Negative evaluation bias in person perception is linked to interpersonal dysfunction
Abstract
Negative evaluations of unfamiliar others have been documented in personality pathology, but it remains unclear whether they reflect a broader perceiver tendency linked dimensionally to interpersonal dysfunction. In a community sample assessed in 2026 (N = 590; n = 226 with close-other reports), we measured a generalized bias toward evaluating unfamiliar others negatively across four standardized person-perception tasks combining personality ratings and adjective selections with vignette and video targets. Stronger negative evaluation bias was associated with greater interpersonal-problem severity when problems were reported by participants themselves (r = .14) and especially when reported by close others (r = .34). Exploratory analyses showed a self-reported shift toward high-agency problems but no corresponding close-other pattern or systematic association with communion. In secondary analyses, negative evaluation bias showed a positive but imprecise association with overall personality-functioning impairment and the expected pattern of lower self-certainty and, conditional on self-certainty, higher certainty about others. These findings support viewing negative evaluation bias as a broader perceiver-level correlate of interpersonal dysfunction, including difficulties apparent beyond the perceiver’s own perspective. Generalizability to more severe personality pathology remains to be established.
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BibTeX
@misc{rau2026negative,
title = {{Negative evaluation bias in person perception is linked to interpersonal dysfunction}},
author = {Richard Rau and Amina Aissaoui and Johannes Zimmermann},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/qc6mg_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qc6mg_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Negative evaluation bias in person perception is linked to interpersonal dysfunction
AU - Richard Rau
AU - Amina Aissaoui
AU - Johannes Zimmermann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/10
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/qc6mg_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/qc6mg_v1/
AB - Negative evaluations of unfamiliar others have been documented in personality pathology, but it remains unclear whether they reflect a broader perceiver tendency linked dimensionally to interpersonal dysfunction. In a community sample assessed in 2026 (N = 590; n = 226 with close-other reports), we measured a generalized bias toward evaluating unfamiliar others negatively across four standardized person-perception tasks combining personality ratings and adjective selections with vignette and video targets. Stronger negative evaluation bias was associated with greater interpersonal-problem severity when problems were reported by participants themselves (r = .14) and especially when reported by close others (r = .34). Exploratory analyses showed a self-reported shift toward high-agency problems but no corresponding close-other pattern or systematic association with communion. In secondary analyses, negative evaluation bias showed a positive but imprecise association with overall personality-functioning impairment and the expected pattern of lower self-certainty and, conditional on self-certainty, higher certainty about others. These findings support viewing negative evaluation bias as a broader perceiver-level correlate of interpersonal dysfunction, including difficulties apparent beyond the perceiver’s own perspective. Generalizability to more severe personality pathology remains to be established.
ER -