Perception is a Latin word meaning perception, which is used to describe cognitive processes that are closely related to the display of various life situations, phenomena or objects. In the case where such perception is aimed at social spheres, the term “social perception” is used to characterize this phenomenon. Every person encounters manifestations of social perception every day. Let's look at the various psychological mechanisms of social perception.
Perception, translated from Latin (perceptio), means “perception”
What is social perception
The concept of social perception dates back to the ancient world. Many philosophers and artists of that time made a significant contribution to the formation of this area. It should also be noted that this concept is important in the field of psychology.
Perception is one of the important functions in mental perception, which manifests itself as a process that has a complex structure. Thanks to this process, a person not only receives various information from the senses, but also transforms it. Impact on various analyzers leads to the formation of integral images in the individual’s mind. Based on the above, we can conclude that perception is characterized as one of the forms of sensory reproduction.
Perception is based on the characteristics of individual features that help generate information based on accurate sensory images.
The cognitive function in question is closely related to skills such as memory, logical thinking and concentration. This concept depends on the strength of influence of life stimuli, which are endowed with an emotional coloring. Perception consists of structures such as meaningfulness and context.
Perception is actively studied by representatives of various fields, including psychologists, cybernetics and physiologists. During differential experiments, various techniques are used, including simulations of different situations, experiments, and an empirical form of analysis. Understanding the mechanism of social perception is important in the field of practical psychology. It is this tool that acts as the foundation for the development of various systems affecting the sphere of human activity.
Social perception studies behaviors between individuals at different levels of development
Influence of perceptual factors
Perceptual factors are divided into two categories: external and internal influences. Among external factors, criteria such as movement, number of repetitions, contrast, size and depth of manifestation should be highlighted. Among the internal factors, experts identify the following:
- Incentive is the motivation to achieve goals that are of high importance to the individual.
- The individual’s perception setting – when finding himself in certain life situations, a person is based on previously gained experience.
- Experience - various life difficulties experienced, influence the perception of the world around us.
- Individual characteristics of perception - depending on the type of personality (optimism or pessimism), a person perceives the same life difficulties in a positive or unfavorable light.
- Perception of one’s own “I” - all events occurring in a person’s life are assessed based on the personal prism of perception.
Psychological effects of color
The emotional or psychological effects of color are not as easy to analyze as the physiological processes that result from color perception, yet most of us have preferences for certain colors and believe that color affects mood. Many people find it difficult to live and work in rooms whose color scheme seems unfortunate to them. Colors are divided into strong and weak, calming and stimulating, even heavy and light. Although attitudes towards color are in many cases purely subjective, research shows that there are general points of view. But we easily forget about our attitude to color under the influence of other sensations, and the boundaries that we draw when attributing a certain quality to one color or another are arbitrary and vague, so scientists often receive conflicting data during experiments. Thus, laboratory experiments conducted back in 1907 showed that people agree on the relative weight of flowers. Red was considered the heaviest, followed by orange, blue and green of equal weight, then yellow and lastly white. Pairs of colored spots of the same shape seemed unstable if the “heaviest” color was located on top. However, this visual impression is not so strong as to influence a person's idea of the weight of various colored objects that he picks up.
Color changes our perception of the actual size of objects, with colors that appear heavy reducing these sizes. Of the equal squares, the red one seems the smallest, the blue one seems larger, and the white one seems the largest. The French tricolor flag usually features blue, white and red vertical stripes of equal width. And on ships the ratio of these stripes is changed - 33:30:37, so that at a distance they appear equal. The familiar classification of colors into warm and cold does not really coincide with our assessment of real temperature. During one experiment, people picked up a blue or green rod heated to 42 ° C, and it seemed warmer to them than a red or orange rod heated to the same temperature. An experiment to determine whether warm lighting in a room makes a room feel warm or cozy showed that warm lighting is in no way a substitute for a heating system.
