Parameters That Shape How We Perceive Other People’s Personalities
As human beings, we are always entitled to daily prejudice and judgment – which can either go positively or negatively. For instance, from the moment a person sits down in church and faces the next person sitting next to him or her, chances are, the person will cast some judgment upon the seatmate. It is very much like profiling the seatmate based on what the person knows, what his or her experiences are, his or her background, and more. Some of the parameters when perceiving another person’s personalities are social norms, physical characteristics, salience, social categorization, and the implicit personality theory.
An article written by Kendra Cherry on verywell.com discussed the ways people form impressions of others. Such factors that can influence the views and opinions that someone can form of others can be anywhere from the characteristics and attributes of the person that the observer is looking at, to the context of the scenario, the personal attributes of the observer, and past experiences (Cherry).
According to the website, such parameters include social norms, physical characteristics, salience, social categorization, and the implicit personality theory (Cherry). The website noted that the implicit personality theory pertains to the idea that the observer will follow patterns about how he or she perceives the other person. When the other person for instance appears happy to him or her, the observer can have a narrow judgment that the person is also friendly, accommodating, and warm.
In another article from FastCompany.com, author Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic summarized how the brain judges other people’s traits and personalities. For one, sizing up is one of the biggest factors on how a person does it. People always leave traces of their own personality on each judgment, and it is never a one-way process. The same way that the observer puts prejudice on the other person has the same equal process that the latter will have on the former (Chamorro-Premuzic).
Another important note that the same article by Chamorro-Premuzic mentioned is the way that the space plays a major role in the perception. For instance, hanging out and conversing with the person in a restaurant can produce certain perceptions that are different when one hangs out with the same person inside a hotel room.
Studying people’s perceptions about others can be a very interesting subject to discuss. There are various medical professionals, experts, and psychologists around who can always put substance and interest upon these kinds of subjects.
Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas. “This Is How Your Brain Judges Others’ Personalities.” Fast Company & Inc., 31 Aug. 2015, www.fastcompany.com/3050365/this-is-how-your-brain-judges-otherspersona lities.
Cherry, Kendra. “What Is Person Perception?” Verywell, 19 Mar. 2016, www.verywell.com/person-perception-2795900.