Person Perception Flashcards
Perception
Process of interpreting the messages of our senses to provide order and meaning to the environment (how we navigate our world)
Helps sort and organize complex and varied input received by our senses
People select, organize, and interpret information about other people
Subjective reality
Components of Perception
Perceiver
Target
Situation
The Perceiver
Expectations, motives, affect
Perceiver’s experiences, needs, and emotions can affect their perceptions
Perceptual defence: perceptual system serves to defend us against unpleasant emotions
E.g. mix letters around but keep first and last letter write and we perceive them correctly
E.g. radiologists didn’t see gorilla on image when looking for cancer
The Target
Ambiguity, novelty, familiarity
Perception involves interpretation and addition of meaning to a target
Ambiguous targets especially susceptible to interpretation and addition
The Situation
Work setting, social setting
Situational context affects what someone perceives
Situation can add info about the target
Social Identity Theory
People form perceptions of themselves based on their personal characteristics and memberships in social categories
Sense of self = personal identity + social identity
Personal identity: based on unique personal characteristics (interests, abilities, traits)
Social identity: based on perception that we belong to various groups (gender, nationality, religion, occupation, etc)
Categorize people to understand the social environment
Perceive people in terms of the attributes and characteristics we associate with their social category relative to other categories
Primacy Effect
Reliance on early cues or first impressions
Has lasting impact
Recency Effect
People give undue weight to the cues they encountered most recently
E.g. last impressions count most
Central Traits
Personal characteristics of the target that are of special interest to perceiver
People tend to organize perceptions around central traits (e.g. height = leadership potential)
Centrality of traits depends on perceiver’s interests and the situation
Implicit Personality Theories
Theory about which personality characteristics go together
Beliefs about consistency and stability of traits
Consistency: which traits go together
E.g. expect hardworking people to also be honest
Projection
Attribute one’s own thoughts and feelings to others
People often assume others are like themselves (assume everyone agrees with us)
Efficient and sensible, but inaccurate
E.g. honest warehouse manager perceives others as honest but is surprised when inventory is disappearing
Stereotyping
Group of traits commonly associated with one group
Tendency to generalize about people in a social category and ignore variations among them
Three aspects to stereotyping
-Distinguish some category of people
-Assume that the individuals in this category have certain traits
-Perceive that everyone in this category possesses these traits
Create stereotypes with little information
Can be favourable or unfavourable
Contrast Effect
What happened before your in the interview affects how you are perceived
E.g. 3 outstanding candidates before you, causes you to be perceived less than average (even though you are average)
Attribution
Process of assigning causes or motives to explain others’ behaviour
Many rewards and punishments in organizations based on these judgements about why a person behaved in a certain way
Dispositional Attributions
Personality or intellectual characteristic unique to the person is responsible for the behaviour, the behaviour reflects the ‘true person’
E.g. explain behaviour as a function of laziness, greed, friendliness
Situational Attributions
External situation or environment in which the target person exists was responsible for the behaviour, the person had little control over the behaviour
E.g. behaviour explained as function of good luck, poor advice, bad weather
Kelley’s Attribution Model
Three implicit questions guide decisions about type of attributions
1. Does the person engage in the behaviour regularly and consistently (consistency cues)
2. Do most people engage in the behaviour, or is it unique to this person (consensus cues)
3. Does the person engage in the behaviour in many situations, or is it distinctive to one situation (distinctiveness cues)
Consistency Cues
Reflect how consistently person engages in a behaviour over time
Without clear evidence of external constraints that force a behaviour to occur, assume behaviour is indicative of true motives
High consistency leads to dispositional attributions
Consensus Cues
Reflect how a person’s behaviour compares to others
Acts that deviate from social norms provide more info about someone’s motives than conforming behaviours do
Low consensus behaviour leads to dispositional attributions
Distinctiveness Cues
Reflect the extent to which a person engages in some behaviour across many situations
Behaviour lacks distinctiveness if it occurs across many situations
Low distinctiveness provides dispositional attributions
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tend to overemphasize dispositional explanations at the expense of situational explanations when making judgments about behaviour of others
Discount strong effects of social roles on behaviour
Actor-Observer Effect
Actors and observers often view causes of actor’s behaviour differently (difference in attributional perspectives)
E.g. actor over emphasized situational role in behaviour while observer makes fundamental attribution error
Not as pervasive as once believed
-More likely under certain conditions such as when explaining negative events
-For positive events, the opposite tends to occur
Self Serving Bias
Tendency to take credit and responsibility for successful outcomes of behaviour and deny credit and responsibility for failures
Workforce Diversity
Differences among employees or potential recruits in characteristics such as gender, race, age, religion, cultural background, physical ability, sexual orientation
Workforce is becoming more diverse
