Psychology
Person Perception
Person perception refers to the process of forming impressions and making judgments about other people. It involves interpreting and understanding the characteristics, traits, and behaviors of individuals based on available information. This process is influenced by factors such as social norms, stereotypes, and personal experiences, and it plays a crucial role in social interactions and relationships.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
7 Key excerpts on "Person Perception"
eBook - ePubJob Feedback
Giving, Seeking, and Using Feedback for Performance Improvement
- Manuel London(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
(For an in-depth review of this literature, see London, [1995a], chapters 3, 4, and 6, and London, [2001], chapters 1 and 2.) I consider the cognitive processes people use to encode, store, and decode information before giving feedback. Also, I show how rater motivation, observation skills, information distorting biases, and empathy for others influence rater accuracy. I begin by turning to the basic psychological and cognitive processes that underlie evaluations—a field called “Person Perception.” Person Perception Theory and Research The social psychological processes of Person Perception explain how managers form impressions of others and use this to provide them with feedback about their job performance. Person Perception refers to the processes by which we form impressions and make inferences about other people in response to the behaviors, words, and interactions we observe between ourselves and others and between other people (Klimoski & Donahue, 2001). This occurs over time and culminates when one person (e.g., a manager) is asked to evaluate another (e.g., a subordinate or peer). The evaluation is likely to be subject to a number of factors that affect the accuracy and usefulness of the judgment for the purpose at hand. Klimoski and Donahue (200 1) argued that Person Perception incorporates various levels of analysis, including the perceiver, the person(s) perceived, the relationships between them, and the situation. The perceiver's goals, motivation, and cognitive skills and processes need to be considered. Also, the perceiver is an active participant in the process, interacting with the individual evaluated, thereby inducing behaviors that then are incorporated into the perception and the favorability of the resulting judgment. The way we perceive others may be influenced by expected patterns of behaviors, called scripts or schemas. These are well-learned behavioral sequences that define typical reactions to environmental conditions (Abelson, 1976)
eBook - ePub- F. Heider(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
The particular behavioral data on which the judgments or perceptions of the other person’s wishes, abilities, or traits are based are not mentioned. One may even feel that the description of the essential interpersonal process would not gain very much in exactitude if they were specified. Neither would a more detailed report of A ’s particular actions change very much our understanding of the main features of the event. The particular action by which A benefited B is of importance only insofar as it is judged by B and is related by him to his self-evaluation. To be sure, we might describe the event by concentrating on the surface, on the overt behavior, on what can be seen from the outside. But even then the reader would certainly translate the overt syndromes into concepts very much like the ones used in the description given above. These concepts provide the nodal points in terms of which the event can be described most economically, which allow for extrapolation to other possible events and which allow for prediction. Social perception in general can best be described as a process between the center of one person and the center of another person, from life space to life space. When A observes B’s behavior, he “reads” it in terms of psychological entities (and his reactions, being guided by his own sentiments, expectations, and wishes, can again be understood only in terms of psychological concepts). A, through psychological processes in himself, perceives psychological processes in B. Asch has clearly expounded this view in the following: The paramount fact about human interactions is that they are happenings that are psychologically represented in each of the participants. In our relation to an object, perceiving, thinking, and feeling take place on one side, whereas in relations between persons these processes take place on both sides and in dependence upon one another…
eBook - PDF- James L. Bowditch, Anthony F. Buono, Marcus M. Stewart(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
While some people might behave in ways that go against personal goals and competencies, most tend to react quite defensively when their beliefs and values are threatened. Such threat often leads to the use of the perceptual defenses discussed earlier. Thus, while we may perceive an individual’s behavior as illogical or even self-defeating, it usually makes sense to that particular individual since people generally make choices that are consistent with their self-concepts. Perception, Individual Differences, and Decision Making As indicated by the preceding discussion, perception refers to the process by which individuals receive, organize, and interpret information from their environment. In terms of making effective decisions, managers must first obtain information from their organizations (peers, subordinates, their managers) and environments (such as cus- tomers, suppliers, and other critical stakeholders), and then accurately interpret those data through the perception process. Although many discussions of managerial deci- sion making suggest that it should be a conscious, rational, and systematic process, with a number of precise steps (including defining and diagnosing the problem, specifying decision objectives, developing and appraising alternative solutions, and then choosing and implementing the best course of action), 48 individuals with different personalities and self-concepts differ in the ways in which they approach such decision making. 49 In one sense, individuals are constraints in the decision-making process. The deci- sions that managers make are strongly affected by their values, beliefs, competencies, goals, and personalities. Thus, to understand why certain decisions emerge from a group or organization, it is important to examine the premises of the individuals in- volved in making those decisions. Organizational members, for example, differ in terms
- H. Jerome Freiberg(Author)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- ASCD(Publisher)
142 P ERCEIVING , B EHAVING , B ECOMING : L ESSONS L EARNED 4 The dominance of physical appearance seems to continue into adulthood (Harter, 1996). According to an interdependent view, self is a part of nature, not sepa-rate from it. In contrast to the Western view of the self, the Eastern view is that the self and significant others are interconnected. In the interdepend-ent view, significant others are included within the self—yet these connec-tions change as social contexts change. A person’s self-esteem is determined in part by fulfilling obligations to and being a part of various interpersonal relationships. Individuals within this system are motivated to respond to the needs and demands of others, rather than to satisfy their own needs. Further, researchers have found variation both within and between cul-tures. We need to recognize this variation as we reconsider the essence of a fully functioning person within a culturally diverse society. As we attempt to enhance the self-concepts of those we teach, we need to include a broader conception of the meaning of self that incorporates alternative cultural views. This more inclusive view needs to become a part of our rich and available perceptual field. The self as unique and separate does not seem to be a universal value, and we can all benefit from an understanding of self-in-relation-to rather than separate-from others and nature. Social Constructivist and Sociocultural Frameworks Finally, we might find it productive to expand Combs’s framework by supplementing the perceptual psychology framework with a greater under-standing of the social and cultural factors that contribute to the concep-tion of truly healthy people. 5 As Combs noted, perceptual psychology emphasizes the individual’s construction of personal meanings. This view seems consistent with what is referred to as a constructivist view, particu-larly a cognitive constructivist view.
