J H Koivumaki | PubMed Health

PubMed1976

The perception of self and others: acquaintanceship, affect, and actor-observer differences.

Three studies were designed to examine how people perceive themselves versus others. The main finding was that people were seen as causing positive behaviors, and situational factors were regarded as causing negative behaviors (positivity effect). This positivity effect was found to operate most strongly for perceptions of intimate others, such as spouse and friends, and less strongly for strangers and liked and disliked acquaintances. There was little support for the actor-observer difference that people view their own behavior more situationally than they do other people's behavior. It was concluded that both cognitive and motivational factors must be considered in predicting how people perceive and describe others.

Adult↗

PubMed1975

Encoding and decoding nonverbal cues of emotion.

Subjects ("senders") encoded six emotions twice, first via facial expressions and second via tone of voice. These expressions were recorded and presented for decoding to the senders and an additional group of judges. Results were as follows: (a) the ability to encode and the ability to decode both visual and auditory cues were significantly related; (b) the relationship between encoding and decoding cues of the same emotion appeared low or negative; (c) the ability to decode visual cues was significantly related to the ability to decode auditory cues, but the correlations among encoding (and decoding) scores on different emotions were low; (d) females were slightly better encoders, and significantly better decoders, than males; (e) acquaintance between sender and judge improved decoding scores among males but not among females; (f) auditory decoding scores were higher than visual decoding scores, particularly among males; (g) auditory decoding scores were relatively high if sender and judge were of the same sex, while visual decoding scores were relatively high if sender and judge were of opposite sexes; (h) decoding scores varied according to channel of communication and type of emotion transmitted.

Anger↗