Theory Of Social Perception Research Articles

Balance Theory, Unit Relations, and Attribution: The Underlying Integrity of Heiderian Theory

Fritz Heider's theory of social perception is reviewed, and the close connection between attribution, balance, and unit relationship are examined, primarily through Heider's own writings. Attribution and balance have historically been considered separate theories, but the authors show how these two ideas, in conjunction with the idea of unit formation, create a broad-ranging and integrated theory of social perception. Attributions were seen by Heider as a particular kind of unit relationship, and people make attributions that preserve an affectively consistent view of others. The authors then show how this integrated understanding of Heider's ideas generates new predictions and informs a wide range of clinical, personality, and social psychological phenomena, as a reminder of the modern power of Heider's theory.

Cognitive Divergence Among Entrepreneurship National Experts: Analysis of GEM Data 2000-2003

This paper presents new empirical evidence on the existence of cognitive divergence among actors in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. These cognitive disjoints among the actors were examined on the 9 entrepreneurial framework conditions (hereinafter referred to as EFCs), which were developed in the GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) study. The EFCs, which consist of factors such as financial support, government policies, government programmes, education and training, research and development transfer, internal market openness, access to physical infrastructure and culture and social norms are postulated to facilitate the development of new firms and/or the growth of nascent firms. Past studies, which were based on institutional and social perception theories have examined the existence of perception differences among distinct individuals, groups or clusters, but little is known about the cognitive disjoints among the key players/actors in the entrepreneurial economy. This void in the literature leaves open many questions. Are there significant differences in perception among the key actors of entrepreneurship on the entrepreneurial framework conditions? If there are, in what areas do these perceptions converge and diverge? What are the implications of cognitive divergence among these actors? The actors were selected based on 4 distinct groups: policy makers, entrepreneurs, investors, and venture support professionals.

Encoding under trust and distrust: the spontaneous activation of incongruent cognitions.

Past studies of strategic thinking have shown that the encoding of the message information becomes more complex under distrust. Receivers process the information as if they are trying to protect themselves from being misled by testing alternative potential interpretations. The present study investigates the possibility that when people are mistrustful they spontaneously activate associations that are incongruent with the given message. Findings from 3 experiments suggest that, even when the distrust is unrelated in any meaningful way to the message and even when receivers are unable to prepare a strategic response, the cognitive system reacts to distrust by automatically inducing the consideration of incongruent associations--it seems designed to ask, "and what if the information were false?" The theoretical implications of the results for theories of social perception and persuasion are discussed.

Heritability of Traits

John, 0. P., Goldberg, L. R., & Angleitner, A. (1984). Better than the alphabet: Taxonomies of personality descriptive terms in English, Dutch, and German. In H. Bonarius, G. Van Heck, & N. Smid (Eds.), Personalitypsychology in Europe: Theoretical and empirical developments (pp. 83-100). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Korten, F. F. (1974). The influence of culture and sex on the perception of persons. International Journal of Psychology, 9, 31-44. Markus, H., & Kitayama, J. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, motivation, and emotion. Psychological Review, 98, 224-253. McArthur, L. Z., & Baron, R. M. (1983). Toward an ecological theory of social perception. Psychological Review, 90, 215-238. Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday social explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 961-978. Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: Replicated factor structure in peer nomination personality ratings. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 574-583. Shmelyou, A. G., & Pokhil'ko, V. I. (1992). A taxonomy of Russian personality-trait names. Unpublished manuscript, Moscow State University. Shweder, R. A., & Boume, E. J. (1982). Does the concept of the person vary cross-culturally? In A. J. Marsalla & G. M. White (Eds.), Cultural conceptions of mental health and therapy (pp. 97-137). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel. Yang, K. S., & Bond, M. H. (1990). Exploring implicit personality theories with indigenous or imported constructs: The Chinese case. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 10871095. Yik, M. S. M. (1993). Self and peer ratings of personality traits: Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity among Hong Kong university students. Unpublished master's thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Yik, M. S. M., & Bond, M. H. (1993). Exploring the dimensions of Chinese person perception with indigenous and imported constructs: Creating a culturally balanced scale. InternationalJournal of Psychology, 28, 75-95. Zebrowitz-McArthur, L. (1988). Person perception in cross-cultural perspective. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The cross-cultural challenge to social psychology (pp. 245-265). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

A cross-cultural comparison of impressions created by age-related variations in gait

Cross-cultural similarities and differences in impressions of age-related gait qualities were investigated. Specifically, Korean subjects' perceptions of the age, sex, and traits of 5 to 70 year old American men and women, whose gaits were depicted in point-light displays, were compared with American subjects' perceptions documented by Montepare and Zebrowitz-McArthur (1988). Substantial cross-cultural agreement was found for perceptions of the walkers' age and sex. Moreover, with walkers' perceived age and sex controlled, both American and Korean ratings of the walkers' strength and happiness showed a linear decrease with age, and ratings of their sexiness showed a curvilinear relationship to age. Whereas American ratings of dominance showed a linear decrease with walkers' age, no such relationship was observed for Korean ratings. The findings supported both the ecological theory of social perception and an interactionist model of cross-cultural perception, which suggest that some reactions to gait information are universal while others are determined by culturally specific values which may influence the movements of younger and older individuals and the meanings perceivers associate with these movements.