- Judith A. Hall, Marianne Schmid Mast, Tessa V. West(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
Self-perception of behavior may also explain why people know the unique impressions they make in different social contexts (Carlson & Furr, 2009). People behave differ- ently across social contexts (Furr & Funder, 2004) and consequently make unique impressions on people who know them in different contexts (Funder et al., 1995). Thus, people may think about how they behave when in a specific context, which allows them to accurately gauge the impressions they make across social contexts. Yet, there are a few reasons to predict that self-observation hinders insight. People are not always aware of how they behave, especially on evaluative behaviors (e.g., rudeness) or behaviors that are difficult for the self to observe (e.g., facial expressions; Gosling, Pete, Craik, & Robins, 1998; Hall, Murphy, & Schmid Mast, 2007; Vazire & Mehl, 2008). People also tend to weigh internal factors, such as intentions and motiva- tions, more than their actual behavior when forming self-perceptions, whereas the opposite is true when people form judgments of others (Malle & Pearce, 2001; Petees & Nisbett, 1972). Thus, people may not weigh their own behavior enough when forming metaperceptions. Indeed, several lines of work show that people engage in the illusion of transparency (Gilovich, Savitsky, & Medvec, 1998), whereby they assume others can detect their internal experiences (e.g., motivation, intention) more than is the case. Likewise, people can become so accustomed to their own behavior that they fail to realize how distinctive it is to other people (Leising, Rehbein, & Sporberg, 2006). Self-perceptions of personality Rather than observing their own behavior, people might simply assume others see their personality as they do. The relationship between self- and metaperceptions is quite strong suggesting that self-perceptions are the main source of information people use to infer how others see them (Kenny, 1994; Kenny & DePaulo, 1993).
- James T. Tedeschi(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
Undoubtedly, she must on occasion project her own assumed processes onto others, but there is also abundant evidence from research studies (Ross, 1977) that actors and perceivers do not always bring the same assumptions to bear when trying to explain the actor's behavior; presumably actors sometimes get things wrong. I might add that it is a fascinating problem to discover when or for whom badly managed im-pressions result from failures to assume the correct model used by the target as opposed to performance problems such as poor acting ability. Person Perception Processes. If we are to treat impression manage-ment as applied Person Perception, we must consider what sorts of Person Perception models are appropriate. From the actor's perspective, he wants to perform some behavior (the self-presentation) that he hopes will lead to some desired inference about his personal qualities by the target. We can distinguish three basic ways by which the target can do this in-ference work. First, he might simply use rules about the diagnostic value of certain behaviors; he might, in short, move directly from a behavior to an inference about the personality of the actor. Second, the target might take into account the situational context of the behavior and make some judgment about whether the behavior was caused by situational or dispositional factors. Third, the target might judge what the behavior reflects about the actor in the context of other information he has about the actor's personality. I will discuss each of these processes briefly. When social psychologists think about how perceivers infer motives and personality dispositions from behavior, they usually think in attribu-tional terms. However, as Schneider et al. (1979) have suggested, attribu-tional processes are not the only cognitive route between behavior and certain characteristics.
eBook - PDFSocial Cognition and Individual Change
Current Theory and Counseling Guidelines
- Aaron M. Brower, Paula Nurius(Authors)
- 1993(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
Chapter 5 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND THE PRACTITIONER We have emphasized in this book that problems brought to the practi-tioner can almost always be understood as problems in living, as disruptions to clients' niches, and as exaggerations or distortions of many of the same factors that constitute normal social functioning. We have discussed ways in which understanding cognitive-ecological variables can inform various components of our work with clients. We now focus our attention on the client-practitioner interaction process and how an understanding of cognitive-ecological factors can enhance practitioner self-awareness and effectiveness. As with preceding chapters, we will describe normative cognitive-ecological processes in human behavior. The emphasis will be on social perception; on the processes that influence the ways practitioners go about looking for, detecting, interpreting, and responding to informa-tion about clients within the context of their role as professional helpers. We will discuss how these processes translate into both assets and biasing liabilities for the practitioner. Specifically, we will first discuss the paradox of bias—as normal and even essential, yet also potentially endangering sound practice. We will then focus on the effects of social perceptual processes on the following common practice tasks: 1. Impression formation and diagnosis 2. Causal explanations and intervention planning 3. The practitioner/client relationship 4. Monitoring, evaluation, and de-biasing aids SO SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND THE PRACTITIONER 81 THE PARADOX OF BIAS In everyday language, the term bias has a negative, prejudicial, judgmental tone. We tend to associate bias with issues of ignorance, closed-mindedness, and vested interest. Such associations are not only erroneous, they are seriously misleading. They incline the practitioner to confuse normative and necessary sources of bias with inadequacies in one's principles, caring, or clinical skill.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
