Person PerceptionThe mental processes we use to form judgments and draw conclusions about the characteristics and motivations of others are called person perception. If you break it down, a person is a human being and perception is the process of integrating or organizing and interpreting sensations. In short, this means that a person's perception is the cues we take to judge another person. It's about forming an impression of someone without first knowing them. Perception of a person is an active and subjective process that always occurs in an interpersonal context. Every interpersonal context has three key elements: they are:1. The characteristics of the individuals you are trying to “gauge”.2. Your own characteristics as a perceiver.3. The specific situation in which the process takes place. Each component influences the conclusions you draw about the others. As a psychological process, a person's perception follows certain basic principles. All directors will be illustrated by a class scenario.1. Your reactions to others are determined by your perception of them, not who they really are. You treat others according to how you perceive them. For example, when you walk into the classroom on the first day of school, you almost instantly begin to pass judgment on everyone. There are three seats left and you quickly decide not to sit next to the big, burly man with the sullen face and the short, ugly man who talks to himself. Why, because you perceived them as potentially threatening, but the truth may be that the man with the scowl is a very tired florist who comes home too late. As for the other guy, he might be talking to a recorder...... middle of paper ...... his current study explored projection in cohabiting partners' close relationships. In one study, structural equation modeling revealed significant components of projection when spouses reported their partner's depressive symptoms. In another study, the same analysis was expanded to include spouses' reports of a variety of effective states, attitudes, and behaviors of their partners. The degree of projection was shown to increase with increasing magnitude of correlation between spouses' opinions. A cognitive process that explains this finding is proposed, as well as a view of projection as a heuristic device rather than as a bias. I believe this is true and I think we should continue to study people's perceptions. It's very interesting for me to read how and why we choose to be friends with different people..