Discussion: Person Perception Person perception refers to the mental processes w

Question

Discussion: Person Perception

Person perception refers to the mental processes we use to form judgments about other people.

Sometimes we need to make split-second decisions about strangers.

For example, deciding where to sit in a subway car or the bus involves rapidly evaluating people who are complete strangers.

What kinds of factors affect your first impressions of other people?

Do your impressions of others seem to result from deliberate or automatic thoughts?

Are your first impressions generally accurate?

If you have any neat stories that you would to share I’m sure both myself and your fellow students would enjoy hearing them.

I guess I don’t remember a story where I mistook someone in a situation, but I’m sure it has happened, but here’s one that that happened to me. Back when I was studying in Rome I had a chance to spend about a month during the summer studying French in Paris, or at least that was my excuse to get to Paris :-)

One morning when I was taking the subway to get downtown from where I was staying I was standing in front of two young French girls (actually probably in their 20s) who started giggling and whispering to each other. While I couldn’t hear and/or understand everything they said it was obvious that this “amerloc” (French slang for an American) dressed in black pants and white shirt (our travel clothes whereas in Rome we always wore a cassock) was the cause of their frivolity.

As the subway was pulling into my station, I turned to them and in reasonably good French thanked them for having made my 15-minute subway ride pass more quickly and in their stunned silence I stepped off the subway.

Explanation / Answer

All of us get an uncomfortable feeling if we have to talk to strangers, sit near them, work with them etc. It's because of our basic instinct of being safe from external threats. We consider them as an external threat until we cometely know about it. It's the fear of the unknown that prevents us from getting close with strangers.
Firstly, the physical appearance of a person will determine whether I will be talking to them or not. Secondly, the preconceived notions that I carry about that particular person if they belong to another culture or country will play a role in determining whether I'll make acquaintance. Finally, if I find to have the same interest with the stranger such as reading, football, cricket etc. will determine the move.
Certain assumptions are learnt from the society where one lives and other times, it's automatic because our autonomous nervous system has that system built in us. Most of the times, our decisions will be wrong because people are different and not all the traits could be generalised.

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