When communicating with another person, we form some ideas about him. But the formation of these ideas about others is very closely connected with our idea of ourselves (our self-consciousness). Analysis of self-awareness through another implies: 1) identification; 2) reflection; 3) causal attribution.
1. Identification: identifying yourself with another, one of the easiest ways to understand another person is to liken yourself to him. A close relationship has been established between identification and another, similar in content phenomenon - empathy.Empathy defined as a special way of understanding another person. Only here we mean not a rational understanding of the problems of another person, but rather the desire to emotionally respond to his problems.2.Reflection: awareness by the acting individual of how he is perceived by the communication partner. It is no longer just knowing or understanding the other, but knowing how the other understands me.
3.Causal attribution: the process of attributing to another person the reasons for his behavior when there is no information about these reasons. The need to understand the reasons for the interaction partner's behavior arises in connection with the desire to interpret his actions. The measure and degree of attribution depend on two indicators: 1) on the degree of uniqueness or typicality of an act and 2) on the degree of its social “desirability” or “undesirability.
The nature of attributions depends on whether the subject of perception is himself a participant in an event or its observer. In these two different cases, a different type of attribution is chosen. G. Kelly identified three such types: 1) personal attribution (when the reason is attributed to the person who performs the act), 2) stimulus attribution (when the reason is attributed to the object to which the action is directed) and 3) circumstantial attribution (when the cause of the action is attributed to circumstances).
The content of interpersonal perception depends on the characteristics of both the subject and the object of perception because they are included in a certain interaction that has two sides: evaluating each other and changing some characteristics of each other due to the very fact of their presence. Accordingly, two groups of studies are designated: 1) in one case, they try to find an answer to the question about the role of the characteristics of the perceiver in the process of interpersonal perception (which characteristics are significant here, under what circumstances they appear, etc.). It is the subject of perception that, as it were, "reads", in the words of S.L. Rubinstein, another person. The essence of this “reading” lies in the fact that the external data of a person are “read”, which make up, as it were, a “text”, and then they are deciphered, the meaning is revealed behind them. "Reading" is carried out fluently, automatically, and subsequent decoding largely depends on the characteristics of the reader. 2) another series of experimental studies is devoted to the characteristics of the object of perception. The individual psychological characteristics of different people are different, including in terms of greater or lesser “disclosure” of oneself for perception by other people.
Effects: 1.Installation effect: plays a role in the formation of the first impression of a stranger). EXP. Bodaleva: 2 groups of students were shown a photo of the same person, but with different instructions: that this is a major scientist and a criminal. Then they were asked to make a verbal portrait. They said that deep-set eyes are a sign of hidden malice (1st option) or depth of thought (2nd option).
2.halo effect: the tendency to transfer previously received favorable / unfavorable information about a person to his real perception (for example, a general favorable impression leads to positive assessments of unknown qualities of the perceived)
EXP: the perceiving subject evaluated the performance of tasks in 2 groups of children. The group made up of his favorites was intentionally wrong. And a group of unloved people decided everything correctly. And he still gave his favorites high scores.
Another exp. showed the transfer of physically attractive traits to psychological ones. Men endowed beautiful women (by evaluating their photographs) with traits of sincerity, attentiveness, etc.
3. The effect of "primacy and novelty": concerns the importance of a certain order of presenting information about a person.
Note 1: 4 groups of students were told about stranger. Group 1 was told that he was an introvert, group 2 an extrovert, group 3 that he was an introvert, and then they corrected themselves and said that he was an extrovert. And group 4 - on the contrary (first an extrovert, then an introvert). As a result, groups 1 and 2 told everything normally, and in groups 3 and 4 the primacy effect worked (they said about this person what they were told about him for the first time).
Note 2: but when perceiving familiar The effect of novelty works for a person: newer information is more significant.
4.Stereotyping: this is some stable image of some phenomenon or person, which is used as a known "abbreviation" when interacting with this phenomenon. It accompanies all processes of social perception, arises on the basis of limited past experience, as a result of the desire to draw conclusions on the basis of limited information.
Stereotyping in the process of people knowing each other can lead to two different consequences. One side, to a certain simplification of the process of knowing another person. In the second case, stereotyping leads to prejudice.
5.Indulgence effect: the tendency to rate oneself and other people higher on a positive scale.
Interpersonal attraction:( friendship, love, sympathy, affection, disgust, etc.) is the process of preferring some people to others, mutual attraction between people, mutual sympathy. Attraction is an emotion that has as its object another person, a certain type of social attitude, the attitude of one person to another. Factors that have the greatest influence on the process of interpersonal attraction: external and internal .
