PERSON PERCEPTION (CONTINUEâ€¦..):GENDER SOCIALIZATION, Integrating Impressions

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SocialPsychology (PSY403)

Lesson 14

PERSONPERCEPTION (CONTINUE.....)

Aims

Introducing to students that how peopleperceive others.

Objectives

· Describing the process of gender socialization andhow impressions of bothgenders are formed.

· Understanding the impact of culture on the process of person perception.

· Describing gender and cultural differences in nonverbal cues

· Understanding the role of personality traits in person perception

· Describinghow overall impression is formed and integrated

GENDERSOCIALIZATION

A social roleis a cluster of socially definedexpectations that individuals in a given

Situationarc expected to fulfill. Social roles arc (1) defined by society, (2) applied

to all individuals in a particular social category, and (3) consist of well-learned responses by individuals.

According to Alice Eagly's (1987, 1996) socialrole theory, thedifferent social rolesoccupied by women and

menlead to differences in theperception of women and menand in their behavior,

StephanieShields (2002) describes twocontrasting emotional stylesthat arc linked to gendersocialization. Both

arerequired of women and men,but each is expected more of one sex than theother.

· Extravagantexpressiveness is an openstyle of experiencing andcommunicating emotion that is

associatedwith femininity.

· The second emotional style telegraphs intense emotion under control, which Shieldslabels manly

emotionbecause of its connection to a particular version of heterosexualmasculinity.

Thesetwo emotional styles associatedwith female and malesocial roles convey differentmessages to

people witnessing their expression. Thestrongly felt--yet controlled--manly emotion conveys the message

that the person is independent: "I cancontrol my emotion (andthereby, my self), and I canharness it to

controlthe situation." Theunderlying message of extravagantexpressiveness involves nurturance: "My

emotion(and thereby, my self) is at your service." Shields contend that in North American culture/manly

emotion is ultimately considered moreimportant than extravagant emotionbecause it is believed to express

rationalbehavior. ln contrast, although the feminine emotional standardsunderlying emotional

expressiveness foster many socially desirable behaviors (such as tenderness andselflessness), theyare

culturallytainted because of theirassociation with emotion out of control. Research indicatesthat boys areen-

couraged to express emotions--such as anger,contempt, and pride--that reflect a sense of entitlement to

power in society and arediscouraged from displayingvulnerable emotions. In contrast, this same research

suggeststhat girls are encouraged to express emotions associatedwith satisfaction, powerlessness,and service

to others, such as happiness,fear, and empathy. Because of possessing these qualities,studies have revealed

genderdifferences in general understanding of nonverbal cues. For example, Meta analysis of 75 studies

showedthat women are more adept to decode nonverbal communication(Judith Hall, 1978). Women have

alsobeen reported to possess greater tendency to detect different kinds of nonverbal cues. Onestudy

showed the greatest ability of women fordecoding facial expressionsfollowed by body cues andsmallest

forvoice tone (Hall,1984).

Research indicates that boys are encouraged to express emotions--such as anger, contempt, and

pride--thatreflect a sense of entitlement to power in society and are discouraged from displaying

vulnerable emotions. In contrast, this same researchsuggests that girls areencouraged to express emotions

associatedwith satisfaction, powerlessness,and service to others, such as happiness,fear, and empathy

(Saarni,1999). Women are alsoreported to be better at communicatinghappiness, while men have been

shown to be more proficient at communicatinganger.

Culturaldifferences in certain nonverbal cues

Nonverbalbehavior plays in impression formationand often consciouslyemploys nonverbal cues in their

self-presentationstrategies.

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SocialPsychology (PSY403)

Individualism and Collectivism

It makes abundant sense that cultures would develop socialrules for when and howdifferent emotionsare

expressed. Collectivists are much morelikely than individualists to monitor their behavior so that it does not

disrupt the smooth functioning of the group. Regarding emotions, researchsuggests that although people

fromcollectivist and individualistcultures do not differ in publicly displaying positiveemotions,

collectivists are much more uncomfortable about publicly expressingnegative emotions

Culturedifferences are also manifested in many forms of nonverbal cues.Some examples are givenbelow:

· Shakinghands: In North Americanculture people with firmhandshakes tend to be more

extraverted, adventurous, and less neurotic and shy than those with weakhandshakes (William

Chaplin et al., 2000). Firm grip in America shows confidence and warmth, while Asians and

MiddleEastern prefer a gentle grip and a firm grip showsaggressiveness. On the other hand,

Japanese greet by bowing.

· Touching: It has been often reportedthat Americans and Asiansare not touch oriented as compared

to other cultures.

· Spacerelationships: North Americansare reported to prefer a distance of about 30 inches; Asians

like it farther apart; MiddleEastern stand nearer, andmoving away may be considered as a sign of

unfriendliness

· Eye contact: In North America direct eye contact is considered a sign of confidence,while in Korea

and some parts of Pakistan direct eye contact is considered very intimidating, and maysometime

be an indicator of sexual interests. Usually in traditional cultures, females aretaught to avert eye

gaze.

