Perceiving Others

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. ~ Marcus Aurelius

In self-perception we have the luxury of time with ourselves and a broad perspective on our actions over many situations. In perceiving others, however, we are usually granted only limited time and circumstances. Nonetheless we may have to make important decisions about others with lasting consequences. Faced with important decisions and insufficient opportunity to collect information, we resort to various strategies and heuristics (informal guidelines) to draw conclusions about others. These patterns of social cognition influence our experiences and actions in three broad areas: impression formation; interpersonal attraction; and social prejudice.

Impression Formation
According to Heider's "naive psychology", we look for reasonable explanations of others' behaviour rather than assuming that people are inscrutable and impossible to understand. Other researchers have pointed out that, in everday life, we often behave like "naive scientists" in forming impressions of others. Specifically, when we meet someone, we collect information by various means (eg. asking others about him or her, making observations of his or her likes and dislikes, and direct 'interview' of the target person). After collecting the information(data), we speculate about the connections among the person's characteristics(from hypotheses) and test these in real life.

We rely on numerous strategies for combining and interpreting information about others. Some of these strategies include reliance on stereotypes and central traits, and being influenced by primary and recency effects.

1. Stereotypes
A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people that distinguishes them from others. Thinking of the British as conservative, the French as romantic, blacks as more athletic than whites, and men as more politically sophisticated than women are all forms of stereotypes. A stereotype is not necessarily inaccurate, but by generalizing about all members within a group and ignoring their individual differences, it is more likely to be inaccurate than otherwise.

Stereotypes can be triggered by any clue to an individual's group membership: physical appearance, accent, language, or context. Stereotypes are a common factor in prejudice, an unjustifiable negative attitude toward all members of a group.

2. Central Traits
In classic research, social psychologist Solomon Asch asked students to form an impression of individuals whose traits had been listed for them. Half of the students read a list including the trait "warm" while the other half read an otherwise identical list which included the trait "cold". The trait dimension "warm-cold" was found to be central to impressions formed of the other traits. For example, someone who is "warm and intelligent" seems to be a different kind of intelligent than someone who is "cold and intelligent". Central traits are traits influential in modifying the total impression formed as well as the way each trait in the impression is interpreted.

Central traits may vary among people. If kindness is important in someone's life, the impression he forms of others may be centrally influenced by whether those others appear to be kind or not.

3. Primacy And Recency Effects
In further work Asch gave subjects lists of traits to form impressions about. Half received a list of several positive traits followed by several negative traits. The other half received the same list in reverse order. The impressions subjects formed were influenced more by the first traits on each list. This first-impressions influence is termed the primacy effect. Its wisdom is common-sensical. Most of us behave as though we believe that our first contacts with others will set the tone for all later interactions.

In some cases it has been found that the last information available has swayed the impression being formed, the so-called recency effect. However, the recency effect seems to occur only under special circumstances, as when we are caused to doubt the truth of first impressions or warned against the dangers of hasty social judgments. In those conditions, when the latest information contradicts, the first, last impressions count stronger.


Morality
The disciples would frequently be absorbed in questions of right and wrong. Sometimes the answer would be evident enough. Sometimes it was elusive. The Master, if he happened to be present at such discussions, would take no part in them.

Once he was confronted with this question,"Is it right to kill someone who seeks to kill me? Or is it wrong?"

He said, "How should I know?"

The shocked disciples answered, "Then how would we tell right from wrong?"

The Master said, "While alive, be dead to yourself, be totally dead. Then act as you will and your action will be right."