The document discusses the process of person perception, outlining the five key sources of information used to form impressions: appearance, verbal behavior, actions, nonverbal messages, and situational cues. It highlights the difference between snap judgments and systematic judgments, emphasizing the role of perceiver expectations and cognitive distortions such as confirmation bias and stereotypes in shaping perceptions. Additionally, it explains how efficiency, selectivity, and consistency are recurring themes in how people interpret each other's behaviors.

1. Social Thinking and
Social Influence
Adjustment in the 21st Century
Dr. Mehran Rostamzadeh
INTI International University
Nilai ,2015

2. Learning Outcomes
● Cite the five sources of information people use to form
impressions of others.
● Explain the key differences between snap judgments and
systematic judgments.
● Define attributions and describe two attribution-based
expectations that can distort an observer’s perceptions.
● Recognize four important cognitive distortions and how they
operate.
● Identify some ways in which perceptions of others are efficient,
selective, and consistent.

3. Forming impressions of others
• As people interact with others, they constantly engage in person
perception, the process of forming impressions of others.
Key Sources of Information
Because you can’t read other people’s minds, you are dependent on
observations of others to determine what they are like (Uleman &
Saribay, 2012).
• In forming impressions of others, people rely on five key sources of
observational information:
• appearance,
• verbal behavior,
• actions,
• nonverbal messages,
• and situational cues.

4. Forming impressions of others
1. Appearance. Despite the admonition “You can’t judge a book
by its cover,” people frequently do exactly that.
Physical features such as height, weight, skin color, and hair color
are some of the cues used to “read” other people.
Regardless of their accuracy, beliefs about physical features are
used to form impressions of others (Olivola & Todorov, 2010),
including people’s personalities (Naumann et al., 2009).
Styles of dress, clothing or jewelry that designate religious
beliefs, body piercings, and tattoos also provide clues about
others.
Example, Failing to dress appropriately for a job interview, can
reduce the chances of being hired (Turner-Bowker, 2001).

5. 2. Verbal behavior. what they say.
People form impressions based on what and how
much others self-disclose, how often they give
advice and ask questions, and how judgmental
they are (Tardy & Dindia, 2006).
If Tanisha speaks negatively about most of the
people she knows, you will probably conclude that
she is a critical person.

6. 3. Actions. Because people don’t always tell the truth, you
have to rely on their behavior to provide insights about
them.
For instance, when you learn that Wade volunteers 5 hours a
week at the local homeless shelter, you are likely to infer that
he is a caring person.
4. Nonverbal messages. facial expressions, eye contact,
body language, and gestures (Ekman, 2007; Knapp & Hall,
2006).
For example, a bright smile and steady eye contact signal
friendliness and openness, just as a handshake can indicate
extraversion (Bernieri & Petty, 2011).

7. 5. Situations. The setting in which behavior occurs
provides crucial information about how to interpret
a person’s behavior (Cooper & Withey, 2009; Reis &
Holmes, 2012; Trope & Gaunt, 2003).
For instance, without situational cues (such as
being at a wedding versus a funeral), it would be
hard to know whether a person crying is happy or
sad.

8. Snap Judgments Versus Systematic Judgments
• People are bombarded with more information than they can
possibly handle.
• To avoid being overwhelmed, they rely on alternative ways to
process information (Kahneman, 2011).
• Snap judgments about others are those made quickly and
based on only a few bits of information and preconceived
notions.
•
In forming impressions of those who can affect
their happiness, people make systematic judgments rather
than snap decisions.
That is, they take the time to observe the person in a variety of
situations and to compare that person’s behavior with that of
others in similar situations.

9. Attribution: attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of their
own behavior, others’ behavior, and events.

10. Perceiver Expectations
perceiver expectations can influence the perception of others (de
Calvo & Reich, 2009).
There are two principles governing perceiver expectations:
confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy.
Confirmation Bias
Shortly after you begin interacting with someone, you start
forming hypotheses about what the person is like.
In turn, these hypotheses can influence your behavior toward
that person in such a way as to confirm your expectations.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek information that
supports one’s beliefs while not pursuing disconfirming
information.

11. Perceiver Expectations
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Sometimes a perceiver’s expectations can actually
change another person’s behavior (Madon et al.,
2011).
A self fulfilling prophecy occurs when expectations
about a person cause him or her to behave in ways
that confirm the expectations.

12. Perceiver Expectations
The three steps in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
1. the perceiver has an initial impression of someone. (A
teacher believes that Jennifer is highly intelligent.)
2. the perceiver behaves toward the target person
according to his or her expectations. (He asks her
interesting questions and praises her answers.)
3. The third step occurs when the target person adjusts his
or her behavior to the perceiver’s actions, confirming the
perceiver’s hypothesis about the target person. (Jennifer
performs well in class.)

