Abstract
This chapter is concerned with the way people form impressions of other people and make judgements of them, and in particular how such judgements might become more accurate. This is important for social workers and other professionals, but also for people generally, for example in choosing who to work and live with! We discuss the selective and creative nature of perception; accuracy in judging emotion and personality; nonverbal communication and how best to interpret it; and some of the influences on our liking some people more than others.
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Further Reading
The active nature of perception, and other sources of error in our judgements of others are discussed by Argyle (1978), Vernon (1964), Cook (1982). A readable and sophisticated discussion of non-verbal communication can be found in Schneider et al. (1979). On accurate judges see Cook (1979), Schneider et al. (1979). H. C. Smith (1973) provides a radically different perspective. Interpersonal attraction is more a standard textbook topic, e.g. Hilgard et al. (1979). On love, the best book so far is Walster and Walster (1978) though I would have liked them to use Lee’s work (e.g. 1978) to organise their book, rather than as just one approach.
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© 1984 British Association of Social Workers
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Nicolson, P., Bayne, R. (1984). Forming Impressions of People. In: Applied Psychology for Social Workers. Practical Social Work. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17356-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17356-3_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-34067-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17356-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)