All of us are aware that first impressions are the best impressions. To form an impression of others or to project an impression on ourselves, we use a variety of cues. Information of other people does not just get imprinted on our brain. In fact we actively make interpretations and draw inferences using a variety of assumptions and rules, which we may or may not be aware of. but all the same influence our view of others. However the accuracy of impression we form of others, is always in a doubt because accuracy is quite elusive in quality. But most of the time we believe in the reality of the impressions we form of another person whether it is accurate or not & never try to test the accuracy of our impression for example: if we conclude that a person is nasty we will try and avoid to meet the person in future and never will know whether the impression we formed of him is accurate or not. For this reason researchers in social psychology have shown considerable interest in studying the features that affect one's impressions of other.
• The issue of adding versus averaging information.
• The primacy or recency of information.
Studies by Wishuer (1960) and others show that the centrality of any particular trait depends, first on the other information that is presented about a person and second on the judgment that the subject is asked to make.
For instance the specific effects of warm and cold will not have the same effect if other information of the person is not present. Inspite of these limitations we can still say that central traits influence broad judgments. For example the person being dark or fair, good looking or ugly will not matter when the person is warm and has pleasant manners and is considerate for other, etc. all these aspects will lose their importance when we interact with the person and only his central trait ie the warmth of the person effects our impression of him or her.
Many a times, we are given a list of personality traits that describe a person. For example when describing a person, someone might say that he/she is open minded, clever and modest, but is quiet. What sort of impression do we form of this person. Social psychologist have developed two basic models to explain how this kind of information is combined. The additive model and the averaging model. Both the additive and the averaging models begin by assuming that traits can be sealed in their likability. Some traits convey very favorable information about a person, while other's indicate negative information.
The averaging model claims that he use the mean value of the traits provided to form our impression of a person. For example instance in the earlier example where we said a person is open minded, clever, modest but quiet, if we said only open minded and clever me person would have more favorable impression because both these traits are very desirable and have high values. But inclusion of the trait modest or quiet would reduce the average as they are less active traits and have low values.
The additive or summation model in contrast, predicts that one's judgment is based on the sum of the traits values rather than on the average. Therefore the majority of evidence is supportive of averaging model. Anderson (1968) has given a weighted average model, over the simple average model discussed earlier: He says that the weighted average model predicts impressions on the basis of an average of scores that have been given weight according to their importance. This more complicating version of average models gives a better account for our integrating information of other people.
As said earlier we want to make the best possible impression on others at our first meeting some new relatives. Now the question of which information is more influential arises the first information in another person 's perception of us (primacy effect) or the latest information (recency effect). It was found first impressions are_____? For example, primacy effect apparently very important in determining our final impressions of other's. However under certain conditions recency effects also occur, ie some additional activity intervenes and the more recent information. According to this model, adding value traits 'modest' and 'quiet ' to the value of clever and open minded would increase the favorability of the overall evaluation. For example: if two persons are given scores on some traits as follows.
Now when we take additive model the sum value for each person would be +6. I Therefore according to this model the sum value being +6 for both, the overall impression of the two persons would be equally favorable. But when we take the averaging model we get a mean value for each differently ie +6 /3 =+2 for person I and +6/5= 1 1/5 for person II. Therefore the averaging model would predict that overall evaluation of person I would be better than that of person II will have a stronger effect. For example you met a person at a party last month and formed a negative impression but then encountered her again this week and reacted positively, your impression is more likely to be positive than negative. Therefore if one is instructed to combine all information about a person ,the recency effect may be eliminated and only the primacy effect would prevail.
In forming information of other people it is not just the external characteristics or the· traits which influence us. Rather we have certain preconceived assumptions about people based on our experiences. At the general level we may have some oversiding philosophies of human nature-expectation that people will posses certain qualities and behave in certain ways. At a more specific level we have particular way of categorizing people and events. For example: stereotyping-this is one way of organizing our thoughts about certain group of people. To describe these categories of impression social psychologists have started using the words prototype and schemas. We shall now consider some of these categories and principles that affect our interpretation of people and events around us.
This is a set of unstated assumption about what traits are associated with one another, which are developed on our own, through development and experience. Since, these theories are rarely stated in formal terms, they are considered implicit. But all the same they dominate our judgment of other people. Such theories may be true or false as judged against the actual occurrence of them in real life. For example we assume that being good at studies would fetch as a good position in the society. This may be true or may be false. In fact the most important feature which distinguishes implicit personality theory from more formal psychological theories is their likely hood of being tested and founded incorrect because we form an association between two aspects and we don't notice the rule. For example having higher education and gaining a good position in the society. Not all highly educated individuals have high position in the society. If we see our politicians, most of them don't even have secondary education. But we make assumption all the same.