External factors of attraction ( not directly related to the process of interaction): 1) the degree of severity of a person's need for affiliation - the need to create and maintain satisfactory relationships with other people. 2) the emotional state of communication partners (good mood of a person). 3) spatial proximity (promotes social contacts). These factors act as situational or intrapersonal conditions that contribute to or hinder rapprochement between people.
Internal factors of interpersonal attraction: 1) the physical attractiveness of a communication partner (the relationship between interpersonal attraction and the attractiveness of a partner is in an indirect relationship. If a person is confident in himself, he chooses the most beautiful of the possible applicants. The influence of physical attractiveness is higher at the beginning of acquaintance and decreases as we recognize the person). 2) the demonstrated style of communication (manner of behavior). 3) the similarity factor between communication partners (we like and we are more likely to like people who are similar to us, and vice versa).
Factors that increase the effect of similarity on attraction: 1) the number of issues on which people reach agreement; 2) the importance, significance of certain views; 3) reciprocity (if that person likes us, the cat likes us, the attraction will become stronger).
Complementarity theory: emphasizes the influence of differences between people on interpersonal attraction. 2 types of complementarity: satisfaction by people of different needs or the same, but in varying degrees of severity.
Two theories of interpersonal attraction: 1) the theory of social exchange: the more social rewards the friendship or love of another person promises us (and the less costs involved), the more we will love him. If the relationship is worth the cost, and the cost is greater than the rewards, then chances are it won't last long. 2) Theory of justice: people are happiest in relationships where the person's rewards, costs, and contributions to the relationship are approximately equal to the other person's rewards, costs, and contributions.
Methods for measuring m\l attraction: 1) scale of social distance E. Bogardus: a questionnaire that reveals the degree of acceptability of another person as a representative of a particular social group. 2) Sociometry J. Moreno. 3) They also use graphic techniques (for example, put the point “I” at the extreme point of the segment and subjectively determine the distance to the other).
RUSSIAN UNIVERSITY OF INNOVATIONS
Kirov branch
ON THE DISCIPLINE "SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPETENCE"
Topic 10. Mechanisms of human perception by humans
Plan
Introduction
1. The concept of interpersonal perception
2. The theory of causal attribution G. Kelly
3. Mechanisms of interpersonal perception
4. Effects of interpersonal perception
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Perception is a visual-figurative reflection of objects and phenomena of reality acting at the moment on the senses in the aggregate of their various properties and parts. Perception, as a mental process, "is understood as the subjective experience of obtaining sensory information about the world of people, things and events, as well as those psychological processes due to which this is done." The process of perception of so-called social objects, which means other people, social groups, large social communities, is called "social perception". If we talk about the problem of mutual understanding of communication partners, then the term “interpersonal perception”, or interpersonal perception, would be more appropriate.
In the control work, the phenomenon of interpersonal perception, its features and mechanisms will be considered.
1. The concept of interpersonal perception
Speaking about interpersonal perception (interpersonal perception), S.L. Rubinstein noted that people, perceiving, as it were, "read" another person, decipher the meaning of his external data. The impressions that arise in this case play an important regulatory role in the process of people's communication. The process of perception by one person (observer) of another (observed) unfolds as follows. In the observed, only external signs are available to the observer, among which the most informative are the appearance (physical qualities plus the appearance of appearance) and behavior (actions performed and expressive reactions). Perceiving these qualities, the observer evaluates them in a certain way and makes some conclusions (often unconsciously) about the internal psychological properties of the communication partner. The sum of properties attributed to the observed, in turn, gives a person the opportunity to form a certain attitude towards him. This attitude is most often emotional in nature and is located within the "like - dislike" continuum.
There are four main functions of interpersonal perception:
self-knowledge
Knowing your partner in communication
Organization of joint activities
Establishing emotional relationships
Interpersonal perception is usually described as a three-component structure. It includes:
o subject of interpersonal perception
o object of interpersonal perception
o the very process of interpersonal perception.