Industrial psychologists study the effects of color on worker productivity. It is said that workers spend less time in red-painted toilets than in blue-painted toilets. Monkeys have been shown to spend less time in rooms with red lighting than in rooms with other colors, given a choice. It has been suggested that the reason is not so much a preference for other colors over red, but rather the acceleration of the action of the animals' "biological mechanisms" in red light: the monkeys seem to have been in red lighting conditions much longer than they actually have. But even if human “mechanisms” operate in the same way, this does not in any way affect people’s ability to estimate how much time they spent in a particular light. When subjects are asked to slowly draw a semicircle, they do better under green light than under red light, which causes increased tremors in the hand, as when the subject is asked to hold a needle in a small hole without touching the edges of the hole. It seems that the common belief about the stimulating effect of red light is correct, since it increases the electrical conductivity of the skin, which determines sweating. At the same time, red light does not have any significant effect on heart rate or breathing. Here, as in many other areas of color psychology, we are dealing with contradictory data. For a number of manual operations, as well as for most mental processes, the color of the light flux obviously does not matter.
For many centuries, artists and writers have been concerned with the problem of the aesthetic impact of colors, both single and in combinations. There are only a few serious studies in this area, but their results indicate a surprising degree of agreement between different people's opinions about color. When looking at single color swatches against a neutral gray background, people tend to favor blue tones, ranging from blue-green to purple-blue. I like the greenish-yellow color less than others. Regardless of color, preference is given to light tones. The researchers also asked subjects to determine the attractiveness of color pairs and found that people were attracted to sharply contrasting colors, and even more attracted to colors that differed in saturation and brightness. Based on these likes and dislikes for single colors and color pairs, one can to some extent accurately predict the impression that a colored abstract composition will make on a person. Some psychologists believe that the relationship to color at such a primitive level has a biological basis and influences a person's more complex aesthetic judgments about a painting or photograph as a color composition.
We are, of course, struck not by the commonality of the functions of color in different cultures, but by their dissimilarity. In many countries, for example, white is traditionally a wedding color, and in some it is a mourning color. It will not surprise a European or American that in the costumes and makeup of Vietnamese opera actors, the color red symbolizes anger, but he would never guess that white is a symbol of betrayal, and black is courage. However, careful research shows that in many cases people around the world react to color in the same way. Red, yellow, green and blue are the “focal” colors for humanity. It is these colors that children prefer until they begin to speak, and they avoid the “borderline” colors that lie between them. The names of “focal” colors appear first in speech. Moreover, if we arrange languages in order of the complexity of their color terminology, it turns out that the names of colors follow each other in a certain sequence. Some peoples, particularly New Guinea, have only two "primary" color terms, meaning black and white, or dark and light tones. Other color terms are minor, because, for example, they are associated with the designation of specific objects.
Of course, in a language like English, there are many more names for colors, but raspberry, for example, cannot be considered the main one, since it is part of red, and words such as “blonde” are not taken into account because they refer to certain types objects or materials, similar to the color terms associated with the designation of specific objects in less developed languages. The corresponding color terms in different languages do not necessarily cover the same color range. But the “centers” of these ranges always coincide.
Many people associate colors with other sensations. Thus, the poet Rimbaud believed that each vowel has its own color: A - black, E - white, I - red, O - blue, U - green. And it seemed to Rimsky-Korsakov that different musical keys had their own special colors: C major was white, D major was yellow, E major was blue, F major was green.
Leaving aside the purely personal perception of color, we can still say that in general people tend to attribute certain qualities to colors. The choice of quality depends to some extent on cultural characteristics and lifestyle. The good-bad poll found that white people are held in higher regard in Asia than in the West. The color yellow is revered in Thailand more than anywhere else - perhaps the reasons for this lie in religion. And in countries with arid climates, green is considered a strong color. However, the general impression is that the “meanings” that color has in different cultures have more similarities than differences. Grey, yellow and white are generally considered weak colors, while red is considered strong and active. Blue is almost universally regarded as a “good” color. People seem to be very similar to each other in their perception of color and their attitude towards it.
The influence of psychological perception on interaction with society
Social perception in psychology is a term used to describe the process of an individual's assessment and understanding of people around him, his own personality, or social objects . Such objects consist of social societies and various groups. The term in question began to be used in psychology in the forties of the last century. This concept was first used by the American psychologist Jerome Bruner. Thanks to the work of this scientist, researchers were able to consider various problems associated with perceiving the world around us from a different angle.
