David A. Kenny
March 20, 2021
Chapter 1 of Interpersonal
Perception: The Foundation of Social Relationships . See especially
pages 7-12.
Acquaintance has both quantitative and
qualitative aspects. Spending more time with a person reflects the
quantitative aspect whereas feeling close to someone reflects the qualitative
aspect. The two aspects are highly correlated, but we know of instances
in which we spend a great deal of time with someone
yet we do not feel acquainted. In my research, I have primarily studied
quantitative acquaintance.
Perhaps the lowest level of acquaintance is what has been called zero acquaintance. It is the condition in which a perceiver observes a target, but the perceiver does not interact with the target. Zero acquaintance provides a reasonable baseline to evaluate the effect of acquaintance on person perception. The First Impressions page reports on studies at zero acquaintance.
Research has also focused on what is called thin slices, which has nothing to do with
pizza. The idea of a thin slice is that a perceiver views a little bit of the
target's behavior. This slice research was pioneered by the late Nalani Ambady.
Interactions can be structured in one of
two ways. Interactions are either one-on-one versus group and
in a controlled versus uncontrolled setting. Interactions with others in the
laboratory may be brief, lasting a few minutes to a few hours. However, most
studies of interpersonal perception take place in relatively uncontrolled
settings: classrooms and residential settings. Some studies of interpersonal
perception vary on how long the perceivers have known
the target.
Most research in interpersonal perception examines the perception of
personality as opposed to the judgments that are made of moods, opinions, and
beliefs, or the thoughts that others are having. When individuals are asked to
describe others, a bulk of their description can be
viewed as a trait judgments. So most studies of
interpersonal perception focus on trait ratings: For example, how intelligent,
on a seven-point scale, is Lady Gaga?
And Big Two
The Big Five is a convenient way for organizing personality traits.
The Big Five factors with examples are:
Extroversion: sociable,
energetic, active
Agreeableness: warm, nice, pleasant
Conscientiousness: helpful, hard-working, obedient
Emotional Stability: stable, relaxed, independent
Culture: intelligent, imaginative, polished
In some formulations of the Big Five (see
especially the NEO of Costa and McCrae), the last factor is called
Openness. Although the Big Five provides a close approximation of
personality in non-Western cultures, there is evidence that additional factors
are needed.
In some formulations of the Big Five
(i.e., the NEO of Costa and McCrae), the last factor is called Openness to
Experience.
As an example of the Big Five, how would
you rate Homer Simpson? On a 1 to 10 scale, here are my ratings:
Extroversion: 9
Agreeableness: 7
Conscientiousness: 2
Emotional Stability: 7
Culture: intelligent, -55 (OK, 1)
See Figure 1.1 on page 11 of my 2020 book
for how Homer is actually rated.
Alternatively, there is
what might be called the Big Two. There are many formulations of two-factor
theories of personality, but the best known (especially in Canada!) is the
Wiggins Circumplex. The two factors are Friendly-Hostile and
Dominant-Submissive.
I have no strong commitment to the Big Two
or Big Five as the way to organize personality. I use them because they
provide a way for sorting personality traits into a
manageable number of categories.
Among applied psychologists and lay
people, the Myers-Briggs scale is very popular. Most personality
psychologists believe that this scale is highly scientifically problematic.
Here is how the Myers-Briggs
lines up in terms of the Big Five.
Extroversion:
Extroversion vs. Introversion
Agreeableness: Feeling vs. Thinking
Conscientiousness: Judging vs. Perceiving
Emotional Stability: no scale
Culture: Sensing vs. Intuition
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R.
R. (1995). Domains and facets: Hierarchical personality assessment using the
Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 64, 21-50.
Kenny, D. A., & Kenny, D. T. (2006). The personalities of The Simpsons. In A.
Brown (Ed.), D’oh! The
psychology of the Simpsons
(pp. 187-200). Dallas TX: BenBella Books.
Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an
adequate taxonomy of personality attributes: Replicated factor structure in
peer nomination personality ratings. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66, 574-583.
Wiggins, J. S. (1979). A
psychological taxonomy of trait-descriptive terms: The interpersonal domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 395-412.
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