Person perception

Person perception is the process of learning about other people. It refers to the human fascination with explaining behaviour of others. When other people are looking directly at us, we process their features more fully and faster, and we remember them better than when people do not look at us (Hood & Macrae, 2007)

The prefrontal cortex is active when we process information about other people, rather than animals or objects (Mason & Macrae, 2004). Harris & Fiske (2006/7) showed that processing information about members of certain social groups like the homeless did not activate the prefrontal cortex - this was interpreted as dehumanisation of these groups. Krendl, Moran & Ambady (2012) showed that such dehumanisation only happens when homelessness is treated as unchangeable and not a matter of choice.

We form initial impressions based on facial apperance in less than 100ms (Bar, Neta, & Linz, 2006). Children as young as 3 years old infer character from faces (Cogsdill, Todorov, Spelke & Banaji, 2014).

Assessment made about instructors by students after 1 semester and after watching 10 second clips of lectures were highly correlated (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993). People judge competence of political candidates from faces showed for 1 second, and base their political voting decisions on this judgement (Todorov, Mandisodza, Goren, & Hall, 2005). People can accurately determine sexual and political orientation from photos of faces (Rule, Ambady, Adams, & Macrae, 2008; Rule & Ambady, 2010).

When it comes to forming impressions, the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later. Belief perseverance: the tendency to stick with an initial judgement even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider.

Particularly quickly perceived are threat and the trustworthiness of others (Bar, Neta & Linz, 2006).

Facial expressions of anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust and sadness are universal, and most likely these expressions had an adaptive function. However, cultures dictate what emotion people are supposed to show in what conditions (Susskind et al, 2008).

In America, men are discouraged from showing emotional displays, like crying, but women are allowed. In Japan, women are discouraged from displaying uninhibited smiles. In America, it is suspicious when people don't look them directly in the eye, but in Nigeria, Puerto Rico, and Thailand, direct eye contact is considered disrespectful.

People who walk faster are perceived as happier and more powerful than those who walk more slowly (Montepare & Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988).

Emotions and mood are accurately evaluated based on scarce information such as point light displays (Clarke et al, 2005).

Nonverbal behaviour refers to any type of communication that doesn't involve speaking, including facial expressions, body language, touching, voice patterns, and interpersonal distance. Decoding nonverbal behaviour was learned before the development of language (Walker-Andrews, 2008). It differs cross-culturally, more abundant and shorter physical distances and more touching in warmer places (Pennebaker, Rime & Blankenship, 1996).

• Gaze: frequent eye contact is interpreted as liking or friendliness (Kleinke, 1986), but staring is seen as anger or hostility (Ellsworth & Carlsmith, 1973).
• Gestures: hand shakes and other appropriate touching produces positive reactions (Levav & Argo, 2010). Hand shake quality affects assessments of personality and final hiring recommendations (Chaplin, Philips, Brown & Clanton, 2000).
• Scents: smell of ovulating women increased men's testosterone (Miller & Maner, 2010). The smell of happy people induces happiness in other (de Groot et al, 2015).

People (including experts) are only moderately good in detecting when others are lying (Bond & DePaulo, 2006). Meta-analysis showed that people detect lies correctly 54% of the time.

People are better able to detect other people's true emotions when they can see their bodies but not their faces, compared to seeing their faces but not their bodies.

Liars control their facial expressions better than their bodily nonverbal behaviour (Ekman & Friesen, 1974). Linguistic style including pitch and speed can give them away.

Attribution theory is concerned with how and why ordinary people explain events as they do. It is concerned with how we attach meaning to other's behaviour and our own - for example is someone angry because they are bad-tempered or because something bad happened?

Heider (1958) put forward two main ideas:

• Internal Attribution: the process of assigning the cause of behaviour to some internal characteristic, rather than to outside forces. When we explain the behaviour of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as personality traits. For example, we attribute the behaviour of a person to their personality, motives, or beliefs
• External Attribution: the process of assigning the cause of behaviour to some situation or event outside a person's control rather than to some internal characteristic. When we try to explain our own behaviour we tend to make external attributions, such as situational or environmental features

We make an internal attribution, assuming a person's behaviour was due to something about that person - it occurs quickly and spontaneously. If we have the time and energy, we will adjust the attribution by considering the situation.

Kelly's (1967) covariation model is the best-known attribution theory. He developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to a characteristic of the person (internal), or the environment (external). The term covariation means that a person has information from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes. To dsicover the causes of behaviour, people take into account 3 kinds of evidence

• Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation (e.g Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes too, her behaviour is high in consensus. If only she smokes, it is low)
• Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations (e.g if Alison only smokes when she's out with friends her behaviour is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, it is low)
• Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs. (e.g if Alison only smokes when out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low)

People attribute causality on the basis of correlation. That is to say; we see that two things go together and we therefore assume that one causes the other. A problem that arises from this is that we may not have enough information to make that kind of judgement. According to Kelley, when this happens we fall back on past experience and look for either

• Multiple necessary causes: for example, we see an athlete win a marathon, and we reason that they must be very fit, highly motivated and have trained hard, and that they must have all of these to win
• Multiple sufficient causes: for example, we see an athlete fail a drug test, and we reason that they may be trying to cheat, or have taken a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by their coach. Any one reason would be sufficient

Fundamental attribution error: underestimating the influence of situational factors on others' behaviour, or overestimating the influence of dispositional factors on others' behaviour.

Observer effect: tendency to attribute own behaviour to situational factors, but others' behaviour to their own disposition

Quiz game study (Ross, Amabile & Steinmetz, 1977): participants played the role of questioners (asking questions), contestants (answering questions), or observers (observing interaction). Then rated general knowledge of questioner and contestant. Both contestants and observers rated more knowledgeable the person randomly assigned to the role of questioner. Actor-observer difference: actors have more information about their behaviour and factors influencing it. Behaviour of others is very salient to observer but situation face by others is not as salient. Situational factors however are salient to the actor. Fundamental attribution error occurred when contestants and observers rated questioners as having more general knowledge than contestants. Results also showed the actor-observer effect - contestants saw own general knowledge more similar to questioners' than did observers, and questioners rated own general knowledge equal to that of contestants

The fundamental attribution error is robust, but not universal. It is not evident in young children, and is more evident in Western cultures. Members of individualistic cultures prefer dispositional attributions. Collectivist culture members prefer situational explanations.

Self-enhancing bias: we attribute our own success to our ability and effort

Self-protecting bias: we attribute our own failure to external factors such as bad luck or the problem's inherent 'impossibility' (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999)

Self-enhancing biases (attributing success to stable, internal characteristics) are more common. People want to feel good about themselves, and people expect to succeed, tending to attribute internal causes to expected events. We make self-serving attributions because we want to maintain self-esteem, want other people to think well of us and admire us, and we know more about the situational factors that affect our own behaviour than we do about other people's

People with low self-esteem tend not to use self-protection bias; they attribute failures internally (Campbell & Fairey, 1985). People with low self-esteem hold more realistic self-views because they don't engage in self-serving biases as much (Lewinsohn et al, 1980).

Depressive realism: a tendency of mildly depressed people to make accurate rather than self-serving judgements, attributions and perception - "sadder but wiser" effect.