Person perception

1
Person perception

• Lecture 2

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Differences between person perception and
perception of physical objects

• Complexity of inferences
• going beyond the information given (Jerome
  Bruner)
• Indirect inferences (observable cues ? inferences
  about dispositions)
• Influence of affect and emotions
• The perceving and the perceived are of the same
  kind both humans
• Source of biases or accurate perceptions
• I know that you know that I know the
  perceiving is being perceived and reacted to
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• Labeling effects
• Source of bias

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What is being perceived

• Appearance, skin color, gender
• Verbal communications
• Behaviors (shyness, self-confidence, anxiety,
  etc.)

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Nonverbal messages

• Gestures and emblems
• Physical distance (proxemics)
• Eye contact
• Touch
• Self-disclosure

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Gestures
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Greetings around the world
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Physical distance
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Four spatial zones according to E. Hall
stanie
siedzenie
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Spontaneous distance dependent on type of
interaction
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Spontaneous distance dependent on age and type of
relationship
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Spontaneous distance dependent on age and gender
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Contact vs. non-contact cultures
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The best positions for social conversations
Activity zones in a classroom
And in the bar...
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Eye contact
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Focusing on a face...
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Frequency of eye contact during a conversation
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Physical distance and amount of eye contact
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Touch
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Pleasant and unpleasant zones dependent on sex
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Pleasant and unplesant zones in the US and Japan
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Impression formation
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Going beyond the information given

• Effects in impression formation
• halo effect,
• leniency
• devil effect
• Implicit theories of personality

Jerome Bruner
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Halo and devil effects

--

--
--

--

--

--
--


Devil effect
Halo effect
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Instead
--


--
Leniency effect
--

--

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Other effects in person perception

• Primacy / recency
• Information set
• Evaluation
• polarization
• negativity
• positivity

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Asch study primary vs. recency effect
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Explanations of primacy effect

• Solomon Asch change of the information meaning
  dependent on the expectations created after the
  first information
• Norman Anderson attention declines with
  successive information

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Information set effect
Logarithmic function between overall evaluation
and number of univalent information
evaluation
Number of information pieces
35
Trait inferences

• Implicit theories of personality

36
Solomon Asch (years 40s/50s)

• Central and peripheral traits
• warm vs. cold

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Solomon Asch central and peripheral traits

• List A
• Intelligent
• Skillful
• Industrious
• Warm
• Determined
• Practical
• Careful

• List B
• Intelligent
• Skillful
• Industrious
• Cold
• Determined
• Practical
• Careful

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Effects of differences on the warm- cold
dimension

• generous
• wise
• happy
• kind
• humorous
• sociable
• popular
• humane
• altruistic
• Imaginative

No differences for the dimension Polite - blunt
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Seymour Rosenberg (1968)

• Multidimensional scaling of personality traits
• Semantic space of personality traits
• Two main dimensions of implicit personality
  theories Social good-bad vs. Intellectual
  good-bad

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Positive intellectual traits
persistent
scientific
determined
skilful
Negative social traits
Industrious intelligent
imaginative
unsociable
serious
discriminating
cold
humorless
important
daring
cautious
unpopular
dominating
practical
unhappy
artistic
reserved
vain
honest
modest
impulsive
Positive social traits
superficial
tolerant
unreliable
helpful
submissive
sincere
unintelligent
clumsy
naive
happy
humorous
foolish
popular
good-natured
sociable
warm
Negative intellectual traits
After Rosenberg, Nelson, Vivekanathan, 1968
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Rosenberg et als. (1968) original results
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Trait inference role of affect
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Robert B. Zajonc
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Affect as basic form of cognition

• Affective appraisal
• Approach-avoidance
• Good-bad
• Cognition
• True - false

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Preferenda vs. discriminanda

• Preferenda ? cues of how to feel
• Discriminanda ?cues of how to distinguish between
  objects

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Evaluation as the basic component of meaning

• Charles Osgood (1957) The measurement of
  meaning
• Conotation vs. denotation
• Semantic differential as instrument for
  measurement of meaning

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Semantic differential
Father
1 2 3 4 5
6 7
good
bad
hard
soft
slow
fast
light
heavy
smooth
rough
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Future
1 2 3 4 5
6 7
good
bad
hard
soft
slow
fast
light
heavy
smooth
rough
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Love
1 2 3 4 5
6 7
good
bad
hard
soft
slow
fast
light
heavy
smooth
rough
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Poland
1 2 3 4 5
6 7
good
bad
hard
soft
slow
fast
light
heavy
smooth
rough
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Other dimensions and results of factor analysis
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Three dimensions of meaning

• Evaluation (good-bad) (50 variance)
• Potency (strong-weak)
• Activity (active-passive)
• PotencyActivity Dynamism
• Evaluation Dynamism two basic dimensions of
  AFFECT

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Dimensions of semantic space
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James Russell Albert Mehrabian circumplex
of affective reactions
High arousal (dynamism)
Fear
Excitement
Pleasant
Unpleasant
Relaxation
Low arousal (dynamism)
Boredom
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How does affective meaning influence our
judgments?

