Perceiving Individuals

1
Perceiving Individuals

• Reading
• Brehm, Kassin, Fein (2005) Social Psychology
  6th Edition. Chapter 4
• Topics
• First Impressions
• Confirmatory Biases

2
What is Person Perception?

• The way we seek to know and understand people
• Understanding others helps us predict their
  behavior and decide how to interact with them.
• We are remarkably quick and accurate at forming
  impressions of others .. but are subject to a
  number of consistent biases.

3
First Impressions

• Person perception begins at the split second
  when we first become aware of another person and
  continues throughout a relationship (Lord, 1997)
• First impressions of an individual influence the
  way subsequent behavior is interpreted, and how
  we interact with that person.first impressions
  really DO matter

4
What information?

• Forming impressions from appearance knowing
  what somebody is like by what they look like
• Forming impressions from behavior knowing what
  somebody is like by what they do
• Forming impressions from memory knowing what
  somebody is like based on prior knowledge

5
Physical Appearance Historically

• Pythagoras (500 BC) looked into the eyes of
  prospective students to see if they were gifted
• Gall (19th century) introduced phrenology
  assessing peoples character from the shape of
  their skull
• Sheldon (1954) claimed a link between male
  physique and personality

6
ENDOMORPH
ECTOMORPH
MESOMORPH
thin, flat chest, delicate build, young
appearance, tall, lightly muscled,
stoop-shouldered, large brain self-conscious,
preference for privacy, introverted, inhibited,
socially anxious, artistic, mentally intense,
emotionally restrained
hard, muscular body, overly mature appearance,
rectangular shaped, thick skin, upright posture
Adventurous, desire for power and dominance,
courageous, indifference, assertive, bold, zest
for physical activity, competitive, love of risk
and chance
soft body, underdeveloped muscles, round shaped,
over-developed digestive system love of food,
tolerant, evenness of emotions, love of comfort,
sociable, good humoured, relaxed, need for
affection
7
Physical Appearance Contemporary

• Red heads are fiery blondes are more fun
• Individuals wearing glasses are scholarly
• Those with greying hair are distinguished
• Individuals wearing black are aggressive
• Taller people are more intelligent and of higher
  status

8
Physical Attractiveness

• Halo Effect.What is beautiful is good
• So whats it like to be attractive
• Predicted satisfaction on blind date (Walster et
  al., 1966)
• Seen as more intelligent and interesting
  (Clifford, 1975)
• More likely to solicit help (Benson et al., 1976)
• Lower bail set in misdemeanor cases (Downs
  Lyons, 1991)
• Receive lighter prison sentences (Stewart, 1985)
• More likely to get a job interview? (Watkins
  Johnston, 2000)

9
Physical Attractiveness
CV quality
Source Watkins Johnston, 2000
10
Baby-faced

• Large, round eyes high eye-brows small chin
  characteristics of young (regardless of age)
• Viewed as more naïve, honest, kind and warm than
  those with more mature features
• Less likely to be chosen for jobs requiring
  mature characteristics such as leadership and
  shrewdness
• More likely to be chosen as dates by those who
  like to dominate others

11
(No Transcript)
12
Why?

• Genuine cues
• Overgeneralization
• Stereotypes/metaphors
• age, sex, race, occupation

13
Appearance dynamics Facial expressions
14
Forming impressions from behavior

• How much behavior do we need to see?
• Amazing accuracy
• From short (5-30 seconds) silent video clips
• personality judgments
• evaluations of college teachers
• sexual orientation
• From movement (gait) alone
• emotion/mood
• vulnerability

15
Examples of studies demonstrating accuracy of
person perception at zero-acquaintance
Source Zebrowitz Collins, 1997
16
Correlations of Actual Teacher Effectiveness
ratings with Mean Judge Ratings
From Ambady Rosenthal, 1993
17
Sexual Orientation Judgement Accuracy
From Ambady, Hallahan Conner, 1999
18
Isolating kinematic information
Different aspects of movement can be measured
(e.g., speed, foot swing, hip rotation)
19
Kinematic Information

