Social Psychology

As human beings, we possess our own set of unique characteristics which determine how we will perceive situations or circumstances, as well as other individuals. These sets of characteristics that each of us possesses (each one’s unique from the other) are studied under the branch of social psychology. Social psychology expands on these characteristics as the influence of social interactions over our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Social perception is the correct term for our “unique characteristics”, which are gradually developed from our intake on the social world, including personal experience, observation of others, and received information.

The first major association with social perception covers the idea of forming impressions. An impression is an individual’s initial opinion of another person or individual. A first impression is usually either good or bad, and is very difficult to change after established. People will find more favorable first impressions with individuals who are similar to them, or with individuals who are physically attractive, although these are not the only limitations or determining factors. Personal disclosure, social schemas, stereo-types, and self-fulfilling prophecies also deal with the forming of first impressions. Reasonable personal disclosure is healthy for a first impression, while extensive personal disclosure can lead to disaster. Social schema is the mould or representation we shape for other individuals to help us better understand and organize our social environment. Because impressions are our sense of judgment per se, we use them to compare present reactions to a past mould or representation of another person. Thus the reason why making a first impression is so important is because it will become the social judgment block, until an extremely notable or detrimental action has taken place to either increase or decrease the positive impression of another’s impression upon yourself. Stereotypes are pre-judgments of an individual based on their belonging to a group (e.g. religion, race), rather than their own personal characteristics. This should typically be avoided, but at times can be very accurate. Self-fulfilling prophecies arise when you pre-perceive a person in a certain aspect, negative or positive, and as their actions respond to yours, could create a truth which may have never been (e.g. Steve thinks: “You know that John’s not such a bad guy.” | John thinks “Steve hates me”, and says “Hey Steve! You suck!” | Steve’s response: “Whatever jerk!”).

            The next major association to social perception deals with attributions, the personal explanation of events. The two types of explanations are defined as dispositional causes, causes based on an individual’s lacks or talents, and situational causes, causes based on the outside world and environmental factors.  Attributing a failure to an individual’s laziness would be a dispositional cause, while attributing a failure to an unavoidable accident would be a situational cause. Personal cognitive biases such as the fundamental attribution error, actor-observer effect, and the self-serving bias further influence attributions. The fundamental attribution error, which commonly takes place more than not, is when an individual overlooks situational causes, and links the majority of an outcome to a dispositional cause. In other words the person blames the defect on the person’s flaws, rather than taking into consideration the situational causes which might have been involved. The actor-observer effect suggests that individuals are likely to blame situational causes for misfortunes or unfavorable happenings rather than dispositional causes. They will blame environmental factors rather than themselves. In reverse, the self-serving bias suggests that individuals will attribute success or good fortune to dispositional causes rather than to situational causes. Some individuals will credit themselves when a positive happening occurs, rather than calling it an act of luck.