Regarding the subject and object of interpersonal perception, traditional studies have established more or less complete agreement in terms of what characteristics of them should be taken into account in studies of interpersonal perception. For the subject of perception, all characteristics are divided into two classes: physical and social. In turn, social characteristics include external (formal role characteristics and interpersonal role characteristics) and internal (system of personality dispositions, structure of motives, etc.). Accordingly, the same characteristics are fixed in the object of interpersonal perception. The content of interpersonal perception depends on the characteristics of both the subject and the object of perception because they are included in a certain interaction that has two sides: evaluating each other and changing some characteristics of each other due to the very fact of their presence. Interpretation of another person's behavior may be based on knowledge of the causes of that behavior. But in everyday life, people do not always know the real reasons for the behavior of another person. Then, in conditions of lack of information, they begin to attribute to each other both the causes of behavior and some characteristics of the communities. Thus, the process of this attribution, i.e., causal attribution, becomes the content of the process of knowing another person. Studies have shown that the degree of conformity of the conclusion of the observed with respect to someone's behavior also depends on the different type of attribution: “personal” or “impersonal”. In the first case, this refers to the prevailing desire to attribute the causes of any events to the actions of certain individuals, while in the second case, the causes are attributed mainly to the actions of circumstances.
2. The theory of causal attribution G. Kelly
An attempt to construct a theory of causal attribution was undertaken by Harold Kelly. In his opinion, when trying to understand the reason for the behavior of another person, we use three criteria:
1. Criterion of constancy
2. The criterion of exclusivity;
3. Consensus criterion.
If under similar conditions the behavior of the observed is of the same type, then it is considered constant. It will be different if in other cases it manifests itself differently, and, finally, behavior is considered normal if, in similar circumstances, it is characteristic of the majority of people. If in similar circumstances a person always behaves in the same way (constant behavior), if he behaves in the same way in other situations (non-different behavior), and if only a few people behave in the same way in similar situations (unusual behavior), then we tend to attribute behavior to internal factors. On the contrary, if a person in similar situations behaves in the same way (constant behavior), if in other cases he behaves differently (different behavior), and if in similar situations the same behavior is similar to most people (usual behavior). We explain its action by external causes.
In general, the theory is understood as follows: every person has certain a priori causal ideas and causal expectations. In other words, each person has a system of schemes of causality, and every time the search for reasons explaining "alien" behavior, one way or another, fits into one of these existing schemes. The repertoire of causal schemes that each person owns is quite extensive. The question is which of the causal schemes is included in each particular case.
The variation analysis model describes the structure of each act of causal attribution. The elements of this structure are the same elements that are usually described as elements of the process of interpersonal perception: subject, object, and situation.
Kelly talked about errors in interpersonal perception, summarized them as follows:
o 1st class - motivational errors (various kinds of “defenses”: addictions, asymmetry of positive and negative results (success - to oneself, failure - to circumstances));
o 2nd class - fundamental mistakes (common to all people), including cases of overestimation of personal factors and underestimation of situational ones. More specifically, fundamental errors manifest themselves in "false agreement" errors, when the "normal" interpretation is considered to be one that coincides with and is adjusted to "my" opinion); errors associated with unequal opportunities for role-playing behavior (when in certain roles it is much “easier” to show your own positive qualities, and interpretation is carried out by appealing to them); errors arising from greater confidence in specific facts than in general judgments, etc.
In order to justify the selection of precisely this kind of error, Kelly puts forward four principles:
1. The principle of covariance is valid when there is one cause. The essence of the principle of covariance lies in the fact that the effect is attributed to the cause that coincides with it in time (naturally, in the variety of causal relationships between phenomena, the cause is not necessarily the one that coincides with the effect in time).
2. The principle of depreciation, when, in the presence of alternatives, one of the reasons is discarded due to the fact that there are competing reasons
3. The principle of amplification. If there is more than one reason, then the person in the interpretation is guided either by the principle of amplification, when priority is given to the reason that encounters an obstacle: it is strengthened in the mind of the perceiver by the very fact of the presence of such an obstacle.
4. The principle of systematic distortion, when in a special case of judgments about people, the factors of the situation are underestimated and, on the contrary, the factors of personal characteristics are overestimated.
Which of the principles will be included in the construction of a conclusion about the behavior of another person depends on many circumstances, in particular on the so-called “causal expectations” of the individual, which are based on the fact that “normal” behavior is typical and socially desirable behavior. When such a pattern of behavior is demonstrated, there is no need for a special search for its causes. In cases of deviation, the mechanism of causal attribution is activated.
3. Mechanisms of interpersonal perception
The study of perception shows that a number of universal psychological mechanisms can be identified that ensure the very process of perceiving another person and allow the transition from externally perceived to assessment, attitude and forecast.
The mechanisms of interpersonal perception include mechanisms:
Identification, empathy - mechanisms of knowledge and understanding by people of each other
reflection - self-knowledge
attraction - the formation of an emotional attitude towards a person
Identification is the simplest way of understanding another person, i.e. likening yourself to him. In real situations of interaction, partners use this law, when an assumption about the internal state of a partner is based on an attempt to put oneself in his place.
