Synopses & Reviews
Our knowledge of other people is not strictly limited by the information we have about them. We often make inferences based on one action seen out of context. For example, we regularly assume that a person who helps an old lady to cross a street is caring and that someone playing loud music on a public beach is selfish. The Psychology of Interpersonal Perception examines these conclusions, investigating both the process of inference that takes place as well as the specific inferences that are made.
Many of our social activities involve judging other people: who we like, who receives our vote, who gets a job. And although misperceptions and misunderstandings can result, decisions such as these are based on our inferences about the character of the person in question. Perry R. Hinton considers the range of influences upon interpersonal perception, from the types of information available to a perceiver to different processes of thought. He not only discusses the question of what information leads to which inferences but also what being accurate means with respect to interpersonal perception.
Employing his experience of disseminating psychology to a wide audience, Perry Hinton draws on current psychological research to answer these and other questions of interest to anyone seeking to understand the process of interpersonal perception.
Synopsis
What are other people like? How do we decide if someone is friendly, honest or clever? What assumptions do we develop about them and what explanations do we give for their behaviour? The Perception of People examines key topics in psychology to explore how we make sense of other people (and ourselves). Do our decisions result from careful consideration and a desire to produce an accurate perception? Or do we jump to conclusions in our judgements and rely on expectations and stereotypes?
To answer these questions the book examines models of person perception and provides an up-to-date and detailed account of the central psychological research in this area, focusing in particular on the social cognitive approach. It also considers and reflects on the involvement of culture in cognition, and includes coverage of relevant research in culture and language that influence the way we think and speak about others.
As well as providing a valuable text in social psychology, The Perception of People also offers a direction for the integration of ideas from cognitive and social psychology with those of cultural psychology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy and social history. Clear explanation of modern research is placed in historical and cultural context to provide a fuller understanding of how psychologists have worked to understand how people interpret the world around them and make sense of the people within it.
Ideal reading for students of social psychology, this engaging text will also be useful in subject areas such as communication studies and media studies, where the perception of people is highly relevant.