Making sense of people: Coherence mechanisms
In [Book Chapter] (1997)
| Abstract | When trying to make sense of other people and ourselves, we may rely on several different kinds of cognitive processes. First, we form impressions of other people by integrating information contained in concepts that represent their traits, their behaviors, our stereotypes of the social groups they belong to, and any other information about them that seems relevant. For example, your impression of an acquaintance may be a composite of personality traits (e.g., friendly, independent), behaviors (e.g., told a joke, donated money to the food bank), and social stereotypes (e.g., woman, doctor, Chinese). Second, we understand other people by means of causal attributions in which we form and evaluate hypotheses that explain their behavior. To explain why someone is abrupt on one occasion, you may hypothesize that this person is impatient or that he or she is under pressure from a work deadline. You believe the hypothesis that provides the best available explanation of the person's behavior. A third means of making sense of people is analogy: You can understand people through their similarity to other people or to yourself. For example, you may understand the stresses that your friend is experiencing by remembering an occasion when you yourself experienced similar stresses. This will allow you to predict your friend's likely feelings and behavior. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,631 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesSarah L. Strout, Rosemarie I. Sokol, James D. Laird & Nicholas S. Thompson (2004). The Evolutionary Foundation of Perceiving One's Own Emotions. Behavior and Philosophy 32 (2):493 - 502.
Jonathan Phillips, Luke Misenheimer & Joshua Knobe (2011). The Ordinary Concept of Happiness (and Others Like It). Emotion Review 71:929-937.
Paul Thagard (2005). Testimony, Credibility, and Explanatory Coherence. Erkenntnis 63 (3):295 - 316.
Jennifer Roback Morse (2005). Rationality Means Being Willing to Say You're Sorry. Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2):204-225.
Xia Nianxi (2009). Political Slogans and Logic. Diogenes 56 (1):109-116.
Xia Nianxi (2009). Political Slogans and Logic. Diogenes 56 (1):109-116.
Hugo Mercier (2012). The Social Functions of Explicit Coherence Evaluation. Mind and Society 11 (1):81-92.
Rachana Kamtekar (2004). Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character. Ethics 114 (3):458-491.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads4 ( #178,434 of 548,973 )Recent downloads (6 months)0How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