Every person has inherent sociality. Throughout his life, a person builds communicative connections with the people around him. The formation of interpersonal relationships leads to the formation of separate groups that are connected by the same worldview or similar interests. Based on this, we can say that a person as an individual participates in various types of relationships between people. The nature of the attitude towards society depends on the degree of personal perception and how a person evaluates the people around him. At the initial stage of building a communicative connection, external qualities are assessed. Following appearance, the interlocutor’s behavior model is assessed, which allows the formation of a certain level of relationship.
It is on the basis of the above qualities that the image of perception of the people around us is formed. Social perception has many forms of manifestation. In most cases, this term is used to characterize personal perception. Each person perceives not only his own personality, but also the social group to which he belongs. In addition, there is a form of perception that is characteristic only of participants in such groups. It is perception, based on the framework of a social group, that is the second form of manifestation of perception. The last form of perception is group perception. Each group perceives both its own members and members of other groups.
Behavioral reactions are formed on the basis of social stereotypes, knowledge of which explains communication patterns
The function of social perception is to evaluate the activities of surrounding people. Each individual carefully analyzes the individual characteristics of the temperament of those around him, their external attractiveness, lifestyle and actions. Based on this analysis, an idea of the people around you and their behavior is formed.
Mechanism of social perception
Social perception is a process on the basis of which a forecast of behavior patterns and reactions of society is made in various life conditions. The mechanisms of interpersonal perception presented below allow us to study the subtlety of this process:
- Attraction is the study of surrounding people, which is based on positive perception. Thanks to this mechanism, people gain the ability to interact closely with others, which has a positive impact on the formation of sensory relationships. A striking example of this function is the manifestation of love, sympathy and friendly feelings.
- Identification - this mechanism is used as an intuitive study of personality based on modeling various situations. Based on his own beliefs, a person analyzes the internal state of others. Example: when making assumptions about the state of an interlocutor, a person tends to mentally imagine himself in his place.
- Casual attribution is a mechanism for creating a forecast of the behavior of others, based on the characteristics of one’s own personality. When a person is faced with a misunderstanding of the motives of the actions of others, he begins to predict the behavior pattern of other people based on his own feelings, incentives and other individual properties.
- Reflection is a mechanism of self-knowledge based on interaction in society. This “tool” is based on the skills of presenting one’s own personality through the “eyes” of the interlocutor. As an example, imagine a dialogue between Vasya and Pasha. At least six “personalities” take part in this type of communication: Vasya’s personality, his idea of his own personality, and Vasya’s idea of personality through the eyes of Pasha. Exactly the same images are recreated in Pasha’s mind.
- Stereotyping is a mechanism for creating a stable image of surrounding people and phenomena. It is important to note that such images have characteristics depending on social factors. As an example of stereotyping, we can cite the persistent idea that most outwardly attractive people are prone to narcissism, representatives of Germany are pedantic, and employees of law enforcement agencies think straightforwardly.
- Empathy is the ability to have emotional sympathy, provide psychological support and participate in the lives of people around you. This mechanism is a key skill in the work of specialists from the fields of psychology, medicine and pedagogy.
The tools used by social perception ensure the establishment of communication between individuals.
The above types of cognition of the personality of others are based not only on the physical characteristics of a person, but also on the nuances of the behavior model. The building of close communication ties is facilitated by the participation of both partners in the conversation. Social perception depends on the stimuli, feelings and lifestyle of each participant in interpersonal relationships. An important component of this cognitive function is the subjective analysis of surrounding individuals.
Mechanisms
Perception - what is it in psychology
Various means are used to establish communication. Many techniques have been adopted by specialists for use in psychological practice. Improving the communication aspect of life will require an understanding of how social perceptions arise.
The first mechanism is identification. With its help, a person can transfer his thoughts and feelings to another individual, imagine himself in his place.
Attraction allows you to form relationships based on positive emotions
In reflection, a person analyzes his behavior and evaluates himself from the position of another. This allows him to better understand mistakes and prevent them when communicating. This skill will be useful to everyone in life.
