The Psychology of Interpersonal Perception

Our knowledge of other people is not strictly limited by the information we have about them. We often make inferences based on one action seen out of context. For example, we regularly assume that a person who helps an old lady to cross a street is caring and that someone playing loud music on a public beach is selfish.The Psychology of Interpersonal Perceptionexamines these conclusions, investigating both the process of inference that takes place as well as the specific inferences that are made. Many of our social activities involve judging other people: who we like, who receives our vote, who gets a job. And although misperceptions and misunderstandings can result, decisions such as these are based on our inferences about the character of the person in question. Perry R. Hinton considers the range of influences upon interpersonal perception, from the types of information available to a perceiver to different processes of thought. He not only discusses the question of whatinformation leads to which inferences but also what being accurate means with respect to interpersonal perception. Employing his experience of disseminating psychology to a wide audience, Perry Hinton draws on current psychological research to answer these and other questions of interest to anyone seeking to understand the process of interpersonal perception.