Perceived Weirdness: A Multitrait-Multisource Study of Self and Other Normality Evaluations
Authors
Jun-Yeob Kim
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
Daniel A. Newman
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA;
School of Labor & Employment Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA
P. D. Harms
Department of Management, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Dustin Wood
Department of Management, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
Abstract
Research in personality and organizational psychology has begun to investigate a novel evaluative trait known as perceived normality, defined as an overall perception that one is normal (vs. strange or weird). The current work evaluates a brief measure of this trait (i.e., a “weirdness scale”), extending past work by assessing both self-reports and peer reports of these normality evaluations. Results confirm the measurement equivalence of self- and peer-reports of perceived weirdness, and discriminant validity of self- and peer-reports of perceived weirdness from Big Five traits. A multitrait-multisource analysis further reveals that trait loadings are larger than self-report and peer-report method loadings for the measure of perceived weirdness. Implications for measurement of self-perceptions and social perceptions of weirdness/normality are discussed.
