TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond Observation
T2 - Manipulating Circumstances to Detect Affordances and Infer Traits
AU - Pick, Cari M.
AU - Neuberg, Steven L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by funding to Steven Neuberg from the Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University.
Funding Information:
We thank Doug Kenrick, Lani Shiota, Clive Wynne, David Funder, Eric Amazeen, Nia Amazeen, and the Kenberger group for their helpful discussions during the development of these ideas. Any errors are ours alone. We have no known conflict of interest to disclose. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by funding to Steven Neuberg from the Arizona State University Foundation for a New American University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2022/5
Y1 - 2022/5
N2 - Social perceivers seek to understand the opportunities and threats others potentially afford—for example, whether a teammate will behave tenaciously or a romantic partner, faithfully. We typically detect affordances and draw trait inferences by observing behaviors that reveal or predict others’ likely intentions and characteristics. However, detection and inference from simple observation are often difficult (e.g., even dishonest people are frequently honest, people often mask unpopular beliefs). In such cases, we propose that people test, actively manipulating others’ circumstances to reveal hard-to-observe affordances and characteristics. The Observation-Testing Model is a framework predicting circumstances under which testing is more likely to happen, which affordances and characteristics are more likely to be tested for, and which people are more likely to test and be tested. We identify preliminary support for the model from a range of literatures (e.g., employment assessment, coming-of-age rituals, dating processes) and identify areas needing further research.
AB - Social perceivers seek to understand the opportunities and threats others potentially afford—for example, whether a teammate will behave tenaciously or a romantic partner, faithfully. We typically detect affordances and draw trait inferences by observing behaviors that reveal or predict others’ likely intentions and characteristics. However, detection and inference from simple observation are often difficult (e.g., even dishonest people are frequently honest, people often mask unpopular beliefs). In such cases, we propose that people test, actively manipulating others’ circumstances to reveal hard-to-observe affordances and characteristics. The Observation-Testing Model is a framework predicting circumstances under which testing is more likely to happen, which affordances and characteristics are more likely to be tested for, and which people are more likely to test and be tested. We identify preliminary support for the model from a range of literatures (e.g., employment assessment, coming-of-age rituals, dating processes) and identify areas needing further research.
KW - group processes
KW - information gathering
KW - interpersonal processes
KW - observation-testing model
KW - person perception
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126018933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85126018933&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/10888683221076688
DO - 10.1177/10888683221076688
M3 - Article
C2 - 35227155
AN - SCOPUS:85126018933
SN - 1088-8683
VL - 26
SP - 160
EP - 179
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Review
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Review
IS - 2
ER -