The importance of first impressions
An in-depth study of social perception has made it possible to identify key factors that influence the strength of impressions about a person . According to experts, when dating, most people pay increased attention to their hair, eyes and facial expressions. Based on this, we can say that a friendly smile during acquaintance is perceived as a sign of cordiality and a positive attitude.
There are three main points that are decisive in the process of forming first impressions of a new personality. Experts include such factors as the degree of superiority, attractiveness and attitude.
- “Superiority” is most acutely expressed in a situation when the personality of a particular individual is superior in some way and is perceived as dominant in other areas. Against this background, there is a global change in the assessment of one’s own qualities. It is important to note that people with low self-esteem are more susceptible to the influence of “superiority of others”. This explains the fact that in critical conditions people express trust in those who were previously treated negatively.
- “Attractiveness,” which is a feature of social perception, is a factor on the basis of which the degree of attractiveness of others is analyzed. The main mistake of such a perception is that, paying increased attention to external qualities, a person forgets about analyzing the psychological and social characteristics of those around him.
- “Attitude” is based on the perception of a person, depending on the attitude towards his personality. The negative effect of such perception is based on the fact that with a good attitude and shared life position, a person begins to overestimate the positive qualities of others.
The primacy effect in social perception manifests itself upon first acquaintance
The concept of the social-perceptual side of communication. Types of social perception.
⇐ PreviousPage 14 of 19Next ⇒· The term “social perception”, or, in a narrower sense of the word “interpersonal perception”, “perception of another person”. In the most general terms, we can say that perceiving another person means perceiving his external signs, correlating them with the personal characteristics of the perceived individual and interpreting his actions on this basis. A person always enters into communication as an individual. He is perceived by another person as a person. Based on the external side of behavior, we, according to S. L. Rubinstein, seem to “read” another person, decipher the meaning of his external data. The impression that arises in this case plays an important regulatory role in communication. In the course of getting to know another person, an emotional assessment and an attempt to understand the structure of his actions are simultaneously carried out. This is the basis for a strategy for changing his behavior and building a strategy for his own behavior. Mechanisms of perception of a person by a person The communication process includes at least two people, each of whom is an active subject. When building an interaction strategy, everyone has to take into account not only the needs, motives, and attitudes of the other, but also how this other understands my needs, motives, and attitudes. Each partner likens himself to the other. Analysis of awareness of oneself through another includes two sides: identification and reflection. Identification is a way of understanding another person through conscious or unconscious assimilation of his characteristics to the characteristics of the subject himself. People often use this technique when an assumption about the internal state of a partner is based on an attempt to put themselves in his place. A close connection between identification and empathy has been experimentally established. G. M. Andreeva notes that “the mechanism of empathy... is similar to the mechanism of identification: here and there there is the ability to put oneself in the place of another, to look at things from his point of view... However... if I identify myself with someone, this means that I build my behavior the way this other person builds it. If I show empathy for him, I simply take into account his line of behavior (I treat it sympathetically), but I can build my own in a completely different way.” Reflection is another mechanism for understanding another person. In psychology, reflection is understood as the acting individual’s awareness of how he is perceived by his communication partner.