The use of such implicit theories shows that we have a need to simplify and integrate information. So that we can deal more easily with the complexities of human interactions. Even with limited information about a person, we tend to fill in the detail, and make a person more understandable in terms of our own experiences and we invariably develop a rationale for the theory that we have formed.
Another approach to understand peoples implicit personality theories is represented in the works of Kelly: he developed the cognitive theory of human behavior wherein he was concerned with the links between our perception and our behavior. A most important link in this chain is our interpretation of the events and stimuli in our world.
Construct is a key term for Kelly which is the way of interpreting the world and serves as a guide to behavior. Human beings have a tendency to choose constructs that will make the world understandable and predictable. Kelly says that people do not strive for reinforcement or try to avoid anxiety. They only try to validate their own construct system. He further suggests that conditions have meanings only if they are constructed by the individual.
Another important fact of Kelly's is that every construct we use helps us to classify the similarities and differences between people, objects and events. Each one of us develop only a limited number of constructs and arrange them in order of importance. One person's construct need not be identical with another persons, though they may be similar. He believes that to the extent that the constructs are similar. Peoples behavior will be similar as well. For example: the belief system of a family. The member of the family will behave similar-if they have a strong belief system.
Social psychologists have started using terms such as schemata, scripts and prototypes to describe how we interpret the world around.
A schema is a way of representing the memory process. In other words, people do· not respond to what they see, rather they interpret it on the basis of previous experience: experience that is represented in memory as a schema.
Self schema is destined as a generalization about the self based on experience we use to interpret events related to the self. Similarly we have schemata about other people too.
The general form of schema can be defined as an organized configuration of knowledge, derived from past experience that is used to interpret our experience.
Investigators that it is believe ie a useful concept in explaining how we form impression and react to other peoples behavior.
Schemata: schemata can be of many forms
• Those based on verbal material.
• Those based on visual material.
• Those dealing with individual persons.
• Those dealing with social groups.
In each case the schema provides a basis for evaluating experiences, affects what we remember or don't remember about an experience and influences what we will do in the future.
Prototypes: refers to a particular type of schema. It is an abstract representation of the attributes associated with a personality type. It is stored in memory and help in organizing information about an individual. We usually think of a prototype as a specific instance of more general schema. For example : if you want a prototype of extroverted person, you have a picture of a person having particular habits, traits and mannerism.
Stereotypes: stereotypes is a schema about members of an identifiable group. For example when we see a person with a beard we immediately class him as belonging to a particular sector. this we are able to do because, we are reacting to that person on the basis of more general belief and experiences we have, regarding the category of that person.
Stereotyping is simply an example of the kind of categories we form in order to make ·our world more orderly and predictable. They are resistant to change and persist overtime.
We have stereotypes of macho men, athletic men and scholarly men etc.
In formation and persistence of stereotypes there is another kind of cognitive bias which is known an illusory correlation. This is an over estimation of the strength of a relationship between two variables. In an illusory correlation the variable may not be related at all, or the relationship may be very weak. But to explain this kind of bias, the frequency of the even may occur more number of times and we will make an association between them even if no Teal association exists.
For example: the cat crossing our path and we may have bad luck, or somebody sneezing when we are going out of the house, some particular dress bringing us luck for examination; so on so forth,
Thus many of our stereotypes are based on cognitive 'errors' and are basically social inferences.
Implicit personality theories,-schemata and stereotypes are always that we organize information and form categories to interpret the character of the persons we encounter.
First impressions have been shown to have important effects on our perception and evaluation of other persons. Asch has favored a primacy view, where as others have provided evidence for a recency effect. This says that new information replace old information; plays important roles in deciding whether early or later information, most effects our judgments of others. Characteristics that seem to have the greatest influence in a list of traits have been termed central traits.
Forming impression of other people is not just the external characteristic or the traits but categorizing people and events. Example : stereotyping.
People hold beliefs about how traits or characteristics are related to one another. Beliefs about which personality traits of together are termed implicit theories of personality. Beliefs about which traits go with various social categories are called stereotyping.
It is not only the process of forming impressions which is crucial but also managing the impressions. The factors like symbolic interactionism, self-presentation, and identities play an important role in forming the impressions.
People may use different self presentation tactics like ingratiation, intimidation, self promotion, exemplification and simplifications on different occasions.
ASPECTS OF IMPRESSION FORMATION PROCESS
• Central traits.• The issue of adding versus averaging information.
• The primacy or recency of information.
