Browsing by Subject "Social perception"
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Item Open Access A cross-cultural study of social perception …(1968) Paramesh, C. R.Introduction: Wherever social relations or interpersonal relations are involved, social perception runs as an undercurrent, either implicitly or explicitly. Perhaps the primary importance of social perception derives from the assumption that overt forms of social behavior are "steered" by the perception of social environment. Many problems in interpersonal relations turn out to be in some measure the consequence of perceptual distortion. Social perception, it may also be added, is closely related to one’s perception of self. Under ordinary conditions, there are three major elements which we will confront in a study of social perception. They are (a) the situation or context in which the person to be judged is embedded, (b) the person who is apart from the situation and (c) the perceiver himself. In the present study, the first two elements are not of special interest. The main point of interest is the third element, the perceiver who is shaped and sensitized by his or her particular cultural background. We are interested in examining the "selective- tuning" on the part of the perceiver in perceiving certain aspects of both the self and other people in preference to others. The present study aims to analyze the consistent trends, termed here "self- styles, " in individuals that influence them in perceiving others. It is assumed that these self- styles are determined fairly well by societies and, therefore, it is proposed to examine the variations of these self-style orientations in terms of culture. However, it is difficult to isolate and assess the differential importance of personal and social characteristics, although it is feasible. So, by "social perception" we refer to the consistent tendency to look for certain attributes in the other as influenced by self-concept.Item Open Access An attributional analysis of the effects of target status and presence of ulterior motives on children's judgments of two types of ingratiating behaviors(1978) Matter, Jean Anne, 1950-The study examined children's evaluations and attributions in response to ingratiating acts directed at different targets in the presence or absence of an ulterior motive. According to an attributional analysis of ingratiation (Jones & McGillis, 1976; Jones & Wortman, 1973), attributions of enduring behavioral dispositions to ingratiators and evaluation of these ingratiators should vary as a function of presence or absence of ulterior motives and as a function of target status, because very high status targets are likely to control desirable benefits even when these are not made explicit. Ingratiators with ulterior motives and those who ingratiate high status targets should be evaluated less positively, and they should be seen as less likely to repeat their "nice" acts in other situations or to other targets. These "idealized predictions rest on the assumption of differential perception and evaluation of ingratiators ' motives under different circumstances. Children's ability to use motives in making moral evaluations of others has long been a subject of debate. However, few researchers have asked children about the dispositional implications of their moral evaluations. The present study was thus intended to examine children's evaluations and attributions in response to a morally relevant behavior (ingratiation) somewhat different from the behaviors most studies have investigated. It was expected that age-related changes in evaluation of strategic behaviors and changes in patterns of attribution would reflect a shift away from reliance on adult rules in judging acts and a corresponding increase in reliance on peer group norms. Male and female first, third, and fifth graders and an adult control group heard four stories about children who opinion conformed or did favors . The target of the acts was either a disliked (low, status) peer, a well-liked (high status) peer, or an adult (the ingratiator's teacher). Each act either occurred with no explicit ulterior motive, or it occurred after the ingratiator learned that the target controlled a benefit that the ingratiator very much desired, so that an ulterior motive was prominent. Subjects used rating scales to evaluate the ingratiators , to estimate the probability that they would repeat their acts, and to rate the effectiveness of the ingratiation. Subjects' were also asked for free response explanations of the ingratiators' behaviors, and they explained what they would do if they wanted to get a desirable benefit from one of the story targets. Favor doing was regarded far more positively than opinion conforming, and evaluation of ingratiation declined steadily with age. First graders tended to see all ingratiation as quite positive, likely to generalize, and likely to be effective. First graders were able to explain strategic favor-doing, but they had difficulty with opinion conformity. Among the other groups , motive became increasingly important with age as a determinant of both evaluations and predicted repetition of the act. Motive effects were not always in the expected direction, however. Ulterior motive opinion conformity to an adult was evaluated more positively than no ulterior motive opinion conformity, indicating that ingratiation of this target was less deplorable if the ingratiator was strongly tempted. Third graders in particular showed signs of regarding opinion conformity to an adult in a fairly favorable light. They thought an adult would be relatively likely to pick an opinion conformer to receive a desirable benefit, where- as the other age groups saw favor-doing as much more effective with an adult target. I^en asked how they themselves would try to influence a target, younger subjects of ten mentioned providing physical benefits while adults were more likely to suggest a straightforward request. The patterns of main effects seen on the measures pertaining to predictions of future behavior appeared to strongly resemble the one predicted by an attributional analysis of ingratiation. Children seemed more sensitive than adults to the power of the very high status adult target to elicit ingratiating acts . Patterns of attribution among third graders sometimes appeared more adult-like than those appearing among fifth graders . This paradoxical finding and third graders' relatively favorable responses to adult oriented opinion conformers are discussed in terms of third graders’ greater tendency to judge behavior in line with adult rules, while fifth graders may be more sensitive to peer groups norms.Item Open Access Exploring Preferences for ‘Blinding’ One’s Own Judgment(2020) Fath, SeanI investigate people's degree of preference for "blinding" in decision-making: purposefully restricting the information one sees in order to try to form a more accurate evaluation. For example, when grading her students’ papers, a professor might choose to "blind" herself to students’ names by anonymizing them, and thus evaluate the papers on content alone. I propose a theoretical framework of individual-level blinding preferences, outlining various factors that may drive evaluators’ choices to see or blind themselves to potentially biasing information in an impending evaluation. Next, I discuss 8 studies (N = 5,350) and associated replications (N = 3,720) that (a) explore individuals’ preferences for blinding and outline consequences for bias, (b) test the mechanisms driving blinding decisions proposed in my theoretical framework, and (c) explore the efficacy of multiple interventions to encourage a choice to blind one’s judgment. I find that people often choose to see potentially biasing information rather than be blind to it, even though they acknowledge they should be blind and that seeing such information will likely bias their evaluations. I also find that interventions that facilitate deliberative reflection before a blinding choice is made can encourage a choice to be blind. I discuss contributions of these studies to research on mental contamination, inequality reduction in organizations, and social perception, as well as implications of these studies for groups concerned with members’ decision bias.