6: Perceiving Others
- Page ID
- 257586
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- Person perception is the highly developed human ability to form impressions of others quickly and often accurately, with research showing people can make reliable judgments about traits like competence, trustworthiness, and even sexual orientation from as little as 100 milliseconds of exposure to faces or thin slices of behavior. These rapid judgments rely heavily on nonverbal cues like facial expressions, body language, and vocal patterns, with negative information being weighted more heavily.
- 6.3: Inferring Dispositions Using Causal Attribution
- # Causal Attribution: Inferring Dispositions from Behavior Causal attribution determines whether behavior stems from personality (personal attribution) or circumstances (situational attribution). Personal attributions are easier when behavior is unusual or unexpected. The covariation principle analyzes repeated behavior using consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus information. Despite general accuracy, we exhibit systematic biases.
- 6.4: Individual and Cultural Differences in Person Perception
- Person perception varies significantly across individuals and cultures. Individual differences include cognitive accessibility of traits, need for cognition, and attributional styles (entity vs. incremental theorists). Cultural differences manifest between individualistic Western cultures, which emphasize personal attributions, and collectivistic East Asian cultures, which focus more on situational factors.
- 6.5: Thinking Like a Social Psychologist About Person Perception
- Understanding person perception processes can improve social awareness and relationships. Being conscious of snap judgments, nonverbal cues, and trait-based impressions helps us navigate interactions better. Recognizing attribution errors like fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias prevents relationship pitfalls. Cultural influences and individual thinking styles significantly shape how we perceive others and ourselves.
- 6.6: Chapter Summary
- Person perception involves rapidly forming impressions through social categories, appearance, and nonverbal cues, then developing trait-based judgments. We make causal attributions about behavior, but these are prone to biases like fundamental attribution error and self-serving attributions. Individual differences, cultural background, and attributional styles significantly influence how we perceive others and ourselves.