person perception: categorizing others social psychology 3rd february 2005 paul sparks p.sparkssussex.ac.uk

1. Person Perception: Categorizing OthersSocial Psychology3rd February 2005Paul Sparks (p.sparks@sussex.ac.uk) �We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character forms itself in us. A glance, a few spoken words are sufficient to tell us a story about a highly complex matter. We know that such impressions form with remarkable rapidity and with great ease� (Asch, 1946, p.258)

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3. 3 What is person perception? Forming impressions of personality Cf. impression formation; impressions of persons; social perception �The question of how individuals form impressions and integrate information about other people is only worth asking as long as we do not lose sight of the more fundamental question of why they do so� (Eiser, 1980, p.100)

4. 4 Solomon Asch - Forming impressions of personality Asch gave subjects the following description of someone and asked subjects to try to get an impression of that person: Intelligent - skillful - industrious -warm - determined - practical - cautious Subjects were then asked to judge the person in terms of 18 pairs of contrasting traits. 91% generous-ungenerous 9% 65% wise-shrewd 35% 90% happy-unhappy 10% 94% good natured-irritable 6% 77% humorous-humorless 23% 91% sociable-unsociable 9% 84% popular-unpopular 16% 94% reliable-unreliable 6% 88% important-insignificant 12% 86% humane-ruthless 14% 77% good looking-unattractive23% 100% persistent-unstable 0% 100% serious-frivolous 0% 77% restrained-talkative 23% 69% altruistic-self-centred 31% 51% imaginative-hard-headed 49% 98% strong-weak 2% 98% honest-dishonest 2%

5. 5 Asch: primacy effects (first impressions count heavily!) Asch also gave different groups of subjects one of the following two lists of trait terms: Intelligent-industrious-impulsive-critical-stubborn-envious Envious-stubborn-critical-impulsive-industrious-intelligent (Again, subjects were asked to try to form an impression of the person)

6. 6 Traits inferred (as a function of word order) Intelligent? Envious Envious? Intelligent 24% generous 10% 18% wise 17% 32% happy 5% 18% good natured 0% 52% humorous 21% 56% sociable 27% 35% popular 14% 84% reliable 91% 85% important 90% 36% humane 21% 74% good looking 35% 82% persistent 87% 97% serious 100% 64% restrained 9% 6% altruistic 5% 26% imaginative 14% 94% strong 73% 80% honest 79%

7. 7 Landy & Sigall (1974): Beauty = talent? Authors gave male students essays to evaluate. The essays were written by female students� whose photograph accompanied the essay (in a file) The essays were judged independently The photos were judged as highly attractive or highly unattractive Control group judged the essays without the photos Essays written by attractive women were more highly rated than essays written by unattractive women .

8. 8 Gustav Ichheiser - Misunderstandings in Human Relations A study of false social perception �The raw material of social perception� 1. Physical appearance 2. Behaviour 3. Situational factors � (e.g. where you live, your friends, your job) 4. Communications from other people 5. Communications from the person themselves

9. 9 Gustav Ichheiser - (Typology of personality misinterpretations) 1. �The tendency to overestimate the unity of personality� 2. Success and failure as sources of misinterpretations 3. Stereotyped classifications as sources of misinterpretations 4. Limits of insight as sources of misinterpretations 5. Mechanisms of rigidity 6. �The tendency to overestimate the role of personal and to underestimate the role of situational factors�

10. 10 Gustav Ichheiser - (Typology of personality misinterpretations: 1.�The tendency to overestimate the unity of personality�) �A teacher complains to a mother that her boy behaves in an intolerable way and continually disturbs the class. The mother retorts angrily that this cannot be, for of her several children this particular boy is the nicest child one can imagine. The teacher thinks, �Something is wrong with this mother; she is either blind or she feels that she has to defend her child even though she knows that what she says is not true�. The mother thinks, �Something is wrong with the teacher; he is obviously prejudiced, and this bias distorts his judgment.� As a matter of fact, both the teacher and the mother are victims of an unconscious misinterpretative assumption which prevents for each of them a correct understanding of the situation. Their false assumption is related to the tendency to overestimate the unity of personality.� (p.27)

11. 11 The consequences of our judgements of others: Self-fulfilling prophecies Merton ~ a self-fulfilling prophecy ��is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true� (p. 423) e.g. Rosenthal & Jacobsen, Pygmalion in the Classroom

12. 12 The consequences of our judgements of others: behavioural confirmation Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid (1977) Participants were male and female students (51 of each) Participants provided some information about themselves and were led to separate rooms where they would engage in telephone conversations with each other. All participants were told that a folder containing such information would be given to the other partner in order to help get the conversation underway. Each male participant was given a picture of (what they believed to be) the female partner within the folder. Male participants also their photo taken and were told (falsely) that this would be given to the female partner. Some of the photos were of females who had been judged by a separate group of males to be very attractive and some of the photos had been judged to be very unattractive. Before the conversation began, each male rated their female partner in terms of 27 trait terms (e.g. friendliness, enthusiasm, trustworthiness). The male and female partners then engaged in a ten minute conversation.