Influence of Culture and Personality

Collectivistsare much more likely thanindividualists to monitor theirbehavior so that it does notdisrupt

the smooth functioning of the group.Collectivists are much more uncomfortable about publicly expressing

negative emotions

Impression formation with traits:Central traits

Personalitytraits are commonly used in forming impressions. In personperception,

Aschhypothesized that ouroverall impression of others is not simply determined by adding up all their personality

traits.Instead, certain traits exert a disproportionate, influence on people's overallimpressions, literallychanging

themeaning of other traits. He called the dominant traitscentraltraits.

Intelligent,skillful, industrious, warm,determined, practical, andcautious. These lessimportant traits Asch calledpe-

ripheraltraits.

Based on these results, Aschconcluded that warm andcold are central traitsthat significantly influenceoverall

impression formation.

SinceAsch's (1946) groundbreakingstudy, additional research found that as we be-come-acquainted with

others, we tend to form an overallimpression by averaging all their traits together, but we givemore weight to those

we believe are mostimportant

Further,the importance of specifictraits may vary depending on the social context in which we make evaluations

(Singh & Teoh, 2000). For example,the traits intelligent andhumorous may have equalscale values, but intelligent

would carry more weight for a psychology department's graduateschool admissions committeewhen evaluating

applicants

IMPLICITPERSONALITYTHEORY

WhenStephen Glass was accused of fabricating his news stories,almost everybody who knewhim or knew of him

wasshocked. Glass was theepitome of the young,hardworking, ambitious journalist. He just didn't seem likethe kind

of person who would do such a thing, As suggested by research on centraltraits, our knowledge aboutpeople is

structuredby: our prior set of beliefsabout which traits go together, and the resultingpersonality judgments we make

often defy the rules of coldlogic. These assumptions or naive belief systems that we j have about theassociations among

traitsand behaviors are called an implicitpersonality theory

©CopyrightVirtual University of Pakistan

SocialPsychology (PSY403)

I n an implicit personalitytheory, as in impression formation generally,there appears to be operating a principle

of evaluative consistency--a tendency to view others in a way that is internally consistent. Even whencontradictory

information is made available, we stillgenerally persist in viewingpeople as either consistentlygood or bad. In this

effort toward consistency, we will often distort or explain away contradictory information

Integrating Impressions

We infer what others arelike from what emotions theyexpress. Then we movequickly from observations

of appearance and behavior to inferences about personality. In integratingimpressions of others, several

factors are important, some of them are mentioned below:

Positivityand NegativityBias

Overall we tend to evaluate otherspositively. It is known as thepositivitybias, which is the tendency for

people to evaluate individual humanbeings more positively thangroups or impersonal objects. It may seem

contradictory,but because people arebiased toward perceiving others in a positive light, when they learn that

someonehas negative traits they place more weight on these unfavorable attributes in forming an impression of

theperson. This negativityeffect is thetendency of people to give moreweight to negative traits thanpositive

traits in impression formation

In essence, what the positivitybias and negativity effect tell us about personperception is that we are

motivated to view people favorably, butfavorable impressions aremore vulnerable to change than unfavorable

impressions.

The common explanation for thenegativity effect is that negative traitsare more unusual andtherefore more

distinctive. People pay more attention to those negative qualities andgive them more weight. This tendency to

directattention to negatively evaluatedstimuli, like the tendency to notice fearful and angry faces in a crowd, is

believed to have survival value forhuman beings.

Primacyand RegencyEffects

Oneother simple and basicfactor influences impressionformation, and it is related to learning bits of informationabout

someone(Van Overwalle & Labiouse,2004). Known as the primacy effect, it is thetendency for the firstinformation

receivedand to carry more weight in one's overall impressionthan later information. Whydoes earlyinformation

figuremore prominently than laterinformation in our impression of others? One possibleexplanation is that the early

bits of information we learn about anotherprovide a cognitive schema or mental outline, which we then use to process

later information. If the later information contradicts this schema, we are likely to ignore it

Althoughthe primacy effect regularlyoccurs in person perception, it can sometimes be reversed if people are

warnedagainst making hasty judgments or told that they will be asked to justify their impressions of a target

person(Tetlock & Kim, 1987). In such circumstances, the lastbits of information learnedmay be given greater

weightage than earlierinformation. This is known as therecencyeffect.

TheAveraging Principle

Averaging is used to combine separatepieces of information aboutpeople, some of which arepositive and

others of which are negative. A weighted averaging model, in which traits are weighted by importance,

provides the best predictions

Halo Effect

A liked person is assumed to have many other good qualities. People tend to form evaluativelyconsistent

impressions of others.

Readings

Franzoi,S.L. (2006). SocialPsychology. New York: McGrawHill. Chapter 4.

Lord,C.G. (1997). SocialPsychology. Orlando: HarcourtBrace and Company. Chapter 3.

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