Beispiel 2: „Upward and downward social comparisons “
We look at a person and immediately a certain impression of his character forms itself in us. A glance, a few spoken words are sufficient to tell us a story about a highly complex matter. We know that such impressions form with remarkable rapidity and with great ease. Subsequent observation may enrich or upset our first view, but we can no more prevent its rapid growth that we can avoid perceiving a given visual object or hearing a melody…. (Asch, 1946, p. 258)
In order to successfully navigate through our social environment, we routinely form impressions of other people. One way to do so is by observing and interpreting their behavior. Research on person perception has demonstrated that we tend to immediately draw dispositional inferences regarding a person’s characteristics from their behavior. For example, when we observe a person fiddling with their hands and blushing while in a conversation, we may automatically infer that this person is anxious, without considering situational constraints that may equally have caused their behavior. After all, this person may have been approached with an awkward question, which would make everybody feel uncomfortable.
Research has shown that such spontaneous trait inferences are drawn automatically, regardless of whether or not we have to goal to form an impression of a person. Moreover, we tend to draw such inferences even when we are fully aware of some situational factors causing the behavior and we process all other further information through the lens of such initial impressions.
Auszug aus: Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41, 258.