Download Person Perception: Forming Impressions of Others and Impression Formation and more Lecture notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity!
Ch. 2 Person Perception, Forming
Impressions of Others
I. Impression Formation
- The process through which we develop our beliefs and evaluations of other people.
A. Solomon Asch (1946)
- Viewed impression formation from a Gestaltist Perspective.
- Dominant Metaphor: People as Consistency Seekers.
- Our perceptions of Others are more than the sum of information (Traits) we know about others.
- Individual Traits are evaluated in relation to other known Traits, and develop an overall picture where all the traits fit together consistently.
A. Asch Cont.
- Central vs. Peripheral Traits -Central traits are have a stronger impact on our impressions than Peripheral Traits. -Warm vs. Cold is more central than Polite vs. Blunt -The Study Participants were given a set of traits describing a new person. The list included either Warm, Cold, Polite, or Blunt List = Intelligent, Skillful, Industrious, X, Determined, Practical, Cautious
- Participants rated the Generosity, Happiness, good- naturedness, sociability, popularity, and altruism (among others) of the new person.
Warm Cold Polite Blunt
0
20
40
60
80
100
Generous Happy Good-Natured Sociable Popular Altruistic
Asch 1946
- Warm Condition rated high on these traits
- Cold Condition rated low on these traits.
- The discrepancy in rating between the Polite vs. Blunt ratings was much smaller.
Implications
- if it is additive, then it is good to tell people about your really good traits and other traits that are good but not as strongly positive. e.g., Kind (+1) + Intelligent (+1) + Loyal (+1) = + Kind (+1) + Intelligent (+1) + Loyal (+1) + Organized (+.5) = +3.
-if it is averaged, then it is bad to included less positive traits. It reduces your overall evaluation. e.g., Kind (+1) + Intelligent (+1) + Loyal (+1) / 3 = + Kind (+1) + Intelligent (+1) + Loyal (+1) + Organized (+.5) / 4 = +.
- Research supports the Averaging Model (A Weighted Averaging Model).
- Negativity Bias - Negative traits affect our impressions more than positive traits.
- Negative traits are given stronger weighting than positive traits.
- Evaluations of a person described as having a strongly positive trait and strongly negative trait are not viewed neutrally. Rather they are viewed as rather negative.
- Averaging predicts Intelligent (+1) + Cold (-1) / 2 = 0
- Weighted Average predicts Intelligent (+1 x 1) + Cold (-1 x 2) / 3 = -.
- Positivity Bias - Generally we evaluate people we know positively.
- Result of averaging across a large body of information
- Most of our social interactions are positive (due to situational norms).
- We self limit our interactions; avoid interactions with negative people.
- When we expect positive interactions with people we tend to attend to positive behaviors and traits, and remember these positive aspects later.
II. Attribution Theory
A. Definitions
1. Attribution = the inferences we make about
the causes of other peoples behavior
2. Types of potential causes
a. Internal = the person caused the behavior
- Dispositional – Behavior is result of enduring traits and likely to happen again
- Intentional – Behavior does not reflect personality, but was intentional
- Unintentional – Behavior was not intentional (e.g., accidental) b. External = the situation caused the behavior
1. Covariation Informatin cont.
Low Consensus, Low Distinctiveness, and
High Consistency
= Internal Attributions
High Consensus, High Distinctiveness, and
High Consistency
= External (Situational) Attributions
2. Person x Situation Examples
Beh = Cursing Situation
- = no cursing Class Play Space
+= cursing Room Ground Ship
d1 d2 d1 d2 d1 d
Stan - - - - - -
Kyle - - - - - -
Cartman + + + + + +
- Low Consensus, Low Distinctiveness, High Consistency
2. Person x Situation Examples
Beh = Cursing Situation
- = no cursing Class Play Space
+= cursing Room Ground Ship
d1 d2 d1 d2 d1 d
Stan - - - - + +
Kyle - - - - + +
Cartman - - - - + +
- High Consensus, High Distinctiveness, High Consistency
3. Final Comments
- When any of these is missing, we are less
confident about making internal
attributions.
- This process will help identify what is
internal (caused by the person), but it does
not tell us what internal factors caused the
behavior. (Dispositions vs. Other motives)
1. Correspondence Information
a) Whether or not behaviors are freely chosen (or intended):
- Based on Knowledge and Ability
- Did you knowingly do it (or reasonably know what the outcome would be)
- Did you have the ability to do it (or prevent it).
