rich and poor children were shown circles of various sizes and asked which ones were the same sizes as some coins. The poor children consistently chose circles that were much too large. Why? A quarter looks bigger to the poor than to the rich.44
Perceptual sets are the product of our unique life experiences. The lessons life has taught you necessarily differ from those life has taught others. As a result, we may perceive the same stimulus differently.
We Close Our Mind
A key factor in how we view our world is the extent to which we open ourselves to new experiences. We select what we will perceive by deciding whether to expose ourselves to a variety of types and sources of information. How difficult is it for you to expose yourself to new ideas, people, places, or experiences?
For example, when driving through a poverty-stricken area on a nice cool day, some people immediately roll up their car windows and keep their eyes focused straight ahead, looking neither to their right nor to their left. They tell themselves that they are doing this for self-protection, but rolling up the windows and not looking out of them is also a means of avoiding contact with some of the depressing sights and sounds of a blighted area.
Whenever we close our eyes or minds, we bias the selection process, ending up with a distorted view of society and others’ lives. When it comes to selective attention, for example, you are more likely to overhear someone talking about buying a home if you are a real estate agent than if you are a computer engineer. When in a crowd, most people actively filter what doesn’t interest them and respond selectively to their preferred conversations, exhibiting what psychologists call “the cocktail party effect.”
Now, think about a relationship that you recently terminated or are planning to end. Since making the decision, have you become more aware of the negative qualities of the person you broke up or are breaking up with? When we like or love someone, we tend to perceive primarily their positive qualities. This is called the halo effect. However, when our perception of another person changes for the worse, we are more likely to perceive only their negative qualities. We call this the horn effect.
We Freeze Our First Impression
How important are first impressions—initial judgments of others? Do the snap judgments we make about others matter?
Research suggests that assessments we make during the first few minutes of meeting someone strongly influence the relationship’s course. Study results reveal that students who reported that another person made a positive first impression on them were more likely to develop a friendly relationship with that person, even if given only 3 minutes to make their initial evaluation. The results support the predicted outcome value theory developed by Mike Sunnafrank, which says that when we first meet another person, based on our first impression of the person, we are able to predict the probable outcome of our relationship.45
How do you form a first impression of someone? What makes you decide if you like or dislike someone? It turns out that people judge one another on two main qualities: warmth (whether they come across as friendly and well-intentioned) and competence (whether we think they have the ability to deliver on their intentions). We view positively those people we believe to possess both qualities, but develop negative perceptions toward other blends. For example, we tend to envy and even may wish harm to those we judge to be competent but cold, while people we see as warm but incompetent elicit pity.46
Because sometimes we rely on inaccurate mental shortcuts such as stereotypes, first impressions can dramatically affect perception. A first impression—or primacy effect, as it is sometimes called—even can affect the course or outcome of an event or relationship. And even if our first impressions are wrong, we tend to hold on to them—although doing so may be illogical. We may cling to an inaccurate first impression and reshape the conflicting information available to us until it conforms to the image we hold. As a consequence, we may never come to experience the real person—only our erroneous perception of him or her—and will base our responses to that person on that faulty conception.
Suppose, for example, a new employee, Kevin, is hired at work. You tell a good friend and coworker this, and your friend says, “Yeah, I know him. He worked in my unit 2 years back. He’s nothing but trouble—always looking to use people. He’ll bleed you of your ideas, pass them off as his own, and leave you behind as he builds a name for himself.” Your friend’s evaluation may be unfair, biased, or simply wrong. Kevin might have changed during the past 2 years, or your friend’s initial assessment of Kevin might be incomplete. But your friend’s words will likely influence how you interact with Kevin, and you’ll probably find reasons to substantiate your first impressions of him because you closed your mind once you formed it.
We Exhibit the Behaviors of a Lazy Perceiver
A stereotype is a generalization about people, places, or events that many members of a society hold. The term stereotype is derived from an old printing practice, a shortcut in which the typesetter repeatedly used the same type to print a text. Metaphorically, when we stereotype, we repeatedly use the same thoughts or fixed mental images to “print” the same judgment about someone over and over again. We apply the judgment to all members of a group, failing to acknowledge the uniqueness of any one individual in the group.
Stereotypes affect how we process stimuli. For one thing, we remember more favorable information about in-groups and retain more unfavorable information about out-groups. Our stereotypes also cause us to disregard any distinguishing characteristics that individuals may have that set them apart from the stereotyped group. Instead of responding to an individual, we respond to our expectations, assume they are valid, and behave as if they had occurred. When we stereotype, we judge people on the basis of what we believe about the group that we have placed them in. We emphasize similarities and overlook differences. We oversimplify, overgeneralize, and grossly exaggerate our observations.
Lazy perceivers develop prejudice, which is a biased, negative attitude or prejudgment toward particular groups or social categories of people. Because lazy perceivers also rely on stereotyping as their “go-to” or default perceptual process, they fail to engage in careful observation or note differences among people. Such behavior leads to the pigeonholing and rigid categorization of others.
Even when we believe that we are prejudice free, we can harbor unconscious bias, stereotypes, both positive and negative, that exist in our subconscious and influence our behavior. Unwittingly, people rely on unconscious mental shortcuts that are rooted in stereotypes. These mental shortcuts creep into our personal and professional lives.47 Unconscious bias, for example, promotes racial profiling. For many years, police have stopped and frisked people on the basic of their skin color rather than their behavior. Some individuals have been placed on “no fly” or “watch” lists simply because of their Muslim names. Although most Caucasian Americans perceive themselves to be unbiased, when unconscious biases are measured, a majority link African Americans with negative traits. In fact, job applicants with “Black-sounding” names are less likely to get call-backs than those with “White-sounding” names—and applicants called Jennifer are likely to be offered a lower salary than applicants called John.48 Thus, unconscious bias contributes to a lack of diversity. (To test your own unconscious bias go to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit.)
A stereotype of any group is based on incomplete information. As we noted earlier, although stereotypes may be partly true, they are never completely true. To improve our perceptual capabilities, we must make an effort to see differences as well as similarities among people. When we make a