• Affective and descriptive rules of trait
  inference
• Theory of Dean Peabody

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Two meanings of a social information

• Affective meaning (evaluation)
• Is it good or bad
• Do I like it or not?
• Descriptive meaning
• What does it mean?,
• What property does it describe?

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Affective and descriptive meanings(mutual
relations)

• Affective similarity descriptive difference
• honest - enterprising
• () ()
• Affective difference descriptive similarity
• quiet - passive
• () (-)
• Inferences may use either affective or
  descriptive similarities of traits

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Affective vs. descriptive inference rules (Dean
Peabody)
Mean (-)
Thrifty ()
Generous ()
Extravagant (-)
Descriptive consistency
Descriptive consistency
Affective consistency
Affective consistency
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risky courageous careful cowardly
naive trusting crtical
fault-finding
changeable flexible determined
stubborn
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Mutual perception of groups A i B descriptively
consistent, affectively inconsistent
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Affective representation (affectively balanced
structure)
-


-
-

-


-

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Descriptive representation (affectively
imbalanced structure)

-


-

-
-
-


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Affective inferences used

• When little information is available
• E.g., Asch experiment (cold vs. warm)
• When we dont understand the situation
• Discriminanda cannot be applied
• When the cognitive set is to evaluate and not
  diagnose/describe
• When quick decision is required
• Need for approach or avoidance reaction
• When the situation is emotionally involving
• With lower level of cognitive development (e.g.
  children)

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Descriptive inferences used

• When enough information
• Peter Warrs modification of Aschs warm-cold
  experiment
• When looking for explanation and not evaluation
• In a neutral situation that enables distancing
• Higher level of cognitive devlopment, cognitive
  complexity

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Self- and other-profitable traits

• Theory of Guido Peeters

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Guido Peeters Catholic University of Leuven,
Belgia
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Self-profitable traits vs. other-profitable traits

• Self-profitable (S-P) Competence, abilities,
  skills traits profitable/unprofitable for the
  owner of the trait
• Other-profitable (O-P) Moral and social traits
  profitable or unprofitable for other people

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Guido Peeters Self-profitable (SP) vs.
other-profitable (OP) traits

• SP
• Intelligent
• Active
• Passive
• Enterprising
• Clumsy
• Slow
• Thrifty
• Self-confident
• Flexible
• Unpunctual
• Talented
• Diligent
• Extravagant

• OP
• Honest
• Evil
• Friendly
• Dishonest
• Selfish
• Helpful
• Responsible
• Reliable
• Mean
• Generous
• Cold
• Ruthless
• Modest

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OP (other-profitable) vs. SP (self-profitable)
extravagant (SP-)
generous (OP)
Spends money
Self-profitable
Other-profitable
Does not spend money
thrifty (SP)
mean (OP-)
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OP (other-profitable) vs. SP (self-profitable)
self-confident (SP)
conceited (OP-)
Self-confidence
Self-profitable
other-profitable
Lack of self-confidence
shy (SP-)
modest (OP)
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(SP-)
(OP)
(OP-)
SP()
mean
generous
extravagant
thrifty
SP
OP
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Whom do you prefer?

• Honest friend
• Dishonest friend

• Intelligent friend
• Stupid friend

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Whom do you prefer?

• Honest enemy
• Dishonest enemy

• Intelligent enemy
• Stupid enemy

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SP vs. OP

• Positive object SP ? positive evaluation
• Friend intelligent ? positive evaluation
• Negative object SP ? negative evaluation
• Enemy intelligent ? negative evaluation
• Positive object OP ? positive evaluation
• Friend honest ? positive evaluation
• Negative object OP ? positive evaluation
• enemy honest ? positive evaluation

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SP vs. OP and context dependence

• SP traits change their meaning depedent on the
  context - OP traits are context-independent
• OP traits are better manifestations of
  approach-avoidance than SP traits (we
  avoid/approach others not ourselves)
• OP is the real evaluative dimension

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Peabody vs. Peeters

• Evaluation of a trait dependent not on its
  intensity (Peabody), but on whether it is an SP
  or OP trait

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Trait inferences (cont.)