- e.g., are the video taped confessions of hostages, believable?
1. Correspondence Information
2) Motives with Noncommon Effects :
Outcomes that only have one likely cause (motive / behavior) are very diagnostic (Jones & Davis) When there are multiple likely causes for the behavior then we become less confident. Accused Pleads Guilty; we agree
- Few likely causes besides guilt Accused Pleads Innocent; we don’t know what to do.
- May plead innocent because they are innocent
- May plead innocent to avoid punishment
1. Correspondence Information
3) Socially Desirability of Behavior
- Behavior low in social desirability is more diagnostic than highly socially desirable Beh.
- This is really an extension of the analysis of noncommon effects.
- Social desirability serves as another potential cause for behavior.
- Beh. = Mr. X kicks your dog
- Infer the Mr. X is a dog hating jerk
- Beh. = Mr. X pets your dog
- Mr. X may or may not really like dogs.
1. Correspondence Information
- Freely chosen behavior with non common
effects, which is not clearly socially
desirable will be interpreted as telling us
about an individual’s personality.
- if any of these is missing, we will be less
certain about our judgments and more likely
to make noncorrespondent attributions for
behavior
- We don’t always do this, especially when:
1) There is a limited amount of information
available
- e.g. Kelly’s model assumes that we have a lot of information about a lot of people and a lot of situations.
2) We have a limited amount of time
- Usually we have to make quick judgments (within a second or two), we do not have time to make rational/accurate attributions
- We don’t always do this, especially when:
3) We have a limited amount of energy
- Sometimes we are too tired or too busy (multitasking) to go through the effortful rational process
4) Our personal interests interfere with being
rational.
- Sometimes we don’t like the implications of the inferences we “should” make, so we don’t make them.
B) The Correspondent Bias /
Fundamental Attribution Error
1. The tendency to make internal-dispositional
attributions about other people’s behavior,
even when situational causes are clearly
present.
2. Jones & Harris (1967)
- Participants read Pro-Castro essays and heard speeches that were written by political science students.
- Participants were told that students were either assigned to write on these topics or they had chosen them.
Jones & Harris (1967) cont.
- Participants then rated how much the speech writer was either Pro- or Anti-Castro
- The Assigned condition rating were similar to the Chosen condition.
- People failed to take the situational information into account.
Chosen Assigned
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Pro Castro Anti-Castro
Strength of Attitude Ratings
Jones & Harris (1967)
b) contintued
- Storms (1973)
- 2 participants are assigned to be actors and
have a conversation on predetermined topic
b) contintued
Afterward, actors rate the amount of causal influence they each had over the converstation.
-with respect to figure:
Actor A : AB > AA
Actor B: AA > AB
b) contintued
Next, actors viewed a video of the conversation taken from the perspective of the other actor. The actors made attributions of their own behavior that were more consistent with their observer’s ratings Actor A : AA > AB Actor B : AB > AA
D. The Self Serving Bias
1) What?
- A limitation on the Actor-Observer Bias.
- Internal Attributions for Positive
Outcomes
- I got an A because I am smart and studied hard.
- External Attributions for Negative
Outcomes
- I got an F because the teacher wrote a hard test
E. Cultural Variation
Individualistic Vs. Collectivist
Cultures
Individualistic Cultures :
Rugged Individualism (e.g. U.S. , Western
Europe). The critical task in life is to
become self sufficient and independent of
society and family.
Social Skills: Self promotion, being
interesting, putting others at ease, having
good conversation skills.
Distribution of Rewards for group effort:
Reward are distributed equitably (each
according to their inputs).
Group orientation is emphasized. The need of the group come before one's own needs (e.g. Asia, Africa, Central & South America, Pacific Islands). Identity is largely in terms of the group (family, village, organization). Social Skills: Group loyalty, Cooperation, Contributing to the group w/o expecting rewards, Public modesty about abilities, Deference to Status, Rewarding Deference to Status Distribution of rewards for group effort: Equality (all get equal share). Group effort is rewarded not individual effort.
Attributional Bias & Individualism
-FAE is commonly demonstrated
-Western tradition of divine free will & Aristotelian Dispositionism. Therefore behavior is intentional and actor is personally responsible.
-SSB is commonly demonstrated
- Cultural focus: Competition & Individual Achievement = Self-esteem & Public Prestige Result in esteem maintenance and impression management strategies