Phenomena of interpersonal perception There are factors that interfere with correctly perceiving and evaluating people. L. D. Stolyarenko, based on an analysis of scientific literature, identifies the main ones: 1. The presence of predetermined attitudes, assessments, beliefs that the observer has before the process of perception and evaluation of another person actually begins. 2. The presence of already formed stereotypes, according to which the observed people belong to a certain category in advance, and an attitude is formed that directs attention to the search for traits associated with it. 3. The desire to make a premature conclusion about the identity of the person being assessed before comprehensive and reliable information has been received about him. Some people, for example, have a “ready” judgment about a person immediately after meeting or seeing him for the first time. 4. The unconscious structuring of another person’s personality manifests itself in the fact that only strictly defined personality traits are logically combined into a holistic image, and then any concept that does not fit into this image is discarded. 5. The “halo” effect manifests itself in the fact that the initial attitude towards one particular aspect of the personality is transferred to the entire image of the person, and then the general impression of the person is transferred to the assessment of his individual qualities. If the general impression of a person is favorable, then his positive traits are overestimated, and shortcomings are either not noticed or justified. And vice versa, if the general impression of a person is negative, then even his noble actions are not noticed or are misinterpreted as self-serving. 6. The effect of “projection” is manifested in the fact that another person is assigned, by analogy with himself, his own qualities and emotional states. A person, perceiving and evaluating people, is inclined to logically assume: “All people are like me” or “Others are opposite to me.” A stubborn, suspicious person is inclined to see these same character traits in a communication partner, even if they are objectively absent. A kind, sympathetic, honest person, on the contrary, can perceive a stranger through “rose-colored glasses” and make a mistake. Therefore, if someone complains that everyone around them is cruel, greedy, dishonest, it is possible that he is judging by himself. 7. “The primacy effect” is manifested in the fact that the first information heard or seen about a person or event is very significant and unforgettable, capable of influencing all subsequent attitudes towards this person. And even if you later receive information that will refute the primary information, you will still remember and take into account the primary information more. The perception of another person is also influenced by the mood of the person himself: if it is gloomy (for example, due to poor health), the first impression of the person may be dominated by negative feelings. In order for the first impression of a person to be more complete and accurate, it is important to “tune in” positively to him. 8. Lack of desire and habit of listening to the opinions of other people, the desire to rely on one’s own impression of a person, to defend it. 9. Lack of changes in people's perceptions and assessments that occur over time due to natural reasons. This refers to the case when once expressed judgments and opinions about a person do not change, despite the fact that new information about him accumulates. 10. “The last information effect” is manifested in the fact that if you received negative recent information about a person, this information can erase all previous opinions about this person. The phenomenon of causal attribution is of great importance for a deeper understanding of how people perceive and evaluate each other. In everyday life, people, as a rule, not knowing the true reasons for another person’s behavior in conditions of a lack of information, begin to attribute reasons for each other’s behavior. This attribution of reasons for behavior to another person is called causal attribution. G.M. Andreeva writes: “The interpretation of another person’s behavior can be based on knowledge of the reasons for this behavior, and then this is the task of scientific psychology. But in everyday life, people often do not know the real reasons for another person’s behavior or do not know them enough. Then, in conditions of a lack of information, they begin to attribute to each other both the reasons for behavior and sometimes the patterns of behavior themselves or some more general characteristics.” The process of attribution depends on two indicators: on the degree of typicality of the action and on the degree of social “desirability” or “undesirability” of it. The first refers to the fact that typical behavior is prescribed by patterns and is therefore easier to interpret. Unique behavior allows for many different interpretations and, therefore, gives scope for attributing its causes and characteristics. Also in the second case, socially “desirable” behavior corresponds to social and cultural norms and is therefore easily and unambiguously explained. When norms are violated (socially “undesirable” behavior), the range of possible explanations expands. The processes of causal attribution are subject to the following patterns that influence people's understanding of each other: 1. Those events that are often repeated and accompany the observed phenomenon, preceding it, are usually considered as its possible causes. 2. If the act that we want to explain is unusual and was preceded by some unique event, then we are inclined to consider it the main reason for the committed act. 3. An incorrect explanation of people's actions occurs when there are many different possibilities for their interpretation and the person offering his explanation is free to choose the option that suits him. 4. The fundamental attribution error is manifested in the tendency of observers to underestimate situational influences on the behavior of other people (the influence of external situations) and to overestimate dispositional influences (internal reasons). We tend to explain the behavior of other people by their dispositions, their individual characteristics of personality and character, and we tend to explain our behavior as depending on the situation. 5. Culture also influences attribution error. For example, the Western worldview tends to believe that people, not situations, cause events. Currently, a special branch of social psychology deals with the problems of causal attribution. Research in this area is carried out mainly by foreign psychologists: G. Kelly, E. Jones, K. Davis, D. Kennose, etc.