Central traits :
Where impressions are being formed of another person, some pieces of information carry greater weight than other and are able to modify the whole picture, Asch (1946) called such influential characteristics central traits. Asch showed that the warm or cold dimension was a central one that could strongly affect the organization of peoples impression. Extending Asch's and Kelly (1950) introduced a guest lecturer to several university classes. Some of the students were told in advance that this lecturer was, among other characteristics, a rather warm person, and to others that he was a cold person. The lecturer gave an identical talk to each group and when the class members were asked about the impression they formed of the lecturer they reprinted very different impressions, but they were. consistent with the initial description of him warm or cold. For example, the class members who had been led to expect a warm person interacted more with the lecturer in discussion.Studies by Wishuer (1960) and others show that the centrality of any particular trait depends, first on the other information that is presented about a person and second on the judgment that the subject is asked to make.
For instance the specific effects of warm and cold will not have the same effect if other information of the person is not present. Inspite of these limitations we can still say that central traits influence broad judgments. For example the person being dark or fair, good looking or ugly will not matter when the person is warm and has pleasant manners and is considerate for other, etc. all these aspects will lose their importance when we interact with the person and only his central trait ie the warmth of the person effects our impression of him or her.
Adding Versus Averaging Methods :
Many a times, we are given a list of personality traits that describe a person. For example when describing a person, someone might say that he/she is open minded, clever and modest, but is quiet. What sort of impression do we form of this person. Social psychologist have developed two basic models to explain how this kind of information is combined. The additive model and the averaging model. Both the additive and the averaging models begin by assuming that traits can be sealed in their likability. Some traits convey very favorable information about a person, while other's indicate negative information.
The averaging model claims that he use the mean value of the traits provided to form our impression of a person. For example instance in the earlier example where we said a person is open minded, clever, modest but quiet, if we said only open minded and clever me person would have more favorable impression because both these traits are very desirable and have high values. But inclusion of the trait modest or quiet would reduce the average as they are less active traits and have low values.
The additive or summation model in contrast, predicts that one's judgment is based on the sum of the traits values rather than on the average. Therefore the majority of evidence is supportive of averaging model. Anderson (1968) has given a weighted average model, over the simple average model discussed earlier: He says that the weighted average model predicts impressions on the basis of an average of scores that have been given weight according to their importance. This more complicating version of average models gives a better account for our integrating information of other people.
Primacy and recency effects :
As said earlier we want to make the best possible impression on others at our first meeting some new relatives. Now the question of which information is more influential arises the first information in another person 's perception of us (primacy effect) or the latest information (recency effect). It was found first impressions are_____? For example, primacy effect apparently very important in determining our final impressions of other's. However under certain conditions recency effects also occur, ie some additional activity intervenes and the more recent information. According to this model, adding value traits 'modest' and 'quiet ' to the value of clever and open minded would increase the favorability of the overall evaluation. For example: if two persons are given scores on some traits as follows.
Now when we take additive model the sum value for each person would be +6. I Therefore according to this model the sum value being +6 for both, the overall impression of the two persons would be equally favorable. But when we take the averaging model we get a mean value for each differently ie +6 /3 =+2 for person I and +6/5= 1 1/5 for person II. Therefore the averaging model would predict that overall evaluation of person I would be better than that of person II will have a stronger effect. For example you met a person at a party last month and formed a negative impression but then encountered her again this week and reacted positively, your impression is more likely to be positive than negative. Therefore if one is instructed to combine all information about a person ,the recency effect may be eliminated and only the primacy effect would prevail.
ORGANIZING IMPRESSIONS: CATEGORIES AND PRINCIPLES
In forming information of other people it is not just the external characteristics or the· traits which influence us. Rather we have certain preconceived assumptions about people based on our experiences. At the general level we may have some oversiding philosophies of human nature-expectation that people will posses certain qualities and behave in certain ways. At a more specific level we have particular way of categorizing people and events. For example: stereotyping-this is one way of organizing our thoughts about certain group of people. To describe these categories of impression social psychologists have started using the words prototype and schemas. We shall now consider some of these categories and principles that affect our interpretation of people and events around us.
Implicit Personality Theory:
This is a set of unstated assumption about what traits are associated with one another, which are developed on our own, through development and experience. Since, these theories are rarely stated in formal terms, they are considered implicit. But all the same they dominate our judgment of other people. Such theories may be true or false as judged against the actual occurrence of them in real life. For example we assume that being good at studies would fetch as a good position in the society. This may be true or may be false. In fact the most important feature which distinguishes implicit personality theory from more formal psychological theories is their likely hood of being tested and founded incorrect because we form an association between two aspects and we don't notice the rule. For example having higher education and gaining a good position in the society. Not all highly educated individuals have high position in the society. If we see our politicians, most of them don't even have secondary education. But we make assumption all the same.
