We hinted earlier at one case where individual difference information can be invaluable. This is where one has base rate information for the particular individual for the particular situation. Thus your prediction that Jack will talk a lot at the lunch table today, as in the past, is bankable, as is your prediction that your spouse will complain about the next party where people are standing around talking and drinking. It is entirely likely, in fact, that lay convictions about the utility of traits are in part based on an overgeneralization from successful predictions based on narrow,
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