• Morality vs. competences

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Glenn D. Reeder
University of Illinois
Behavior?trait inference schemata
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Morality vs. competences

• Morality
• honest, moral, truthful, responsible, sincere,
  loyal, faithful
• dishonest, immoral, hypocritical, irresponsible,
  corrupt, traitor
• Competences
• Skilled, intelligent, resourceful, pragmatic,
  talented, diligent, enterprising
• clumsy, loser, unintelligent, incompetent, lazy,
  helpless

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What is more probable?

• (A) That an intelligent person will behave
  stupidly ?
• (B) That a stupid person will behave
  intelligently?

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What is more probable?

• (A) That an honest person will behave
  dishonestly?
• (B) That a dishonest person will behave honestly?

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Inference schemata
Competences
Intelligent behavior
Intelligence


Stupid behavior
Lack of intelligence
-
-
Honesty
Honest behavior
Morality


Dishonest behavior
-
-
Dishonesty
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Inference schemata
Intelligent behavior
Intelligence


Stupid behavior
Lack of intelligence
-
-
Diagnostic behaviors
Honesty
Honest behavior


Dishonest behavior
-
-
Dishonesty
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Positivity effect
--
--



Negativity effect
--
--


--
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Morality vs.competences and evaluation effects
Intelligent behavior stupid behavior ? trait
intelligence
Loyal behavior disloyal behavior ? trait
disloyalty
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Self vs. others

• Self descriptions in terms of competences
• Description of others in terms of morality

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After Wojciszke, 1994
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After Wojciszke, 1994
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After Wojciszke, 1994
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The biggest sins of Polish people

• Survey PBS 10 February 2005

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The biggest sins

• Pole
• Drinking and gluttony 24,0
• Dishonesty 19,8
• Greed 11,7
• Laziness 11,3
• Envy 11,0
• Jealousy 8,0
• Thieving 8,0
• Boorishness 5,5
• Corruption 5,5
• Intolerance 5,5
• Conceit 5,6
• Complaining 4,4
• Egoism 3,5
• Callousness 2,9
• Stupidity 2,5

• Myself
• Laziness 16,0
• Drinking and gluttony 9,0
• Smoking 4,6
• Dishonesty 4,0
• Lack of self-confidence 3,5
• Lack of perseverance 3,2
• Anger 3,0
• Naivete 2,4
• Talking too much 2,4
• Workaholism 2,3
• Unpunctuality 1,9
• Envy 1,6
• Dissolution 1,5
• Jealousy 1,5
• Nervousness 1,5

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The biggest sins

• Pole
• Dont know 7,8
• Poles have no sins, drawbacks
  2,8

• Myself
• Dont know 10,0
• I have no sins, drawbacks
• 23,1

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Sins and age
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Sins and education
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Sins and size of residence place
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Moralization of the social world

• Accounting for peoples behavior in terms of
  their moral intentions
• Negative image of others (negativity effects)
• Suspicion and conspiracy theories (dispositional
  attributions)
• Evaluation and not explanation of peoples
  behaviors

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So the agreemnt holds we give you morality and
you give us cash
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Dimensions of person perception summary

• S. Rosenberg intellectual good-bad vs. social
  good-bad
• G. Peeters self-profitable vs. other-profitable
• G. Reeder ability vs. morality

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Integration of partial evaluations into overall
impression
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Models of information integration cognitive
algebra

• Linear models (bottom up)
• Additive models (Triandis Fishbein) 
• Averaging
• Weighted average (N. Anderson)
• Configurational model (S. Asch) (top down)
• Impression
• Holistic the whole is more than sum of elements
• Meaning of individual parts dependent on the whole

104
Asch vs. Anderson which model is more accurate?

• Both may be true
• S. Fiske Neuberg (1990) two modes of
  information integration category-based
  integration versus piece-meal integration. 
• Category-based evaluation of an object derived
  from global evaluation of the category (e.g.
  stereotype)
• Piece-meal global evaluation a product of
  partial evaluations of specific features of an
  object

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The continuum model of person perception
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Category-based vs. piece-meal

• Time pressure ? category-based
• Interdepedence ? piece-meal
• Position in hierarchy
• Subordinates ? piece-meal
• Superiors ? category-based

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Subordinate when in front of a superior should
have a miserable and a dumb appearance in order
not to embarass the superior with his
comprehension ability