Feedback in communication Communication, as has been shown, cannot be reduced to a simple transfer of information. In order to be successful, it necessarily involves feedback—the subject receiving information about the results of the interaction. Individual features of a person’s physical appearance (face, arms, shoulders), postures, gestures, intonations act as carriers of information that should be taken into account when communicating. The face of the interlocutor or listener is a particularly informative carrier of feedback signals. Often a fairly complete picture of the subject’s perception is given by his actions. When communicating interpersonally, it is important to be open and sincere. Without open communication, warm and close relationships between people cannot exist. A person interested in better navigating his relationships with others should be interested in the reactions of other people to his actions in specific situations, and take into account the true consequences of his behavior. Feedback in communication is also a message to another person about how I perceive him, what I feel in connection with our relationship, how his behavior makes me feel. Giving and receiving feedback requires not only the skills, but also the courage.
L. D. Stolyarenko identifies the following rules for feedback: 1. Talk about what exactly this person does when his actions evoke certain feelings in you. 2. If you talk about what you don’t like about a given person, try to mainly note what he could change about himself if he wanted. 3. Don't judge. Remember: feedback is not information about what this or that person is like, it is more information about you in connection with this person, with how you perceive this person, what is pleasant to you and what is unpleasant to you. Conclusion “Man is a communication center,” wrote Saint-Exupéry. The luxury of communication spiritualizes a person’s life and ensures his inclusion in society. In communication, the mental development and self-realization of the individual occurs. All mental qualities of a person are formed and manifested in his communication with other people. The role of communication in a person’s life cannot be overestimated. Based on the information presented in this work, we can conclude that communication is a multifaceted but holistic process of developing contacts between people, which includes three interrelated aspects: communicative, interactive and perceptual. The communicative side of communication is the exchange of information between participants in joint activities. The interactive side is the interaction of communicating people - the exchange in the process of speech not only of words, but also of actions and deeds. The perceptual side of communication is the perception of communicating people of each other. It is very important whether one of the communication partners perceives the other as trustworthy, intelligent, understanding, prepared, or whether he assumes in advance that he will not understand anything and will not understand anything communicated to him. Considered in the unity of these three sides, communication acts as a way of organizing joint activities and relationships between the people involved in it.
Basic mechanisms of interpersonal perception. The question of the mechanisms of human perception by a person is the question of HOW people use gradually incoming information to form an idea about another person (about his qualities, properties and reasons for his behavior and achievements). In everyday life, a person often does not know the true personality traits of his partner, the reasons for his behavior, or does not know them enough. In real communication, people begin to attribute (attribute) to each other both the reasons for behavior and some more general characteristics. There is a whole system of methods for such attribution (attribution), the study of which is carried out by a special branch of social psychology. Attribution (from the Latin “I endow, give, attribute”). This is the attribution of personal qualities and reasons to the behavior and actions of a communication partner. Causal (from the Latin causa “cause”) attribution is the need and ability of a person to understand and predict cause-and-effect relationships, to interpret the causes and motives of behavior. Understanding motivation means making it possible to predict behavior, which is especially important in the field of interpersonal relationships. Understanding the causes (motives) of behavior is a very complex process. Many psychologists around the world have studied it ==> there is no unified theory of attribution.
№48.Causal attribution. Ordinary schemes for explaining the reasons for human behavior in communication.
Causal attribution-
as a mechanism of interpersonal perception occupies a special place, both from the point of view of its importance and from the point of view of its development in numerous theoretical and experimental studies.
Causal attribution refers to the process
of attributing to another person
the reasons
for his behavior when information about these reasons is absent.
The need to understand the reasons for the behavior of an interaction partner arises in connection with the desire to interpret
his actions. Interpretation of another person’s behavior may be based on knowledge of the reasons for this behavior, but in everyday life people often do not know the real reasons for another person’s behavior or do not know them enough. Then the lack of information has to be replaced by attribution. Attribution is carried out either on the basis of the similarity of the behavior of the perceived person with some other model that existed in the past experience of the subject of perception, or on the basis of an analysis of one’s own motives, assumed in a similar situation (in this case, the identification mechanism may operate). But one way or another, a whole system of attribution methods arises.
The measure and degree of attribution depend on two indicators:
1) on the degree of uniqueness or typicality
act
2) on the degree of its social “desirability” or “undesirability”.
