Interpersonal Perception: how the Situation Determines Our Assessment of Another Person

The work is aimed at studying the dynamics of interpersonal perception in various situations of representation of the sitter and at different stages of the development of the situation. The study involved 126 people (74% women and 26% men) aged 18 to 60 years (M = 31.78; SD = 9.78). The subjects were randomly divided into four independent groups. Each group was shown videos, where the sitter was shown in three situations, differing in the degree of formalization of communication (passing through the entrance of the institution, passing the exam, consulting a psychologist), while the first group saw only the beginning of the situation, the second — the middle, the third — the end, and the fourth the group watched each of the videos in their entirety. It is shown that, in general, the assessments of one and the same person, in different situations of interaction, are determined not only by the appearance and behavior of the sitter, but also by the situation itself. Also, for some personal qualities, differences were found in the assessment depending on the stage of development of the communicative situation.

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