A close relationship has been established between identification and another phenomenon close in content - empathy.
“Empathy is usually understood as the compassionate experience by one person of the feelings, perceptions and thoughts of another. Some early European and American psychologists and philosophers, such as M. Scheler and W. McDougall, viewed empathy as the basis of all positive social relationships.” Here we have in mind not so much a rational understanding of the problems of a partner as the desire to emotionally respond to his difficulties. At the same time, the emotions, feelings of the perceiver are not identical to those experienced by the perceived, i.e. if one of the communication partners shows empathy for the other, he simply understands his feelings and behavior, but he can build his own in a completely different way. This is the difference between empathy and identification, in which one partner completely identifies himself with the other and, accordingly, experiences the same feelings as the other, and behaves like the other.
The mechanism of reflection is inherently more complicated. It implies awareness of how a communication partner is perceived by his other partner. This is no longer just knowledge or understanding of the first by the second, but knowledge of how he understands the first, a kind of doubled process of mirror reflections of each other, a deep, consistent mutual reflection, the content of which is the reproduction of the inner world of one partner, and in this inner world, in turn, is reflected the inner world of the other partner.
Communication partners do not just perceive each other, they form a certain attitude towards each other. The mechanism of formation of various emotional relations to the perceived is called attraction.
Attraction (from lat. attrahere - to attract, attract) - a concept that denotes the appearance, when a person is perceived by a person, of the attractiveness of one of them for another. The formation of attachment occurs in the subject as a result of his specific emotional attitude, the assessment of which gives rise to a diverse range of feelings (from hostility to sympathy and even love) and manifests itself in the form of a special social attitude towards another person.
All these mechanisms of perception, one way or another, govern the process of interpersonal perception.
4. Effects of interpersonal perception
Perception effects are some features that interfere with adequate perception of each other by partners:
halo effect. The absence of changes in the perception and assessment of partners that occur over time for natural reasons. This refers to the case when the once formed opinion of one partner about the other does not change, despite the fact that new experience appears and new information about it accumulates.
The halo effect is manifested in the formation of the first impression of a person in that a general favorable impression leads to positive assessments and unknown qualities of the perceived and, conversely, a general unfavorable impression contributes to the predominance of negative assessments.
When it comes to a positive reassessment of qualities, this effect is also called the "Polyanna effect", and when it comes to a negative assessment - the "devil" effect. For example, very often in life there are situations when a husband remembers his wife as young and beautiful and cannot perceive age-related changes in her. Another example: a wife remembers her husband's pre-marital courtship and expects him to court her in the same way. Closely related to this effect are the effects of “primacy” (or “order”) and “novelty”. The primacy effect prevails in situations where a stranger is perceived. The essence of this effect is that in case of contradictory data about this person after the first meeting, the information that was received earlier is perceived as more significant and has a greater influence on the overall impression of the person.
The opposite of the primacy effect is the novelty effect, which consists in the fact that the latest, that is, newer information, turns out to be more significant, operates in situations of perception of a familiar person. The projection effect is also known - when we tend to attribute our own merits to a pleasant interlocutor, and our shortcomings to an unpleasant one, that is, to most clearly identify in others precisely those features that are vividly represented in our country. Another effect - the effect of the average error - is the tendency to soften the estimates of the most striking features of the other towards the average. These effects can be considered as manifestations of a special process that accompanies the perception of a person by a person, namely the process of stereotyping, which can lead to two consequences.
On the one hand, to a certain simplification of the process of knowing another person. In this case, the stereotype acts when there is a shortage of time, fatigue, emotional excitement, too young age, when a person has not yet learned to distinguish between diversity, and the process of stereotyping performs an objectively necessary function, allowing you to quickly, simply and reliably simplify the social environment of the individual.
In the second case, the judgment is based on past limited experience, and the experience was negative, any new perception of a representative of the same group is colored with a negative attitude. Ethnic stereotypes are especially common - images of typical representatives of a certain nation, which are endowed with fixed features of appearance and character traits (for example, stereotypical ideas about the stiffness of the British, the frivolity of the French, the eccentricity of Italians, the punctuality of the Germans, etc.).
Conclusion
So, an adequate perception of each other is one of the most important factors for successful communication.
The process of perception of another person is provided by the following mechanisms of interpersonal perception: identification, empathy, reflection and attraction. There are a number of features that make interpersonal perception difficult. These are the halo effect, the primacy effect, the projection effect, etc.
