Chapter Five

• 1. the impulse to receive stimulation
• 2. the impulse to express experiences
• 3. the impulse to assert oneself
• 4. the impulse to enhance enjoyment of certain activites

• Excitment, Variety or Change of pace
• Many times we seek encounters with others simply to get excitement, variety, or a change of pace from an existence that may be temporarily stale.
• In the U.S. certain time periods seem more likely to trigger this- weekends, late Spring/early Summer when TV programmings change

• To tell others we trust -- those who will comfort & protect us (unpleasant) & share & delight in pleasant experiences. Also motivated by a desire to compare our experiences with others.
• Each of us have a reservoir of private experiences that at some point must overflow onto others. Usually we'll try to find specific others who will provide protection, comfort, and security for unpleasent experiences.

Our identity is largely a result of testing its potential components against other people. We know ourselves by knowing others, by what they think of us and what they say. Each of us has to feel we have some influence or control over out psychological environment. Our ability to assert some control and to fulfill out goals affects the way we interpret our socal world.

Sometimes the desire to encounter others is associated with an event or an activity that is more fun with others than alone. When people want to share an event or an activity with someone, they may seek out new relationships.

• 1. Each person's perceptions of others are structured by his or her own cultural conditioning, education, and personal experiences.
• 2. Sometimes perceptions differ because of what we choose to observe and how we process what we've observed.
• 3. Sometimes we see only what we want to see or don't see what may be obvious to others because of our own needs, desires, or temorary emotional state.

Sometimes we see only what we want to see or don't see what may be obvious to others because of our own needs, desires, or temorary emotional state.

• Breadth of personal experience
• Ability to process complex stimuli and complex relationships
• Intelligence
• Self-insight (seeing and accepting both positive and negative qualities in oneself)
• The ability to assume a detaches role (like a thrid-person observer)

It simply means that each of us has a mental catalogue of traits in our heads. As soon as we obtain information on one trait or a cluster or traits, we seem to assume automatically that other traits will also be characteristic of the person being observed.

A way of simplifying our environment so that we can handle it.

It is inferring personally or group membership on the basis of specific features-height, skin color, vocal resonance, or baldness

We start more with an abstract category such as group membership or personality and infer specific features-"If he is Jewish, he must have a big nose."

• Is behavior due to a person's personality or due to the situation or circumstances
• Sometimes we attribute certain characteristics or qualities to others on the basis of their overt actions. It is concerned with whether a specific behavior is due to a person's personality or whether it is die to the situation or circumstances impinging on the person.

What I think that you think of me reverberates back to what I think of myself. What I think of myself, in turn, affects the way I act towards you. The way I act towards you, in tuen, influences how you feel toward yourself and the way you act towards me.

Percetual distoration caused by the perceiver's inner drives is particularly evident in the early stages of infatuation.

first impressions

last actions

• 1. Social Attraction ("he would fit into my circle of frineds")
• 2. Physical Attraction ("she is quite pretty")
• 3. Task Attraction (" my confidence in her ability to get the job done makes me what to work with her.")

true

adults teach children, previous experiences affect present & future experiences.

what we choose to observe & how we process it. We can't pay attention to all sensory cues; we attend to some & not to others.

Sometimes we see only what we want to see or don't see what others may see.

• Ignore it
• Reduce its importance
• Change the meaning of the information
• Reinterpret what we previously believed
• Infer new traits

• All humans keep a mental catalogue of traits in our heads; if a person fits one traits, we assume the other traits that go along with the trait we know.
• Example: If someone is cold, what other traits go with that?

Infer personality or group membership based on specific features

Start with abstract category, like group membership or personality, & then infer specific

• Tendency to enhance outcomes associated with our own behavior.
• Take credit for our successes
• Blame the situation or others for our failures (usuually someone we don't know or care about).

• Tendency to overestimate the influence of dispositional factors & underestimate the role of situational factors in others' behavior.
• We do so because it’s easier than having to come up with a different explanation for each situation.

Sometimes we look for only those things that will fulfill our current needs.

The cycle of our initial perceptions, our behavior based on those perceptions, the impact of our behavior on the other's perceptions & behavior, & our subsequent perceptions based on the other's responses.

Many are inclined to see the good, the pleasant, & the positive more than the less pleasant.

• When forming initial impressions of others, we tend to weigh negative events & characteristics more heavily than positive ones.
• Initially explained that negative events may be most informative. However....instead, more current research revealed that we rely more on..

How usual event/characteristic is seems to be more important factor. Atypical/unusual occurrences stand out.

• 1) Assume similar characteristics will reflect a common view of the world.
• 2) If we share a lot in common, our interaction will require less hard work.
• 3) Similar others also seem to give us a better chance of being liked.

tendency to select a person similar to yourself with respect to physical attractiveness. Maximize the attractiveness of choice while minimizing possibility of rejection.