13. Cognitive Distortions
• Another source of error in person perception comes from distortions in the
minds of perceivers.
• These errors in judgment are most likely to occur when a perceiver is in a
hurry, is distracted, or is not motivated to pay careful attention to another
person.
• Social Categorization
One of the ways people efficiently process information is to classify objects
(and people) according to their distinctive features (Macrae & Bodenhausen,
2001).
Thus, people quite often categorize others on the basis of nationality,
race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, and so forth (Crisp &
Hewstone, 2006).
People frequently take the easy path of categorizing others to avoid expending
the cognitive effort that would be necessary for a more accurate impression.

14. • People classify those who are similar to them as members of their
ingroup (“us”) and those who are dissimilar to them as being in the
outgroup (“them”).
• Such categorizing has three important results.
• First, people usually have less favorable attitudes toward outgroup
members than ingroup members (Brewer & Brown, 1998),
• Second, individuals usually see outgroup members as being much
more alike than they really are.(Oakes, 2001).
• This phenomenon, in which others are seen as “all alike” and one’s
own group is perceived to be “diverse,” is termed the outgroup
homogeneity effect (Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992).
• The third result of categorizing is that it heightens the visibility of
outgroup members when there are only a few of them within a larger
group.

15. Stereotypes
• Stereotypes are widely held beliefs that people have certain
characteristics because of their membership in a particular
group.
For example, This widespread perception is termed the
“what-is-beautiful-is-good” stereotype (Dion, Berscheid,&
Walster, 1972).
Specifically, beautiful people are usually viewed as
happier,
more socially competent,
more assertive,
better adjusted,
and more intellectually competent
than those who are less attractive (Eagly et al., 1991; Jackson,
Hunter, & Hodge, 1995).

16. Stereotypes
The Fundamental Attribution Error
When explaining the causes of others’ behavior,
people invoke personal attributions and
discount the importance of situational factors.
The fundamental attribution error refers to the
tendency to explain other people’s behavior as
the result of personal, rather than situational,
factors.

17. Defensive Attribution
• Observers are especially likely to make internal attributions in trying to
explain the calamities and tragedies that occur other people.
• for example: When a woman is abused by a boyfriend or husband, people
frequently blame the victim by remarking on how stupid she is to stay with
the man, rather than condemning the aggressor for his behavior (Summers
& Feldman, 1984).
• Similarly, rape victims are often judged to have “asked for it” (Abrams et al.,
2003).
•
Defensive attribution is a tendency to blame victims for their misfortune,
so that one feels less likely to be victimized in a similar way.
• Blaming victims for their calamities also helps people maintain their belief
that they live in a “just world” where people get what they
deserve and deserve what they get (Hafer & Bègue, 2005;
Haynes& Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1998).

18. Key Themes in Person Perception
• The process of person perception—how people mentally construe each
others’ behavior—is a complex one (Trope & Gaunt, 2003).
• Nonetheless, we can detect three recurrent themes in this process:
efficiency,
• selectivity,
• and consistency.
Efficiency
• In forming impressions of others, people prefer to exert no more
cognitive effort or time than is necessary.
• Thus, much social information is processed automatically and
effortlessly.
• According to Susan Fiske (1993), people are like government bureaucrats,
who “only bother to gather information on a ‘need to know’ basis” (p.
175).

19. Selectivity
• The old saying that “people see what they expect to
see” has been confirmed repeatedly by social
scientists.
• In a classic study, Harold Kelley (1950) showed how a
person is preceded by his or her reputation.
• Students in a class at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology were told that a new lecturer would be
speaking to them that day.
• Before the instructor arrived, the students were given a
short description of him, with one important variation.

20. Selectivity
• Half the students were led to expect a “warm” person,
while the other half were led to expect a “cold” one.
• All the participants were exposed to exactly the same 20
minutes of lecture and interaction with the new instructor.
• However, those who were led to expect a warm person
rated the instructor as significantly more considerate,
• sociable,
• humorous,
• good-natured,
• informal,
• and humane than those who expected a cold person.

21. Consistency
• Considerable research supports the idea that first impressions are powerful (Asch,
1956; Belmore, 1987).
• A primacy effect occurs when initial information carries more weight than
subsequent information.
• Primacy effects are likely to occur when perceivers—the people who meet us for
the first time—are in good rather than bad moods (Forgas, 2011)
• Why are primacy effects so potent?
• Because people find comfort in cognitive consistency; cognitions that contradict
each other tend to create tension and discomfort.
•
Hence, once people believe that they have formed an accurate picture of
someone, they tend to tune out or discount subsequent information that seems
to contradict that picture (Belmore, 1987).
• It is not impossible to override an initial impression, but the built-in preference for
consistency makes doing so more difficult than most people realize.