Thus, considering the mechanisms of perception and its features, it can be noted that they play an important role in understanding each other by partners, and, as a result, successful communication.
Bibliography
1. Belinskaya E.P., Tikhomandritskaya O.A. Social psychology of personality: Textbook. - M.: Aspect Press, 2002
2. Kelly G. The process of causal attribution. / Modern foreign social psychology. / Ed. Andreeva G.M., Bogomolova N.N., Petrovskaya L.A. - M.: MGU, 1984. - p. 127-137
3. Kunitsyna V.P., Kulagina N.V., Pogolypa V.M. Interpersonal communication: Textbook for universities. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2002.
4. Interpersonal perception in the group / Ed. Andreeva G.M. and Dontsova A.I. - M.: MGU, 1981
5. Psychological Encyclopedia / Ed. Corsini R., Auerbach A., 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg: PETER, 2003.
6. Stolyarenko L.D., Samygin S.I. One hundred exam answers in psychology. – Rostov-on-Don.: March, 2001.
The concept of "social perception" is integrative. The mechanisms of social perception include a number of phenomena: from knowing oneself in the process of communication, trying to understand the state, mood of the interlocutor, putting oneself in his place to forming an impression of the perceived person based on stereotypes developed, attributing causes and motives to his behavior, as well as developing one’s own behavior strategies.
The study of perception shows that a number of universal psychological mechanisms can be identified that ensure the very process of perceiving and evaluating another person and allowing the transition from externally perceived to assessment, attitude and forecast.
Since a person always enters into communication as a person, to the extent that he is perceived by another person - a communication partner - also as a person. On the basis of 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 an important regulatory role in the process of communication. Firstly, because, knowing the other, the knowing individual himself is formed. Secondly, because the success of organizing concerted 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-consciousness. This connection is twofold: on the one hand, the richness of ideas about oneself determines the richness of ideas about another person, on the other hand, the more fully the other person is revealed (in more and deeper characteristics), the more complete the idea of oneself becomes. . “A person becomes for himself what he is in himself through what he is for others.”
A similar idea was expressed by Mead, who introduced the image of the "generalized other" into his analysis of interaction.
If we apply this reasoning to a specific situation of communication, then we can say that the idea of oneself through the idea of another is necessarily formed, provided that this “other” is not given in the abstract, but within the framework of a fairly broad social activity that includes interaction with him. The individual “corresponds” himself with another not in general, but primarily by refracting this correlation in the development of joint solutions. In the course of knowing another person, several processes are simultaneously carried out: an emotional assessment of this other, and an attempt to understand the structure of his actions, and a strategy based on this for changing his behavior, and building a strategy for his own behavior.
However, at least two people are involved in these processes, and each of them is an active subject. Consequently, comparing oneself with another is carried out, as it were, from two sides: each of the partners likens himself to another.
This means that when building an interaction strategy, everyone has to take into account not only the needs, motives, attitudes of the other, but also how this other understands our needs, motives, attitudes. All this leads to the fact that the analysis of self-awareness through another includes two sides: identification and reflection.
Descriptively, empathy is also defined as a special way of understanding another person. Empathy is commonly understood as the comprehension of the emotional states of another person in the form of empathy, penetration into his subjective world. This or that level of empathy is a professionally necessary quality for all specialists whose work is directly related to people.
The term "empathy" first appeared in the English dictionary in 1912 and was close to the concept of "sympathy". The term was first used by Lipps in 1885 in connection with the psychological theory of the impact of art. One of the earliest definitions of empathy can be found in the work of Z. Freud “Wit and its relation to the unconscious”: “We take into account the mental state of the patient, put ourselves in this state and try to understand it by comparing it with our own.”
There is a wide range of manifestations of empathy. At one pole is the position of complete immersion in the world of feelings of a communication partner. This means not just knowing the emotional state of a person, but the experience of his feelings, empathy. Such empathy is called affective or emotional. The other pole takes the position of a more abstract, objective understanding of the experiences of a communication partner without significant emotional involvement in them. In this regard, the following levels of empathy are distinguished: empathy (when a person experiences emotions that are completely identical to those observed), sympathy (an emotional response, an urge to help another), sympathy (a warm, friendly attitude towards other people).
The mechanism of empathy includes the ability to put oneself in the place of another, to look at things from his point of view, but this does not necessarily mean identification with this other person. With empathy, the partner's line of behavior is taken into account, the subject treats him with sympathy, but interpersonal relationships with him are built based on the strategy of his line of behavior.
