Influence of information on bias in social perception.

This article is based on a symposium on social perception and examines certain factors influencing one individual's appraisal of another. In so doing the paper primarily concerns with the kinds of information on which such an appraisal is based. Specifically, the article discusses perceptions or conceptualizations based on the information contained in projective-test protocols. In the ordinary course of interpersonal affairs one individual perceives another intermittently in the performance of varied sequences of social acts. The types of acts he observes are limited by such factors as frequency of contact, the relationship which maintains between the observer and the observed, constants and variables operating on the observed individual during the periods of observation, etc. Hence, a man's employer may possess inadequate or inappropriate information for describing his semiprivate behavior in the family situation while yet being able to render a valid characterization of the man's interpersonal relations at his work. Conversely, a wife might conceivably render a fairly adequate characterization, i.e., one that would provide a basis for valid prediction of certain aspects of his semiprivate life and yet be quite inaccurate in her prediction of his behavior in situations with which she was unfamiliar.