Interpersonal perception Flashcards
whats interpersonal perception?
the perceptions and beliefs that we hold about other people
Also referred to as social perception
Although it could be argued that this is a poorly defined area of social psychology
Baron et al (2006) what main processes are involved in interpersonal perception?
Non-verbal communication Attributions
Impression formation
Impression management
Non verbal communications (NVC)
Includes body language, eye contact and facial expressions
NVC can be used to complement or replace speech, and to signal attitudes and emotions
NVC is often discussed in relation to deception detection, which is of course an important part of social perception Microexpressions Interchannel discrepancies Eye contact Exaggerated facial expressions
What are attributions?
Refer to the explanations that we give for other people’s behaviour
early work by Jones and Davis (1965) focussed on correspondent inference – how we infer what traits other people have by observing their behavior
Including whether these traits are stable
Is this an effective strategy?It is easy to make mistakes – consider the case of Clever Hans
Or the attributions made to geometric shapes in the animations created by Heider and Simmel (1944
what do Jones and Davis argue about hoe we identify which behaviours are most indicative of someone’s personality?
Focus on behaviours that appear to arise from free choice
Focus on behaviours that are noncommon – that is behaviours which only have one specific explanation
Focus on the social desirability of the behaviour, with behaviours that are low in social desirability being taken as a stronger sign of individual traits
whats kellys theory of causal attributions?
Kelley argues that we also try to work out why people around us behave as they do (Kelly, 1972)
For example, if some people you know do not invite you to join them at an event
what 3 areas does kelly argue we focus on when finding an explanation for behavior of others.
Cosensus – do other people not invite me to things?Consistency – has this happened before with this group?
Distinctiveness – have I not been invited to other, different events?
what else does kelly say?
states that we are more likely to attribute another’s behaviour to internal causes when consensus and distinctiveness are low but consistency is high
So in our example we may conclude that the particular group in question just don’t like you much
Alternatively if consensus, consistency and distinctiveness are all high then we are more likely to attribute the behaviour to external causes
So it may be that they assumed for some reason that you would not be available, or that you would not like that specific event
what about situations where there appear to be conflicting explanations for a behaviour?
Imagine someone tells you how nice a person they think you are and then the next day asks you to sponsor them for a charity event
Did they say you are a nice person because that is genuinely what they think or was it because they were planning all along to ask you for a donation
In these kind of situation we may engage in what is knows as discounting, in which we view our initial explanation (attribution) as less likely, because of what happened afterwards
or alternatively…
he person who tells us how nice they think we are might not be the kind of person to usually make this type of comment
In this instance the fact that they have behaved unusually might add weight to their comment – in other words we are more likely to believe that they genuinely mean what they said
This is known as augmenting
Overall therefore we can use both discounting and augmenting to try to help us attribute explanations of other’s behaviour in situations where more than one explanation is possible
whats attribution bias
attributions may be prone to error
Failing to fully understand others can also have serious consequences
attribution bias-whats corresponding bias, or the fundamental attribution error ?(Gilbert and Malone, 1995)
As commented we tend to ignore possible external causes for behaviour (even when strong situational cues are present) and assume that behaviours are due to internal dispositions
or as Baron et al (2006) says
we tend to assume that people are behaving a certain way because they are ‘that kind of person’ and tend not to think about the external factors that may be the actual reason why they behave in that way
why might we focus on the person’s immediate behaviour and think less about the wider context?
- gilbert and malone (1995)
argue that we actually use a two step process, in which we base our initial judgement on the behaviour of the person (an internal cause) and then look for evidence of external causes that should be taken into account
However research suggests that we tend to underestimate these external factors (Chaiken and Trope, 1999)
Although we also tend to assume that we are more understanding about external factors than other people (Van Boven et al, 2003
additional sources of attrubition bias
- whats the actor-observer effect?
(Jones and Nisbett 1972)
We are more likely to attribute our own behavior to external factors
For exampleI stalled the car because this is the first time I’ve driven wearing these shoes’ versus ‘that person probably stalled their car because they are a bad driver’
additional sources of attrubition bias
- whats self serving bias?
(Olson and Ross 1988)
we are more likely to attribute positive outcomes to internal factors and negative outcomes to external factors
For example ‘I got a good mark because I worked hard’ versus ‘I got a bad mark because the lecturer is horrible’
whats impression formation?
linked to attribution are the concepts of impression formation and impression management
The former also being known as ‘first impression
What did Solomon Asch say about impression formation?
whats Gesalt psych?
(best known for research on conformity) argues that when thinking about first impressions we should consider Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology refers to the way we tend to perceive things as a whole, rather than as a collection of parts
when perceiving people, how do we percieve their individual traits?
attempt to understand how these traits relate to each other and use this to build an overall picture of the person (rather than isolated)
Asch commented that changing the description of even a single trait amongst many could dramatically change the overall perception people may have of an individual
its also been observed that we tend to use our own implicit personality theories, or schemas
For example if someone as described to us as being patient and conscientious we would tend to assume that they are also methodical
culture - impression formation
culture can be an important factor in this process
For example the cultural stereotype of students in the UK may lead people to assume certain traits about them
cognitive psych - impression formation
been used in an attempt to understand impression formation
Given that like many cognitive psychology processes (e.g. perception, memory) impression formation involves the assimilation and synergy of complex information
Research suggests that we try to average information (for instance number and strength of positive and negative traits), although what information we view as relevant can depend on the context (De Bruin and Van Lange, 2000)
whats impression management?
achieved (with varying success) through self-enhancement and other-enhancement
As will be covered later in the unit social media greatly enhances the ability we have to impression manage
Although it some situations it may also mean that we lose control over how we are seen
whats self enhancement?
includes using strategies to improve physical appearance through dress, style and props
For example wearing glasses has to be found to increase the view that someone is intelligent (Terry and Krantz, 1993)
It can also include describing oneself in positive terms or giving accounts of how you have succeeded in the face of major obstacles
Rowatt et al (1998) note that this seems to be especially common on dating prfiles
another way of impression management?
Flattery being one of the more obvious ways
Kilduff and Day (1994)
argue that this can be highly effective – provided that it is not overdone
In addition expressing agreement with an individual and acting positively towards them (e.g. smiling, maintaining eye contact) can increase how much they like you (Wayne and Ferris, 1990
Do these work? vonk 1998
cautions against the ‘slime effect’ – acting positively to equals and superior but negatively towards subordinates