The use of such implicit theories shows that we have a need to simplify and integrate information. So that we can deal more easily with the complexities of human interactions. Even with limited information about a person, we tend to fill in the detail, and make a person more understandable in terms of our own experiences and we invariably develop a rationale for the theory that we have formed.
Another approach to understand peoples implicit personality theories is represented in the works of Kelly: he developed the cognitive theory of human behavior wherein he was concerned with the links between our perception and our behavior. A most important link in this chain is our interpretation of the events and stimuli in our world.
Construct :
Construct is a key term for Kelly which is the way of interpreting the world and serves as a guide to behavior. Human beings have a tendency to choose constructs that will make the world understandable and predictable. Kelly says that people do not strive for reinforcement or try to avoid anxiety. They only try to validate their own construct system. He further suggests that conditions have meanings only if they are constructed by the individual.
Another important fact of Kelly's is that every construct we use helps us to classify the similarities and differences between people, objects and events. Each one of us develop only a limited number of constructs and arrange them in order of importance. One person's construct need not be identical with another persons, though they may be similar. He believes that to the extent that the constructs are similar. Peoples behavior will be similar as well. For example: the belief system of a family. The member of the family will behave similar-if they have a strong belief system.
Schemata and Prototypes :
Social psychologists have started using terms such as schemata, scripts and prototypes to describe how we interpret the world around.
A schema is a way of representing the memory process. In other words, people do· not respond to what they see, rather they interpret it on the basis of previous experience: experience that is represented in memory as a schema.
Self schema is destined as a generalization about the self based on experience we use to interpret events related to the self. Similarly we have schemata about other people too.
The general form of schema can be defined as an organized configuration of knowledge, derived from past experience that is used to interpret our experience.
Investigators that it is believe ie a useful concept in explaining how we form impression and react to other peoples behavior.
Schemata: schemata can be of many forms
• Those based on verbal material.
• Those based on visual material.
• Those dealing with individual persons.
• Those dealing with social groups.
In each case the schema provides a basis for evaluating experiences, affects what we remember or don't remember about an experience and influences what we will do in the future.
Prototypes: refers to a particular type of schema. It is an abstract representation of the attributes associated with a personality type. It is stored in memory and help in organizing information about an individual. We usually think of a prototype as a specific instance of more general schema. For example : if you want a prototype of extroverted person, you have a picture of a person having particular habits, traits and mannerism.
Stereotypes: stereotypes is a schema about members of an identifiable group. For example when we see a person with a beard we immediately class him as belonging to a particular sector. this we are able to do because, we are reacting to that person on the basis of more general belief and experiences we have, regarding the category of that person.
Stereotyping is simply an example of the kind of categories we form in order to make ·our world more orderly and predictable. They are resistant to change and persist overtime.
We have stereotypes of macho men, athletic men and scholarly men etc.
In formation and persistence of stereotypes there is another kind of cognitive bias which is known an illusory correlation. This is an over estimation of the strength of a relationship between two variables. In an illusory correlation the variable may not be related at all, or the relationship may be very weak. But to explain this kind of bias, the frequency of the even may occur more number of times and we will make an association between them even if no Teal association exists.
For example: the cat crossing our path and we may have bad luck, or somebody sneezing when we are going out of the house, some particular dress bringing us luck for examination; so on so forth,
Thus many of our stereotypes are based on cognitive 'errors' and are basically social inferences.
Implicit personality theories,-schemata and stereotypes are always that we organize information and form categories to interpret the character of the persons we encounter.
SUMMARY
First impressions have been shown to have important effects on our perception and evaluation of other persons. Asch has favored a primacy view, where as others have provided evidence for a recency effect. This says that new information replace old information; plays important roles in deciding whether early or later information, most effects our judgments of others. Characteristics that seem to have the greatest influence in a list of traits have been termed central traits.
Forming impression of other people is not just the external characteristic or the traits but categorizing people and events. Example : stereotyping.
People hold beliefs about how traits or characteristics are related to one another. Beliefs about which personality traits of together are termed implicit theories of personality. Beliefs about which traits go with various social categories are called stereotyping.
It is not only the process of forming impressions which is crucial but also managing the impressions. The factors like symbolic interactionism, self-presentation, and identities play an important role in forming the impressions.
People may use different self presentation tactics like ingratiation, intimidation, self promotion, exemplification and simplifications on different occasions.