Person Perception

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Person Perception
http//mentor.lscf.ucsb.edu/course/summer/psyc102/
psyc102_b
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Person Perception

• Why study person perception?
• Pervasive
• Inescapable
• Important
• Person perception impacts
• Current interactions
• Recalled interactions
• Imagined interactions

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Studying Person Perception

• Lens Model (Bruner)
• Compare psychological and objective reality

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Studying Person Perception

• Unable to perfectly compare
• Perceptions of person with
• Actual characteristics of person

INTELLIGENT?
OUTGOING?
CONFIDENT?
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Studying Person Perception

• Focus on psychological reality
• What changes it?
• Solomon Asch
• A person is
• Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical,
  stubborn, and envious
• Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive,
  industrious, and intelligent
• Subjects liked the first person more than the
  second
• Earlier information affected interpretation of
  later information

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Forming Impressions

• Impression formation vs. Recall
• Apple, umbrella, pencil, radio, puppy
• Kind, quiet, intelligent, reliable
• Information represented as coherent cognitive
  structure
• Different strategies used under recall
  instructions than under form impression
  instructions
• First impressions do matter

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Forming Impressions

• Spontaneous Trait Inferences or STI
• Traits/Dispositions are persistent, stable
  characteristics
• Winter Uleman
• Phase 1
• Under recall instructions subjects learned
  behaviors people did
• All behaviors implied traits
• Phase 2
• Participants asked to recall sentences
• Disposition Cue
• Semantic Cue
• No Cue

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Forming Impressions

• Winter Uleman (continued)
• Results showed
• Best recall for disposition cue
• People unaware of their memory strategy
• Spontaneous traits generated
• Even under recall instructions
• Even with people being unaware
• Person information organized around traits

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Forming Impressions

• Jennifer is Friendly
• She said hello to her neighbor
• She talked to people in line
• She avoided a homeless person
• She introduced herself to strangers
• Michael is Cruel
• He insulted a friend
• He frightened a child
• He cut someone off in traffic
• He helped someone cross the street

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Forming Impressions
Associative Network Model
Subject Node
Congruent
Incongruent
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Forming Impressions

• Congruent
• Easily incorporated
• Incongruent
• Unexpected
• Triggers memory search
• Forms new associations
• Often, incongruent information recalled

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Making Attributions

• People make inferences from behaviors
• Extract stable characteristics
• To predict and control future
• Covariation principle
• Covarying causes and effects
• People make correspondent inferences
• Causal attributions not necessarily conscious

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Making Attributions

• Jones and Davis
• Noncommon effects
• Social Desirability

Ms. Adams
Others

• Mr. Smith
• Attractive
• Wealthy
• Jazz Collection

• Mr. Stone
• Attractive
• Wealthy
• Beach House

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Making Attributions

• Kelley
• There is a spider in the tub
• Distinctiveness Test
• Spider, not puppy
• Consensus Test
• Everyone sees the spider
• Consistency Test
• Spider stays a spider

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Making Attributions

• Dispositional Inferences
• Jennifer never smiles at any children
• Roy is routinely rude to Phil
• High Consistency
• Roy is rude to Wanda as well
• Low distinctiveness
• Steve and Cindy are rarely rude to Phil
• Low consensus

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Making Attributions

• Discounting Principle
• Multiple causes reduces attribution confidence

Ms. Adams
Others

• Mr. Smith
• Attractive
• Wealthy
• Jazz Collection
• Nice Family

• Mr. Stone
• Attractive
• Wealthy
• Beach House
• Stuck up Family

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Operating Sequence

• Identification
• Attribution
• Integration
• Identification
• Intentions of actor
• Billy punched Jimmy in the face
• Billy wanted to feel a face?
• Billy wanted to hurt Jimmy?

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Operating Sequence

• Attribution
• Quattrones 2 step model
• Dispositional Inference
• Situational Inference
• Anchoring and adjustment
• Mildred seems nervous waiting for the dentist
• Mildred is an anxious person
• Waiting for the dentist makes most people nervous

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Operating Sequence

• Gilberts model
• Dispositional inference easy/automatic
• Situational inference effortful/controlled
• Gilbert, Pelham, Krull
• Video of female actor behaving anxiously
• Discussing intimate sexual fantasies
• Discussing home gardening
• Control Condition
• Less nervous person if fantasies discussed
• Cognitive load condition
• Equally dispositionally anxious

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Operating Sequence

• Integration
• Jennifer is
• Warm Friendly Outgoing
• Greedy Pleasant Sociable
• Michael is
• Cruel Selfish Conceited
• Lazy Honest Arrogant

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Operating Sequence

• Lay theories of personality
• Associated dispositions through experience
• Kind, honest, and
• Generous?
• Stingy?
• Dispositions organized by valence
• Positive with positive, negative with negative
• Halo Effect

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Errors in Person Perception

• Idealism
• Assimilation (contrast) into existing schemas
• Egotism
• Biased to fulfill motivations
• Realism
• Confidence in grasp of reality
• Circumstantialism
• Ignorance of non-evident context information

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Errors in Person Perception

• Fundamental Attribution Error OR Correspondence
  Bias
• People over-explain behaviors in terms of
  dispositions
• Circumstantialism
• Other error types
• Operating sequence

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Errors in Person Perception

• Jones and Harris
• Subjects shown essay supporting Castro
• Freely written by college student (A)
• Requested by an authority figure (B)
• Subjects thought that
• Condition A student favored Castro
• Condition B student also favored Castro (but
  less)
• Implications for discounting principle/STI

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Errors in Person Perception

• Actor-observer effect
• Others behaviors explained by dispositions more
• Self behaviors explained by situation more
• Differences in available information
• Less circumstantialism
• Differences in perspective
• Seating position influences inferences
• Operating sequence?

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The end!