People's liking of other people after 16 weeks of acquaintance was not predicted very well by their initial liking of the others after 1 week's acquaintance. People's ultimate liking of others was as well predicted by initial popularity, i.e., by the consensual rankings, as by the individual's own initial rankings. And people's ultimate liking was better predicted by ultimate popularity than by own initial rankings. These results were discussed in terms of the law of large numbers. Brief acquaintance is equivalent to a small sample of another person's attributes and may be well off the mark. Popularity ratings are based on the opinions of many others and constitute a larger sample; therefore they may predict one's ultimate opinion as well as or better than one's own initial opinion.