Do people know how others view them? Two approaches for identifying the accuracy of metaperceptions

Self-knowledge includes not only beliefs about one's own traits and abilities, but beliefs about how others view the self. Are such metaperceptions accurate? This article identifies two distinct standards used to determine meta-accuracy. The correlational approach tests whether metaperceptions correlate with an accuracy criterion (i.e. social perceptions). The mean-level approach instead asks whether metaperceptions tend to err in a systematic direction. This article reviews complementary lessons gleaned from research taking one approach or the other: whether metaperceptions merely reflect self-perceptions, whose metaperceptions are more or less accurate, and what psychological processes impede meta-accuracy, among others. Ultimately, neither approach is endorsed as unconditionally superior. Instead, which approach offers the proper accuracy standard should depend on the decisions those metaperceptions will guide.