BOOTSTRAPPING ON JUDGMENTAL ACCURACY

As a judgmental heuristic, social projection improves the accuracy of social consensus estimates. Aggregating multiple estimates, even within individuals, also increases accuracy. In the current research we combine these two lines of study and find that, within individuals, second estimates are less projective and less accurate than first estimates. Bootstrapped, or averaged, estimates yield no improvements in correlational measures of accuracy, but do show accuracy gains in deviation-based accuracy scores. We propose an anchoring model to describe how estimates are generated and revised, and we show that further increases in social projection would increase accuracy beyond empirically observed levels.