UNDERSTANDING SOME IMPORTANT FACTORS IN PERSON PERCEPTION AND IMPRESSION FORMATION

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In the last unit, we discussed impression formation. The unit also served to introduce us to other units in this course. You can now state the general principles of impression formation. You can also describe the type of information that you may use. We are now ready to discuss another interesting unit: understanding some important factors in person perception and impression formation. We will now consider person perception: impression formation. Let us take a look at what other content you should learn in this unit as specified in the objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. describe person perception; 
2. identify important factors in person perception; and 
3. explain the most important aspects of impression. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Person Perception

While perception implies the use of direct sensory information, person perception is concerned with the process by which impressions, opinions, and feelings about other persons are formed. Often an opinion about another person is not based on direct information but on statements by others or knowledge of the person, received from other sources. It is important for you to note that opinions, feelings, and impressions are rather on subjective processes, and inferences drawn on the basis of such subjective judgments go to constitute what person perception is all about.

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

State the opinions you have of the Librarian at your study center.

Let us go on with our discussion.

There are three sources in forming impressions of personality which are stimulus information, perceiver variables, and impressions of stimulus person. Stimulus information comprises of the physical appearance of the person, and his overt verbal and nonverbal behaviour. Perceiver variables consist of the perceiver's feelings and cognitions towards stimulus, his self- concept, and his implicit personality theory and stereotype. The last source consists of perception of causality, intent, justifiability, attribution of personality traits and other cognitions towards the stimulus person.

As you can see from the list of the factors above, most of these sources apart from the source of stimulus information belong to subjective judgment of the perceiver. There are however the following modes of perceiving others, viz:
a. From the point of view of the outward appearance and other superficial characteristics of the person.
b. From the point of view of central traits of the person, for example, aggressive, shy, and so on.
c. From the point of view of a cluster of congruous traits of the person, for example strong and bold, polite and kind, and so on. 

d. From the point of view of a variety of traits not necessarily congruous of the person, for example, polite but cruel, kind but aggressive, and so on.
The above modes of person perception will be clear if we consider the following factors influencing person perception in the next section of our discussion.

3.2 Important Factors in Person Perception

a. Verbal Cues: In a study conducted by Asch (1986), subjects who were all college students, were asked to write a brief characterisation of the person for whom the following traits were given, for example, energetic, assured, talkative, cold, ironical, impulsive, and persuasive. In spite of the paucity of information, all subjects readily accepted the task of completing the sketch of the person. Their responses showed significant differences in making use of the traits, though they were all given the same list of traits. Some perceivers saw the hypothetical person as cold, inquisitive and ironical, others perceived him as energetic and assured, and some perceived him as talkative, and persuasive. In all cases, there was one predominant trait that characterized the hypothetical person. There was also evidence that new traits were invented, and ascribed to the person. b. Non-Verbal Cues: As a source of impression formation,


In another experiment, a group of children were taught the same lesson by a ‘popular teacher’ who was instructed to make as many ‘mistakes’ in teaching as possible, and by another 'unpopular teacher’ who was-instructed to give a ‘copy-book lesson’. A post- text was given to the children asking them to rate the teaching of the two teachers, and it was found that the children rated the ‘popular’ teacher who made mistakes during teaching as a ‘better’ teacher than the other who made no mistakes at all during teaching. It is obvious from such findings that individual biases towards the other person had influenced their perception of the teaching methods of the two different teachers. Many studies have shown that perceivers like persons they assume to be more similar to themselves than persons towards whom they feel neutral or whom they dislike. Remember that no hard and fast generalisation can be made from either of these opposite types of evidence.


Sometimes, preferences are shown on the basis of similarity, for example, successful teachers tend to perceive the teaching profession as the only honest profession worth doing; they even marry within their profession. There are cases when an individual who is withdrawn and shy, and knows that he is not rewarded by others for being so, tends to admire one who is opposite, that is talkative, self-confident, and-persuasive. It is to be noted that in the latter case, the preferences are based on compatibility and admiration, and admiration, we all know, arises from one's accepted knowledge or belief of one’s inferiority in some respect. You must also remember that one’s self-concept influences one's person perception.

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

Distinguished between stimulus information and perceiver’s variables. 

You should commend yourself for actively participating in our discussion. Let us go on.
3.3 The Most Important Aspect of Impression Evaluation The most important and powerful aspect of first impression is ‘evaluation.’ Do we like or dislike a person? Put more formally, the evaluative dimension is the most important of a small number of basic dimensions that organize our unified impressions of other people.


This point was shown in a study by Osgood (1957) using a measurement procedure called the semantic differential. In this study, participants were given a list of trait pairs and asked to indicate which trait more closely described particular persons and objects. The list consists of such trait pairs as happy- sad, good- bad, strong- weak, and warm-cold. It is important for you to no note that these underlying dimensions accounted for most of the ratings:, potency (strong-weak), and activity (active-passive). Once we know that someone rate ‘mother’ as very good, moderately, strong, and somewhat passive, we learn little more about these perceptions of ‘mother’ by asking for additional ratings. It is to be noted that evaluation is the main dimension that underlines perceptions; potency and activity play lesser roles.

Positively Bias

A general evaluative bias in person perception is to evaluate people positively; a phenomenon termed the positively bias. (Sear, 1983a). Let us cite an example to enhance your level of understanding. In one study, students rated 97% of their professors in college favorably (that is above ‘average’ on a rating scale), despite all the mixed experiences students have in their college classes (Sear, 1983a).
There is a hypothesis about why people are evaluated so favorably. It has been suggested that people feel better when they are surrounded by good things, pleasant experiences, nice people, good weather, and so on. There is a special positively bias in people’s evaluation of others, which Sears describes as the person-positively bias. People feel more similar to other people than they do to impersonal objects and therefore extend to them a more generous evaluation.

Negativity Effect

During impression formation, we tend to pay special attention to negative information. And when we come to form an overall impression of the person, that negative information is weighed more heavily. That is, a negative trait affects an impression more than a positive trait, everything else being equal. This has been called the negativity effect. The main explanation for this effect is based on the figure-ground principle. As just noted, positive evaluations of other people are much more common than negative evaluations. Negative traits, which are more unusual, are therefore more distinctive. People may simply pay more attention to those negative qualities and give them more weight.

It is important for you to note that the impact of negative information depends in part on what kind of judgment is being made about a person. The negativity bias is very strong for moral traits. Thus, if a person engages in dishonest behaviour that is assumed to be very informative about the person’s underlying morality. Positive behaviours, in contrast, are perceived to be performed by both moral and immoral persons.

Emotional Information

As it is true for negative information, perceivers notice emotionally charged information and make great use of it in their judgments about others. That is we infer what people are like from the emotions they express. In fact, emotional information is one of the most difficult sources of information to ignore when perceiving others.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have learnt person perception. You have therefore learnt important factors in person perception. In addition you have learnt the most important aspects of impressions: evaluation, positively bias, negativity effect and emotional information.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. . What you have learnt in this unit concerns person perception: impression formation. 
2.  You also learnt important factors in person perception. 
3. The most important aspects of impressions were learnt. 
4. You have therefore learnt the process of putting together information about people. 

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1. Describe three sources in forming impressions of personality

 2. State 4 modes of perceiving others.