• see http//www.biomotionlab.ca/walking.php

20
Its the way you walk
Emotions perceivers can identify sadness, anger,
happiness and pride from gait information.

• Vulnerability Certain walking style features
  predict ease of attack ratings. Changes to
  walking style predict changes in ease of attack
  ratings

21
Behaviors

• Some gestures have specific meanings
• interpersonal distance signifies closeness of
  relationship and power relationships
• those who make frequent eye contact are perceived
  as honest, straightforward, friendly and likeable
• those who avoid eye contact are seen as
  unfriendly, shifty or shy
• if two people lock eyes for more than a few
  seconds, they are either going to make love or
  kill each other
• Influence on evaluation/liking. We like
• people who orient their bodies toward us while we
  speak
• people who listen to us with dilated pupils

22
Behavioral leakage
People try to mask their feelings in many
situations how do you know if their expression
is genuine or not? Amazingly we can for more
detail take PSYC455 (Social Perception)
23
First Impressions Summary 1

• Evidence that we can form accurate impressions
  based on very little info.
• Basic characteristics
• Sex
• Mood
• Age
• More complex judgments
• Zero acquaintance paradigms
• Sexual orientation
• Teacher effectiveness
• Vulnerability to attack

Very brief exposures Point-light techniques
24
First Impressions Summary 2

• Information is available from appearance and
  behavior to enable accurate person perception
  without in-depth knowledge.
• Perceivers can be sensitive to this information.
• WHEN JUDGING A BOOK
• DONT IGNORE THE COVER!

25
Biases in Impression Formation

• Seeking Accuracy?
• Not always the goal of impression formation
• Awareness of bias may lead to attempts to correct
• Relative weighting of information
• Central vs. peripheral traits
• Primacy and recency effects
• Negativity bias
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Confirmatory hypothesis testing

26
Central Traits

• Central traits (Asch, 1946)
• intelligent, skilful, industrious, warm/cold,
  determined, practical, cautious
• more positive impression formed of warm person
• intelligent, skilful, industrious, polite/blunt,
  determined, practical, cautious
• no difference in impressions
• the guest lecturer is a very warm/cold person,
  industrious, critical, practical and determined
• more positive interactions with warm person
• Negativity bias weight negative information more
  heavily

27
Primacy and Recency

• Primacy Effects
• Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical,
  stubborn and envious?
• Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive,
  industrious and intelligent?
• Tendency for information presented early in a
  sequence to have greater impact on impressions
• Jeopardy
• Mud Sticks!!!

28
Self-fulfilling prophecies

• Seeing what we expect to see e.g. Rosenhan
  (1973) hospital study
• initial impressions may create corresponding
  behaviors
• tend to ignore the influence of our behavior on
  others

Pygmalion in the classroom (Rosenthal
Jacobsen, 1968) impact of teacher
expectations ( Cooper Good, 1983)
29
1
Perceivers behavior toward target
Perceivers expectations
2
3
Targets behavior toward the perceiver
Interrogators who assumed guilt asked more
incriminating questions, conducted more coercive
interviews and tried harder to get the suspect to
confess. Observers rated suspect as more likely
to be guilty. (Kassin et al., 2003).
30
Beliefs guide perception

• Pre-existing beliefs about an individual can lead
  us to interpret new information in different
  ways..

From Darley Gross, (1983)
31
Perseverance of Beliefs

• consistent with principle of conservatism
• difficult to discredit previous information
• impact in the courtroom influence of
  inadmissible evidence

Source Loftus, 1974
32
Dealing with inconsistency

• avoid and ignore
• actively seek information consistent with our
  views and create it (self-fulfilling prophecies)
• explain away inconsistency
• due to situational factors
• hold two (or more) views simultaneously

33
Person Perception Summary

• Impression formation is not always logical and
  rational
• Subject to a number of biases
• Negativity bias
• Primacy effects
• Attractiveness bias
• Baby-faced bias
• Self-fulfilling prophecies