Factors that can influence the impressions you form of other people

People often form impressions of others very quickly, with only minimal information. They frequently base impressions on:

• The roles and social norms we expect from people: a child will be secure with the father rather than a stranger.
• Physical cues: a hotel attendant would raise alarm on seeing a stranger who is uneasy walking straight to the cashier.
• Salience of the information we perceive: Generally, we tend to focus on the most obvious points rather than noting background information. The more novel or obvious a factor is, the more likely we are to focus on it.
• Social Categorization: One of the mental shortcuts that we use in person perception is known as social categorization. In the social categorization process, we mentally categorize people into different groups based on common characteristics. Sometimes this process occurs consciously, but for the most part, social categorizations happen automatically and unconsciously. Some of the most common grouping people use include age, gender, occupation and race. The sight of street boy may prompt you to stop a phone call and secure your hone. As with many mental shortcuts, social categorization has both positive and negative aspects.

a. Positively: It allows people to make judgments very quickly. Realistically, you simply do not have time to get to know each and every person you come into contact with on an individual, personal basis. Allows you to make decisions and establish expectations of how people will behave in certain situations very quickly, which allows you to focus on other things.
b. Negatively: It can lead to errors and as well as stereotyping. Consider this example: Imagine that you are getting on a bus, but there are only two seats available. One seat is next to a petite, silver- haired, elderly woman, the other seat is next to a burly, grim-faced man. Based on your immediate impression, you sit next to the elderly woman, who unfortunately turns out to be quite skilled at picking pockets. Because of social categorization, you immediately judged the woman as harmless and the man as threatening, leading to the loss of your wallet. While social categorization can be useful at times, it can lead to these kinds of misjudgments

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Titany answered the question on December 7, 2021 at 07:39