Discussion: Person Perception Person perception refers to the mental processes w
ID: 3444252 • Letter: D
Question
Discussion: Person Perception
Person perception refers to the mental processes we use to form judgments about other people.
Sometimes we need to make split-second decisions about strangers.
For example, deciding where to sit in a subway car or the bus involves rapidly evaluating people who are complete strangers.
What kinds of factors affect your first impressions of other people?
Do your impressions of others seem to result from deliberate or automatic thoughts?
Are your first impressions generally accurate?
If you have any neat stories that you would to share I’m sure both myself and your fellow students would enjoy hearing them.
I guess I don’t remember a story where I mistook someone in a situation, but I’m sure it has happened, but here’s one that that happened to me. Back when I was studying in Rome I had a chance to spend about a month during the summer studying French in Paris, or at least that was my excuse to get to Paris :-)
One morning when I was taking the subway to get downtown from where I was staying I was standing in front of two young French girls (actually probably in their 20s) who started giggling and whispering to each other. While I couldn’t hear and/or understand everything they said it was obvious that this “amerloc” (French slang for an American) dressed in black pants and white shirt (our travel clothes whereas in Rome we always wore a cassock) was the cause of their frivolity.
As the subway was pulling into my station, I turned to them and in reasonably good French thanked them for having made my 15-minute subway ride pass more quickly and in their stunned silence I stepped off the subway.
Explanation / Answer
Impressions result from our cognitive and social schemas which we have formed . These cognitive and social schemas help us organize information about people, social situations and people's behavior. These cognitive and social schemas help us form impressions about others, and once these are formed it is not easy to change them.
First impressions may be accurate or may not be, these impressions are often based on our past experience and the cognitive and social schemas we hold. So, in a sense it is automatic and quick assessment of other people, which may be helpful in certain situations, but may also turn out to be wrong.
There are many factors which have an effect on impressions we form about others. Some of these factors are:
Physical Attractiveness
Attractive looking people are judged by others as having positive qualities such as being successful, intelligent, friendly and well adjusted. People who are attractive tend to benefit from these assumptions as they often may perceived as being more competent and sociable than others.
Sex
People form impressions based on ones sex and the stereotypes associated with it. People who display the traits which are typical to a gender are perceived more positively than those who do not.
Race
Impressions are also formed on the basis of ones race by forming judgments based on the stereotypes the particular race holds. A particular race may be associated with a certain occupation or negative or positive personality trait.
Social Categorization
We tend to categorize people in social groups based on certain traits, behaviors or appearance they have. A common example of this is seen in high school and colleges, where there are many groups formed based on shared traits.