Only here we mean not a rational understanding of the problems of another person, but rather the desire to emotionally respond to his problems. Empathy is opposed to understanding in the strict sense of the word, the term is used in this case only metaphorically: empathy is affective "understanding". Its emotional nature is manifested precisely in the fact that the situation of another person, a communication partner, is not so much “thought out” as “felt”.
Empathic understanding is not the result of intellectual effort. Many experts consider empathy to be an innate property that is genetically determined. The life experience of the individual can only strengthen or weaken it. Empathy depends on the availability and richness of life experience, the accuracy of perception, the ability to tune in, listening to the interlocutor, on the same emotional wave with him.
Various training methods help to increase empathic abilities (subject to their innate presence), develop the ability to more effectively apply empathy in personal and professional communication.
The process of understanding each other is complicated by the phenomenon of reflection. In contrast to the philosophical use of the term, in social psychology, reflection is understood as the awareness by the acting individual of how he is perceived by his communication partner. This is no longer just knowledge or understanding of the other, but knowledge of how the other understands me, a kind of double process of mirror reflections of each other, “a deep, consistent mutual reflection, the content of which is the reproduction of the inner world of the interaction partner, and in this inner world, in turn, reflects the inner world of the first researcher.
People, getting to know each other, are not limited to obtaining information through observation. They strive to find out the reasons for the behavior of communication partners and to find out their personal qualities. But since information about a person obtained as a result of observation is most often insufficient for reliable conclusions, the observer begins to attribute probabilistic causes of behavior and character traits of the personality of the communication partner. This causal interpretation of the behavior of the observed individual can significantly affect the observer himself.
Thus, causal attribution is understood as the interpretation by the subject of interpersonal perception of the causes and motives of the behavior of other people, obtained on the basis of direct observation, analysis of the results of activities, and other things by attributing to a person, a group of people properties, characteristics that did not fall into the field of perception and, as it were, are conjectured by them. .
In conditions of information deficiency, they begin to attribute to each other both the causes of behavior, and sometimes the patterns of behavior themselves or some more general characteristics. Attribution is carried out either on the basis of the similarity of the perceived person's behavior with some other pattern that was 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. But, one way or another, a whole system of ways of such attribution (attribution) arises. Thus, the interpretation of one's own and other people's behavior by attributing (reasons, motives, feelings, etc.) is an integral part of interpersonal perception and cognition.
The measure and degree of attribution in the process of interpersonal perception depends on two indicators, namely the degree:
1. the uniqueness or typicality of an act (meaning the fact that typical behavior is behavior prescribed by role models, and therefore it is easier to unambiguously interpret; on the contrary, unique behavior allows for many different interpretations and, therefore, gives scope for attributing its causes and characteristics );
2. its social desirability or undesirability (socially “desirable” means behavior that corresponds to social and cultural norms and therefore is relatively easily and unambiguously explained, however, if such norms are violated, the range of possible explanations expands significantly).
An interesting attempt to construct a theory of causal attribution belongs to G. Kelly. He showed how a person searches for reasons to explain the behavior of another person. In general terms, the answer sounds like this: every person has some a priori causal representations and causal expectations.
A causal scheme is a kind of general concept of a given person about the possible interactions of various causes, about what actions, in principle, these causes produce. It is based on three principles:
1 the principle of depreciation, when the role of the main cause of the event is underestimated due to the overestimation of other causes;
2 the principle of amplification, when the role of a particular cause in an event is exaggerated;
3 the principle of systematic distortion, when there are constant deviations from the rules of formal logic in explaining the causes of people's behavior.
In other words, each person has a system of schemes of causality, and every time the search for reasons explaining "alien" behavior, one way or another, fits into one of these existing schemes. The repertoire of causal schemes that each person owns is quite extensive. The question is which of the causal schemes will work in each particular case.
G. Kelly revealed that, depending on whether the subject of perception is himself a participant in an event or its observer, he can mainly choose one of three types of attribution:
1 personal attribution, when the reason is attributed personally to the person committing the act;
2 object attribution, when the cause is attributed to the object to which the action is directed;
3 circumstantial attribution, when the cause of an occurring event is attributed to circumstances.
The general pattern is that, in proportion to the significance of the event, the subjects tend to move from circumstantial and object attribution to personal attribution (that is, to look for the cause of what happened in the conscious actions of a particular person).
Based on the study of the problems associated with causal attribution, the researchers concluded that attributive processes constitute the main content of interpersonal perception. It is indicative that some people are more inclined to fix physical traits in the process of interpersonal perception (in this case, the scope of “attribution” is significantly reduced), while others perceive predominantly the psychological traits of the character of those around them. In the latter case, a wide scope for attribution opens up.