In the first case, we mean the fact that typical behavior (for example, the patient behavior of a teacher in the case of a weak student answer) is behavior prescribed by role models, and therefore it is easier to interpret unambiguously. On the contrary, unique behavior (the teacher cannot stand it and begins to shout and stomp his feet) allows for many different interpretations and, therefore, gives scope for attributing its causes and characteristics. Similarly, in the second: by “social” is meant behavior that corresponds to social and cultural norms and thus relatively easily and unambiguously explained (the young man stepped aside and let the elderly man through the door). If such norms are violated (pushing away the old man and crawling forward - socially “undesirable” behavior), the range of possible explanations expands. This conclusion is close to S.L. Rubinstein’s reasoning about the “folded” nature of the process of cognition of another person under normal conditions and its “unfolded” nature in cases of deviation from accepted models.
The nature of attributions also depends on whether the subject of perception is himself a participant
any event or its
observer.
In these two cases, a different type of attribution is chosen. G. Kelly identified three such types:
1) Personal attribution
– when the reason is attributed personally to the person committing the act.
2) Stimulus attribution
- when the cause is attributed to the object to which the action is directed.
3) Circumstantial attribution
- when the cause of an action is attributed to circumstances.
It was found that the observer more often uses personal attribution, and the participant more often circumstantial. This feature is clearly manifested when attributing reasons for success and failure: the participant in the action “blames” the failure primarily on circumstances, while the observer “blames” primarily on the failure the performer himself. In this regard, possible attribution errors were identified, which are important to consider in the process of interpersonal perception.
Of particular practical interest is that part of attributions that analyzes the issue of attributing responsibility
for any events, which also takes place when a person knows a person. Based on numerous experimental studies of attributional processes, it was concluded that they constitute the main content of interpersonal perception. And although this conclusion is not shared by all researchers (some believe that the attributional process and the process of interpersonal perception cannot be completely identified), the importance of discovering the phenomenon of attribution is obvious for a more in-depth understanding of the content of interpersonal perception.
№49. Evaluations and self-evaluations in interpersonal cognition.
Mutual understanding between partners in the process of communication can be interpreted in different ways: either as an understanding of the goals, motives, attitudes of the partner in interaction, or as not only understanding, but also acceptance, sharing of these goals, motives and attitudes. The process of perception by one person of another acts as a mandatory an integral part of communication and can conditionally be called the perceptual side of communication. “social perception” is the process of perceiving social objects, which meant groups, large social communities, people. We will talk about the perception of a person by a person - interpersonal perception is the perception of his external signs, correlating them with the personal characteristics of the perceived individual and interpreting his actions on this basis. A person enters into a relationship as a person and is perceived by a communication partner in the same way as a person, based on the external side of behavior (we seem to read another person, decipher the meaning of his external data The impressions that arise in this case play a regulatory role in communication. Firstly, by getting to know another, the cognizing individual himself is formed, and secondly, the success of organizing coordinated actions with him depends on the degree of accuracy of reading another person.
The idea of another person is closely related to the level of one’s own self-awareness.
On the one hand, the wealth of ideas about oneself determines the richness of ideas about another person, on the other hand, the more fully the other person is revealed, the more complete the idea of oneself becomes.
The idea of oneself through the idea of another is necessarily formed under the condition that this other is not given abstractly, but within the framework of broad social activity, which includes interaction with them. In the course of cognition, several processes occur: an emotional assessment of the other and an attempt to understand the structure of his actions, based on this, a strategy for changing his behavior and building your own behavior.
An analysis of awareness of oneself through another takes place (i.e., an assessment of oneself) and has two sides, identification and reflection, and causal attribution is included in this process.
Identification - identifying oneself with another (likening oneself to him) For example, putting oneself in the place of another person (i.e. to know and understand him
Empathy is the desire to emotionally respond to his problems and again put yourself in his place, but this does not mean identifying yourself with him. If identifying yourself with someone means building your behavior like this other. That is, you can take the position of a partner, you can understand him and take into account his point of view, act in your own way..
There is such a concept of reflection - this is no longer just knowledge of another, but knowledge of how another perceives me, a doubled process of mirror relationships.
For example, the interaction of a speaker with an audience, if the speaker has the wrong idea about himself, about the audience and how the audience perceives him, then mutual understanding is excluded.
