Annotated Bibliography: Perceptions and Impressions

Annotated Bibliography

Asch, S. E. (1946). Forming impressions of personality. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41(3), 258-290.

In this article, Asch describes how perceptions and impression are made in a blink of the eye. Asch talks about how remarkable this human capacity is and the impact these perceptions have on long-term impression. The author is quick to point out that while humans can perceive personality types and other characteristics, humans cannot perceive and understand a series of disconnected words or numbers. Asch spends time discussing how these first impressions are formed. Asch has several experiments where he tests different ways people form impressions. He says that this is an organized process.

Bar, M., Neta, M., & Linz, H. (2006). Very first impressions. Emotion, 6(2), 269-278.

In this article, Bar, Neta, and Linz discuss that people are naturally excellent in judging and perceiving others. They study how first impressions are often truthful. The authors point out that due to the expression and memory of faces, other individuals can subconsciously perceive the intended expression. They focus on how people’s perceptions are influenced by facial expression. The study reveals that first impressions can be formed very quickly, but when it came to judging intelligence, people were wrong. Instead the judgments or perceptions were based on personality and possible risk or threat to the individual.

Collins, E., Biernat, M., & Eidelman, S. (2009). Stereotypes in the communication and translation of person impressions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(2).

In this article, the discussion is about how individual stereotypes can alter perceptions of others. The authors discuss that race and academic status can impact perceptions in a negative manner. The authors also talk about the dangers of stereotyping during first impressions. They studied the effects of stereotypes on forming first impressions and that people from different ethnic groups or race were judged poorly. The important aspect of this article is to be wary of forming impressions based on race or ethnic background and that if an individual does form an impression this way that that individual is contributing to maintaining stereotypes.

Dunning, D. & Balceitis, E. (2013). Wishful seeing: How preferences shape visual perception. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(1).

This article talks about the dangers of seeing what we want to see in other people when forming an impression. The authors discuss that people will see what they want to see and will ignore certain cues or behaviors. This allows the individual to use personal preferences to create an impression. They also talk about how people tend to take ambiguous visual cues and create an impression from this information. The authors state that this type of thinking contributes to the assumption that people see what they want to see in others and the surrounding environment.

Human, L., Biesanz, J., Parisotto, K., & Dunn, E. (2011). Your best self helps reveal your true self: Positive self-presentation leads to more accurate personality impressions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3(23).

The authors in this article, the authors discuss how and when we try to make our best impressions, from first dates to job interviews, they state that people try their hardest to help others form accurate impressions. The authors also talk about how to accurately show personality without deception, something that happens during day-to-day encounters. Since people normally want to put “their best face forward”, it is only natural that people will emphasize their best qualities. The authors go on to note that people are more likely to form positive impressions of those individuals who have a cheery disposition. The authors also suggest that being authentic is important to projecting self-image and during that first impression encounter.