however , the possibility of using a folk theory for predicting others should be taken more seriously in social psychology . folk psychology consists of an array of lay theories or platitudes about how the mind works , which are believed more or less uncritically . mundane examples for widely held lay theories are : people who work hard succeed ; the longer an event lies in the past , the worse it is remembered ; people can not change their personality , moral character , or intelligence ; opposites attract ; or that happiness is a matter of wealth . lay theories also include information about typical everyday settings , typical characters , and how people are expected to behave in certain contexts ( karniol , 2003 ) . the answer to krueger s question where such lay theories come from is that they are a compendium of day - to - day psychological wisdom based on various personal experiences . it takes time to develop these theories , and , like scientific theories , they are refutable and revisable ( e.g. , harris , 1992 ) . if our original article can be interpreted as saying that the basis of these lay theories is an inference from well - known people to people in general , we apologize for this misunderstanding . lay theories come from everyday experiences , irrespective of whether well - known or unknown people are involved . of course , lay theories can be enriched with information about specific people if such information exists ( nickerson , 1999 ) . for example , a social - cognitive variant of theory theory , namely karniol s ( 2003 ) self - as - distinct model , holds that general ( generic , in karniol s terminology ) knowledge can be used in predictions . specific knowledge , that is applicable only to a certain individual , can lead to an activation of the self , but this is not equal to using the self as a basis for a prediction . in sum , there is an alternative to the projection view that is theoretically plausible and empirically substantiated . our example of a choice between carrion and apples as food is only a far - fetched example to illustrate that the use of a theory can also lead to a prediction that entirely overlaps with one s own choice . most people would ( correctly ) predict a preference for cooked beef , but some people ( sometimes ) prefer raw beef ( otherwise there would be no beef tartar ) . however , for predicting this , there is no need to project your own preference . rather , you can apply the simple rule that people prefer cooked over raw meat . if you do so , a high correlation between own and predicted choice follows . krueger ( 2008 , 2012 ) correctly points out that there are ways to identify biases based on projection by using corrected correlations ( see below ) , but most of the evidence for social projection still is based on uncorrected correlations . knowledge used in predictions can be wrong , and it does not necessarily have to do anything with oneself  knowledge can happen to lead to a prediction that is similar to one s own point of view , but it needs not to . therefore , correlations are hard to interpret and are unreliable indicators of social projection . however , correlations varying widely in magnitude all have been interpreted as providing evidence for social projection . krueger points out that  by sampling error alone , self - other correlations will vary , and that variation is a general property of empirical evidence . meta - analysis is a suitable method to aggregate effect sizes over studies and to thereby wash away the error  . while effect sizes do vary , this variation is treated differently in meta - analyses ( cf . borenstein , hedges , higgins , & rothstein , 2009 ) . under the fixed - effect model , the assumption is that there is only one true effect which underlies all studies , and differences in the effect sizes are due to sampling error only . in contrast , under the random - effects model , the assumption is that there is an array of true effects depending on the characteristics of the studies , and therefore , that there are different effect sizes that underlie the effect size variations in various studies . variations in the effect sizes are due to sampling error , in addition to true variation in effect sizes . therefore , depending on the approach , variation in the magnitude of correlations can be interpreted as a variation around a fixed - effect ( indicating the same process , i.e. , projection ) , but also as a variation that indicates different processes ( e.g. , the application of different theories ) . meta - analysis by itself does not tell you whether the effect is fixed or random ; rather this is up to the researcher to decide . a related point is which magnitude of correlation should be used as a benchmark for demonstrating projection . krueger points out that our proposal of using self - reliability has a problem : it sets a ceiling and ensures that only a bias of underprojection can be discovered social projection can be justified and be statistically appropriate ( dawes , 1989 ; hoch , 1987 ) , and there are measures that capture whether a  truly false consensus effect ( krueger & zeiger , 1993 ) exists , by correlating item endorsements with the difference between estimated and actual consensus . a truly false consensus effect tells us that people are getting their predictions wrong , but again , not what the source of this bias is ( i.e. , simulation vs. theory ) . the other aspect is conceptual : from the perspective of simulation theory , one can not use the self too much . either you simulate or you do nt , but this is not a matter that is related to the correctness of the prediction . simulation means that you use your own system in exactly the same way for predicting thoughts , actions , and feelings of another person as you would use it if you thought , acted , or felt yourself . krueger s observation thus is true ; by using self - reliability you could only detect underprojection , because overprojection is logically impossible . if social cognition were to use this benchmark , the conclusions probably would be quite different : that there are many cases of underprojection . taken together , additional methods that go beyond simple correlations are necessary , for example , the use of empathy gaps ( loewenstein , 1996 ) , the method of juxtaposed versus independent predictions by perner , gschaider , khberger , and schrofner ( 1999 ) , or the use of process tracing methods in addition to input  output measures ( schulte - mecklenbeck , khberger , & ranyard , 2011 ) . in addition , even self - reports can be successfully used in studies on social projection ( dunning & hayes , 1996 ) . in sum , it is not that correlations should be abandoned altogether , but they should be interpreted with caution and supported by additional methods .