13. 13 The consequences of our judgements of others: behavioural confirmation Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid (1977) (cont.) Afterwards, males again rated their female partners in terms of the trait terms. Females rated themselves on the same dimensions, how comfortable they felt during the conversation, how physically attractive they believed their conversation partners believed them to be, and how much they thought their conversation partners treated them in the way that males typically do. Independent judges listened to the tape-recorded conversations (either only the female voices or only the male voices for level of animation and enthusiasm, intimacy of the conversation and how personal conversations were. Results Males judged � �attractive� conversation partners to be relatively friendly, socially skilled, poised and humorous � �unattractive� conversation partners to be relatively unfriendly, socially inept, awkward and serious Judges judged conversations of the male participants who thought that they were talking to very attractive women to be more sociable, sexually warm, bold, humorous, confident and animated than they did the conversations to those males who thought that they were talking with �unattractive� women. Judges also rated the supposed attractive women as more poised, sexually warm, animated and sociable than they did the �unattractive� women. (Incorrect) initial impressions ? differences in males� behaviour ? differences in females� behaviour

14. 14 The consequences of our judgements of others: behavioural confirmation Snyder & Swann (1978) In a similar study (to that of Snyder, Tanke & Berscheid), Snyder and Swann had some participants believe that their interaction partner was hostile. Those believed to be more hostile ended up actually being more hostile! (seminar reading!)

15. 15 Thirty-eight years after his original work in this area� (Asch & Zukier) �How do we make sense of those dispositions of a person that strike us as discordant, incongruent, or conflicting?� Instructions: �This is a study of how one thinks about other people. I will briefly describe a person to you, by mentioning two of his or her characteristics. For example, I am thinking of a person who is sociable and lonely. Try to imagine a person with these qualities, describe in a few sentences what the person may be like and how these qualities might be related�

16. 16 Asch & Zukier: modes of resolution 1. Segregating e.g. brilliant-foolish: �A person may be brilliant intellectually but foolish in practical, common-sense matters� 2. Depth dimension: inner vs. outer e.g. sociable-lonely:� Someone appears very sociable but inwardly he is lonely� mask of the fa�ade 3. Cause-effect e.g. hostile-dependent: �Dependence often breeds hostility; one develops a hostile attitude toward the person upon whom one depends� 4. Common source e.g. cheerful-gloomy: �They are both common characteristics of a moody person� 5. Means-end e.g. strict-kind: �Anyone working with children must be pretty strict, yet can also be kind. It is good for children to have a parent care about them and set reasonable rules for them�

17. 17 Final thoughts...  ��if people who do not understand each other at least understand that they do not understand each other, then they understand each other better than when, not understanding each other, they do not even understand that they do not understand each other� (Ichheiser, 1949, p.37)

18. 18 Final thoughts (2) ... �We may strive to see others as they really are, but all too often the charlatan wins our praise and the altruist our scorn. Juries misjudge defendants, voters misjudge candidates, lovers misjudge each other, and, as a consequence, the innocent are executed, the incompetent are elected, and the ignoble are embraced�In the past year, 1,000 people who thought they knew their acquaintances have been raped by them, 10,000 people who thought they knew their mates have divorced them, and 1,000,000 people who thought they knew their sovereigns have died as pawns in their wars. Just how capably do we navigate our social worlds? Just how accurate are our understandings of those around us? We do not know. Nobody does. But before we accept the stale contention that people do just fine when psychologists are not manipulating and measuring them, we should probably look around� (Gilbert & Malone, 1995, p. 35)

19. 19 Summary Person perception is central to Social Cognition Asch�s work highlights the potential importance of first impressions and of how we might integrate subsequent information to existing (person) schemas Ichheiser suggests that misperception is widespread The social psychological effects of the ways in which we perceive others are important. In particular, the role of our expectations about others has been shown to have (e.g. self-fulfilling prophecy) effects