Perception of Personality Traits in Oneself and Others

ABSTRACT Personality trait theory suggests that impressions of other people are veridical reports of their individual characteristics, and social perception theory suggests that personality descriptions are merely individuals' attributions, assumptions, and perceptions about others. Prior research has often used fixed adjectives to study personality descriptions and generally neglected the naturalistic study of the personality judgment process. A group of 101 American students listed six free-response adjectives that they felt were descriptive of their personality and six adjectives that they felt were descriptive of someone they knew well. The nature of these trait-descriptive adjectives was then examined, as well as their relationship to behaviors and situations and the manner in which they were expressed. Results indicate support for many of the tenets of the social perception approach—that distortions in the relative descriptions of oneself and others are present. However, many expected biases were no...

Children's perceptions of babyfaced adults.

Drawing on McArthur and Baron's (1983) ecological theory of social perception, the present research examined younger and older children's ability to differentiate male and female adults who varied in the babyishness of their facial appearance. Children's perceptions of the targets' dominance and warmth were also assessed. Systematic effects were found on all measures and were qualified by targets' sex and children's age group.

Impressions of people created by age-related qualities of their gaits.

Drawing on the ecological theory of social perception, we investigated the impact of age-related gait qualities on trait impressions. In Study 1, subjects observed 5- to 70-year-old walkers depicted in point-light displays, and rated the walkers' traits, gaits, and ages. Younger walkers were perceived as more powerful and happier than older walkers. A composite of youthful gait qualities predicted trait impressions regardless of the walkers' masculine gait qualities, sex, and perceived age. In Study 2, subjects observed young adult walkers depicted in point-light displays and rated their traits, gaits, and ages. Consistent with the effects of real age found in Study 1, young adults with youthful gaits were perceived as more powerful and happier than peers with older gaits, irrespective of their masculine gait qualities, sex, and perceived age. Study 3 replicated Study 2 using displays showing walkers' full bodies and faces. A youthful gait predicted trait impressions even when subjects could discern the walkers' age and sex.

Cross-Cultural and Demographic Differences in the Perception of Nations

The cognitive representations we have about other nations depend on both cultural and individual characteristics. According to Tajfel's functional perception hypothesis, people may bias their perceptions of other nations by paying particular attention to those characteristics on which their own country is positively distinctive relative to comparable other nations. We evaluated this hypothesis in a developed (Australia) and a developing (Papua New Guinea) nation. Subjects were asked to (a) provide similarity judgements between each pair of 20 countries, selected to be representative of .he major national groupings of the world, and (b) to rate each country on 12 bipolar scales. In addition, demographic information (sex, age, religion, socioeconomic status, and political preference) was also obtained from each subject. The data were analysed using an Individual Differences Multidimensional Scaling (INDSCAL) procedure, resulting in three perceptual dimensions: European-non-European; communist-capitalist; and developed-underdeveloped. A multiple discriminant analysis indicated significant differences between Australian and Papua New Guinean subjects in their use of these dimensions, consistent with the functional perception hypothesis. Demographic variables were also related to nation perception. These results are discussed in terms of their significance for functionalist theories of social perception, and their implications for intercultural communication are considered.

Measuring human social perception directly

The perception of social behavior is direct when ecological correlates which specify a pattern are not manpulated. Spatial and temporal information appear to be two major correlates which facilitate human perception of ongoing social action. When these two correlates are disrupted in some fashion, the resulting action is ambiguous and its perception requires cognitive mediation on the part of the observers. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to current social perception theory and research.

Toward an ecological theory of social perception.

Toward an ecological theory of social perception.

Toward an ecological theory of social perception.

The ecological approach to perception (J. Gibson, 1979; Shaw, Turvey, & Mace, 1982) is applied to the social domain. The general advantages of this approach are enumerated, its applicability to social perception is documented, and its specific implications for research on emotion perception, impression formation, and causal attribution are discussed. The implications of the ecological approach for our understanding of errors in social perception are also considered. Finally, the major tenets of the ecological approach are contrasted with current cognitive approaches, and a plea is made for greater attention to the role of perception in social knowing.

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