In particular, the physical appearance of a person is understood as a set of visually perceived data characterizing his appearance. Its elements are decisive in appearance. An element of appearance is any part of a person's external appearance that is identified in the process of observation (study). These are individual anatomical organs (head, arm, etc.), and entire areas of the body (chest, back), and individual parts of the whole (forehead, eyes, lips, and so on).
Signs of physical appearance characterize the external structure of the human body, its parts and covers; determine sex, age, height, physique. Particular attention, of course, is paid to the face of a person, as the most individualizing personality in its visual perception.
Under the design of appearance, it is customary to understand the following: makeup, hairstyle, clothes, shoes, headdress, shoes, and so on.
Expressive behavior is understood as “widely diffused peripheral changes, covering the whole organism with emotions; capturing the system of muscles of the face, the whole body, they manifest themselves in the so-called expressive movements, expressed in facial expressions (expressive facial movements), pantomime (expressive movements of the whole body) and “vocal facial expressions” (expression of emotions in intonation and timbre of the voice).
Back in the forties of our century, the outstanding Soviet psychologist S.L. Rubinstein gave answers to many questions of the psychology of expressive behavior. Natural and social, natural and historical in expressive behavior, as everywhere in man, form one indivisible unity. This is not just an external empty accompaniment of emotions, but an external form of existence and manifestation. Expressive movements in the external reveal the internal, create the image of the character. Expressive movements express not only an already formed experience, but they themselves can form it. Public fixation of the forms and meanings of expressive behavior creates the possibility of conventional expressive movements. Expressive movements to a certain extent replace speech, they are a means of communication and influence.
Expressed by S.L. Rubinstein's provisions on the nature, content and functions of expressive behavior find concrete development in modern studies of both Soviet and foreign authors.
Such a function of expressive movements as the creation of an "image of the character" is of particular importance in the context of social perception. Here, complex psychological formations, dynamically expressed in the behavior and appearance of a person, are considered as a signal complex that informs another person about the mental processes and states of his communication partner. Each complex simultaneously performs both informative and regulatory functions. In other words, the expression as an indicator, signal, influence, regulator of activity (including communication) acts as a whole. Expressive movements are considered as carriers of an independent message in their cognitive and expressive functions. Due to their characteristic function of a symptom (expression), an indicator of the internal state of a living being (this is noted in a number of definitions of expressive movements and is the subject of study in the field of the emotional sphere of personality, pathopsychology, psychodiagnostics), in a situation of communication they are simultaneously a sign of a higher level, they carry out communicative function and guide the actions of partners.
So, expressive movements perform informative and regulatory functions in the process of communication, they are a kind of language of communication.
Ways of exchanging glances at the time of the conversation, organizing visual contact in each individual case - the time of fixing the gaze on the partner, the frequency of fixation - are widely used in the study of the so-called atmosphere of intimacy in interpersonal communication, the mutual attitudes of communicating persons.
Body movements, hand gestures, facial expressions are also attributed to the system of paralinguistic phenomena.
It is known that numerous characteristics of a person's voice create his image, contribute to the recognition of his states, the identification of mental: individuality. The main load in the process of perception of human voice changes falls on the acoustic system of communicating partners. Thus, the non-verbal behavior of a person is polyfunctional.
In general, the study of social perception shows that a number of universal psychological mechanisms can be distinguished, such as empathy, "social reflection" and causal attribution, which provide the very process of perceiving and evaluating another person and allowing the transition from externally perceived to assessment, attitude and forecast. .
Among the elements of appearance that are of great importance in the perception of each other by people, it is customary to distinguish the following: physical appearance, appearance and expressive behavior.
On the basis of 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 an important regulatory role in the process of communication. Firstly, because, knowing the other, the knowing individual himself is formed. Secondly, because the success of organizing concerted 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. This connection is twofold: on the one hand, the richness of ideas about oneself determines the richness of ideas about another person, on the other hand, the more fully the other person is revealed (in greater numbers and deeper characteristics), the more complete the idea of oneself becomes. .
However, at least two people are involved in these processes, and each of them is an active subject. Consequently, the comparison of oneself with another is carried out, as it were, from two sides: each of the partners likens himself to the other. This means that when building an interaction strategy, everyone has to take into account not only the needs, motives, attitudes of the other, but also how this other understands my needs, motives, attitudes. All this leads to the fact that the analysis of awareness of oneself through another includes two sides: identification and reflection. In addition, this process also includes causal attribution.