Causal attribution is the process of attributing to another person the reasons for his behavior.
The content of interpersonal perception depends on the characteristics of the subject and object of perception: evaluating each other and changing some of each other’s characteristics.
There is the first impression effect (attitude), the halo effect, the effect of primacy and novelty, the effect of stereotyping.
Setting effect: when two groups were given photographs of one person. The first was told that he was a criminal, the second that they were a scientist and received a corresponding description from the groups
The halo effect is the tendency to transfer previously received favorable and unfavorable information about a person to his actual perception
The effect of primacy and novelty - information about a person presented early is considered primary, and information presented late is considered new.
Stereotyping is a stable image of a phenomenon or person, which is used as a well-known “abbreviation” when interacting with this phenomenon. The desire to build conclusions on the basis of limited information (simplified relationships, and assessment of stereotyping) Example: ethnic stereotypes, where on the basis of limited information preconceived conclusions are drawn about the ideas of ethnic groups. For interpersonal perception, tests and the method of expert assessments can help. To increase perceptual competence, socio-psychological training is used - the art of communication in general. A special range of problems of interpersonal perception arises with the involvement of emotional regulators. Attraction is the process of attracting someone a person for the perceiver and a product of this process. Attraction is a special type of social attitude. On another person, in which the emotional component predominates, when this other is assessed primarily in categories characteristic of affective assessments. Various levels of attraction are identified: sympathy, friendship, love. There are two theories of love: pessimiatic, which asserts the negative impact of love on personality development, and optimistic, which asserts that love helps relieve anxiety.
№50. Features of the interpretation of personality in social psychology.
Personality is a social indicator that allows you to determine the social status or social role that a person performs in society. Initially, the word “person” meant the mask worn by an actor in ancient tragedies, then the actor himself and his role. Gradually, the concept of “personality” was filled with an increasing variety of semantic meanings, the shades and range of which are to some extent specific to each national language.
In German, the word person means person, person and person.
In English, the word person means, just as in German, a person, a person and a person. However, in addition, this word here can mean personality and appearance. In the explanatory dictionary edited by prof. Ushakov (M., 1938) personality is characterized, in particular, as a separate human “I” and as a human individuality, which is the bearer of individual social and subjective characteristics and properties. linguistic meaning of the concept “personality”.
We can distinguish three main approaches to the interpretation of personality, each of which is in a certain contradiction with the other two. Conventionally, these approaches can be designated as 1) anthropological; 2) sociological; 3) personalistic.
Anthropological approach . Personality is considered only as a generic concept, designating a representative of the human race “homo sapiens”, and is likened to the concept of an individual. A person is considered as a kind of biosomatic principle that reacts in a certain way to environmental stimuli.
Sociological approach. Personality is viewed primarily as an object and product of social relations. In accordance with this approach, a whole direction was formed in social psychology at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, called sociological. The evolution of the very concept of personality (person) from the designation of a mask to an actor and from him to the role of the latter gave impetus to the development of ideas about personality as a system of role behavior, conditioned by a set of social expectations and expectations. This was expressed, in particular, in the so-called role theory of personality, developed by American psychosociologists Parsons, Mead and others.
Personalistic approach. As a counterbalance to anthropological and sociological approaches that consider personality as a function of biosomatic or social programs, there are attempts to understand and explain personality as a kind of absolutely independent and individually unique integrity. The personalistic interpretation of personality received its most complete expression in the concept of existentialism, which sees the essence of personality in its absolute spiritual independence and uniqueness. The environment that surrounds a person—nature and social relations—creates the “inauthenticity” of a person’s existence and prevents him from escaping into his unique inner world. Thrown into the modern industrial world of things, a person loses his individuality, dissolving his “I” in the mass. In their own way, both anthropological and sociological and personalistic approaches to the study of the problem under consideration are legitimate, but only to the extent that they reflect the actual place, meaning and role in the personality of the universal, socially specific and individually unique principle. But the approach is one thing, and the definition of personality is another.
Thus, in general, we can offer the following definition: personality is an integral concept that characterizes a person as an object and subject of biosocial relations and unites in him the universal, socially specific and individually unique.
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