Perceiving Others

Originally published in 1979 Perceiving Others is an excellent short introduction to the area of social psychology known as âperson perceptionâ âsocial perceptionâ or âimpression formationâ â how people interpret each othersâ moods predict each othersâ behaviour and sum up each othersâ characters. The way people see each other determines the way they behave towards each other making the study of âperson perceptionâ essential to the understanding of social behaviour. Mark Cook poses three questions about how people form opinions of others: what are the processes involved what information is used and how and how accurate are they? He provides an answer to these questions in the three main sections of the book giving a comprehensive survey of the theory and research arising from the issues involved. The topics covered include the meaning of trait descriptions intuition social skill and non-verbal communication the impression formation paradigm stereotypes implicit personality theories attribution theory Cronbachâs components and psychiatric diagnosis. By drawing many of his illustrations from everyday encounters the author effectively bridges the gap between theory and reality to create a thoroughly readable and comprehensible study. . Language: English