Identification literally means identifying yourself with another, one of the easiest ways to understand another person is to liken yourself to him. There are many experimental studies of the process of identification and clarification of its role in the process of communication. In particular, a close relationship has been established between identification and another phenomenon that is similar in content - empathy.
descriptively empathy also defined as a special way of understanding another person. Only here we mean not a rational understanding of the problems of another person, but rather the desire to emotionally respond to his problems. The emotional nature of empathy is manifested in the fact that the situation of another person, a communication partner, is not so much “thought out” as “felt”.
They differ: 1) emotional empathy - based on the mechanisms of projection and imitation of the motor and affective reactions of another; 2) cognitive empathy - based on intellectual processes - comparison, analogy, etc. 3) predicative empathy - manifested as the ability to predict the affective reactions of another in specific situations.
Reflection, in social psychology means the awareness by the acting individual of how he is perceived by his communication partner. It is no longer just knowing or understanding the other, but knowing how the other understands me, a kind of doubled the process of mirror reflections of each other, “a deep, consistent mutual reflection, the content of which is the reproduction of the inner world of the interaction partner, and this inner world, in turn, reflects the inner world of the first researcher”
Causal attribution how the mechanism of interpersonal perception occupies a special place, both in terms of its importance and in terms of development in numerous theoretical and experimental studies. Causal attribution means process attributions to another person reasons his behavior in the event that information about these reasons is not available. Attribution is carried out either on the basis of the similarity of the behavior of the perceived person with some other pattern that was 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.
- How does communication begin? Of course, "at first sight", i.e. communication begins with observation of the interlocutor, his appearance, voice, demeanor. Psychologists on this occasion say that there is a perception of one person by another. Effective communication is impossible without the correct perception, evaluation and mutual understanding of partners. Now we will talk about what influences our perception of other people, what are the mechanisms of interpersonal perception. Let us analyze how the effects of perception arising in the process of communication can cause errors in assessing the person with whom we communicate.
So, people's knowledge and understanding of others and themselves occurs in accordance with the psychological mechanisms of perception. Consider these mechanisms:
1) Identification is a way of understanding another person through conscious or unconscious assimilation of oneself to another. Identification is the process of almost complete identification of a person with an interlocutor during communication.
(It helps, figuratively speaking, to "get into the shoes" of another person, to feel, understand and experience everything that he feels, understands and experiences). Examples.
The perception mechanism close to identification is empathy. This is not a rational understanding of the problems of another person, but the ability for deep emotional contact and empathy with another person, which helps to better understand him and respond to his needs and problems. This mechanism of perception is the most desirable both in communication with colleagues and in communication with patients.
2) Reflection - this is the process of logical analysis of the problems, actions and states of the interlocutor, leading to certain generalizations and conclusions about the person. Reflection also means the ability of a person to realize how he is perceived by a communication partner. Examples.
3) Stereotyping - this is a way of understanding another person by classifying forms of behavior and interpreting their causes by referring to already known social patterns. A stereotype is a formed image of a person that we use as a stamp. The stereotype is formed on the basis of a generalization of personal experience and the information that is from books, movies. At the same time, knowledge can be not only doubtful, but completely erroneous. Examples.
Meanwhile, the stereotypes formed on the basis of this knowledge are very persistent and popular. So, we, without hesitation, talk about the accuracy of a mathematician, the discipline of a military man. The fact that all businessmen are speculators, and all officials are bureaucrats.
Stereotypical perception is enhanced by good or bad health, mood. So, when you feel unwell, people and events are perceived in a more negative light.
By studying the processes of perception, psychologists have identified typical distortions of ideas about another person. They got the name effects.
"The halo effect". This effect is manifested in the fact that at the beginning of acquaintance, the general impression of a person leads to an overestimation of unknown qualities: the general favorable impression left by a person leads the subject to positive assessments of those qualities that are not given in perception, and therefore not observable. At the same time, a general unfavorable impression gives rise to correspondingly negative assessments. Thus, the halo makes it difficult to see the actual features and manifestations of the object of perception.
"Projection effect". The essence of this effect is manifested in the fact that we tend to attribute our advantages to a pleasant interlocutor, and disadvantages to an unpleasant one.
The effect of "primacy and novelty"(Effect of the first and second order) This effect appears when we are faced with conflicting information about a person. If we are dealing with a stranger, then we tend to trust the information that came first. When communicating with a well-known person, we tend to give preference to the information that was received last.
Of course, no one can completely avoid mistakes, but it is in our power to understand the peculiarities of perception and, knowing about possible distortions, learn to correct our mistakes.
