PERSON PERCEPTION

“Never judge a book by its cover”, it is a common phrase but most of us have a hard time living it. We often assume things about other people even if we have only just met them or haven’t even talked to them. In social psychology, these immediate and initial perceptions of other people are referred to as Person Perception. The mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motives of other people are called Person Perception. If you break it down, a person is a human and perception is the process of integrating, organizing and interpreting sensations. Therefore, person perception is the clues we draw to judge another person. It is forming impressions on someone without getting to know them first. Think back to the last conversation you had with someone, how tuned in were you to their voice inflection, gestures and body languages? In every conversation, we must notice and interpret both the words being said and all the non-verbal behaviors that accompany those words. We can use this information to infer characteristics like attitudes, emotions and expectations about the person we are talking with. Noticing and interpreting another person’s behavior is a recognized skill and it’s referred to as Person Perception. Having good person perception skills is vital to conversation quality and positive outcomes. Person perception can be difficult to explain, it is complicated and incredibly subjective. Your impressions of other people can be influenced by your context of the other person and your own attributes and experiences. Perceptions of people are often based on social norms or standards which lead to stereotypes or generalizations. It only takes a moment for your mind to form a perception of another person. Why do our minds automatically do this? Why do we mentally categorize other people that we meet based on social norms or our past experiences? Observations and first impressions are like the raw data we use to form perceptions of other people. Noticing a person’s appearance is part of the observation stage of perception. What clothes a person is wearing; the color of their hair and skin and even how they express their emotion can impact our initial

perceptions. We may think that attributes like being intelligent, loud or popular are positive, and being short, big or weird are negative. This is probably why people who dress differently or act differently are often outcast by society. We have an idea of what people should be like and what they should do and anything that doesn’t fit that gets a negative label. It’s as if we make a mental pro-con list of the person’s attributes, that is, as we perceive them, not necessarily as they actually are, to see which side outweighs the other. Often, if we can spend more time with this individual or gain more knowledge about them, we can then confirm or change our preexisting notions of them. There is an issue with confirming our preconceived notions about a person; it is called the “prime effect” in social psychology. It means that our initial assumptions tend to stick with us even as we learn more about the person. It can be very hard to challenge and change preconceived notions of people, especially if we have held them for a very long time. What influences your perception of the people around you? People’s perceptions can be influenced by many things, some that they may not even realize. When we meet someone, we generally decide pretty quickly whether or not we like them. We also make judgments about them and why they might behave in certain ways. But why is this so? What explains how we can make quick decisions about someone? There are a few factors that we use to form our initial perception of other people. They are social categorization, implicit personality theory and physical attractiveness. Social categorization is the natural process of mentally categorizing people into social groups. We tend to group people by their gender or age. Unfortunately, social categorization can have negative impacts like stereotypes of people based on race, ethnicity and culture. The positive impact of social categorization is, it helps you simplify and understand your social environment. The second factor or principle is implicit personality theory. We mentally rely on what we assume are typical behaviors and characteristics of people. This is called “implicit personality theory”. These are assumptions of others based on their

behaviors and personalities. Behaviors such as being loud and energetic are often implicitly assumed to be connected to “unintelligence”. What if you meet someone who is extremely small, thin and quiet, what would you assume about that person? Implicit personality theory can have various effects. In some ways, it can lead to inaccurate impressions and poor judgments. First impressions are often skewed or maybe inaccurate and because these personality theories are implicit and automatic, they can sometimes be quite difficult to change. One notable example of the implications of implicit personality theories centers on HIV/AIDS prevention. People assume they can tell who is HIV-positive just by looking at them, for example, whether the person is well dressed. There is no evidence or a link between attire and health status and so, using such an implicit personality theory in this realm is, at best, worrisome. Physical attractiveness is the last factor that is used to form person perceptions of other people. A person’s physical appearance also plays a role in how we perceive that person. Why does appearance matter? In a society, those who are considered more attractive are often treated in a different manner than those who look poor. In a study, researchers found that we tend to identify those with a disease, genetic abnormality or other deficiency based on qualities of appearance, especially facial characteristics. We tend to overgeneralize these facial attributes and make assumptions about individuals. If you meet someone who has a very large nose, what do you assume about that person? Person perception is also influenced by bias and attributions. Bias means that someone has a prejudice either for or against someone or something. It is almost in an unfair way. Having a bias can impact one’s perception of someone. If someone has a racial bias, they will typically judge someone else based on their race without knowing them. Another example is someone with a strong bias against those with tattoos may see a tattoo on someone and immediately assume that he/she is a bad person or the person is breaking the rules. Attributions are how people try to explain other people’s behavior. They are like the explanations or models used to explain behavior. Many people attribute characteristics to someone as they try to explain what that person is like to

others. Attributions can impact biases positively or negatively. If someone attributes selfishness, spite and jealousy to another person, it can cause others to perceive that person negatively. However, if someone describes their attributes as kind, lovable and loyal, others may have a positive bias toward the person before they meet them. Attributions can be internal, which refers to someone’s personality and disposition, and external, which refers to outside factors like the weather. When judgments are made regarding other people’s motives, errors and biases are often made or inferred. Personal perception is often based too much on internal or personal factors. Many times, it is inferred that other people do something because of their personalities but when considering our own actions, we think we do things because of the situation we find ourselves in. This is called Actor-Observer Effect. There is also a Halo Effect in that studies have shown that people are perceived as being much worse or much better than they actually were. People reflexively act by their perceptions of others. We behave according to the things we perceive of other people. For example, if you believe your best friend is excessively hanging out with his/her other friends, your interactions with him/her will reflect this, you might be irritated. Conflicts would arise as a result of these misinterpretations. Person perceptions can lead to miscommunications in the workplace as well. It is critical to understand who someone is regardless of whatever perception you have of them and avoid misinterpretations to maintain a healthy relationship with others. Your perception of someone will definitely affect your relationship with them. If you perceive people (your boss, teacher, parent, and sibling) as always being against you, you will most likely react in a defensive, combative, negative and victim-like way. This way of perceiving people can lead to experiencing intense level of unhappiness and disturbances in your relationship with people. On the flip side, perceiving people through a positive lens lead to experiencing higher level of joy and inner peace in your relationship. Having a positive perception

about a person can make you have a better communication with the person and even improve your own mental health. What makes us unique and interesting can also make us seem strange and unapproachable to others. Unknown to us, our own perceptions of other people can also sharpen the way we see ourselves and how we then behave in the society. This is how the concept of person perception in social psychology impacts how we treat ourselves and others. Humans need to be more open-minded, less biased and judgmental. We can try and get to know people before perceiving them in a certain way. Never Judge A Book By Its Cover.