0.3 Individuals and their situations  (Page 2/7)

This means that if you think someone is else is nice or competent, it might actually make them become nicer and more competent. I don't know the exact circumstances under which that is true, clearly in some instances one person perceiving another as competent is going to have some influence, while in other circumstances it could have none. Perhaps if the target person cared about the perceivers opinion or cared about them in general it might have more of an impact. I think that is why in that study the perceiver had an influence on the target - because they were being set up, so he had high expectations of the other person. If someone cares about someone else or places more value on the interaction then the beliefs of the other person are going to carry more weight.

In this demonstration of behavioral confirmation in social interaction, the perceivers' stereotyped conceptions of other people had initiated a chain of events that had produced actual behavioral confirmation of these conceptions. The initially erroneous impressions of the perceivers had, in a sense, become real. The "beautiful people" had become "good people," not because they necessarily possessed the socially valued dispositions that had been attributed to them but because the actions of the perceivers based upon their stereotyped beliefs had erroneously confirmed and validated these beliefs.

Other important and widespread social stereotypes also can and do channel social interaction so as to create their own social reality within the context of individual relationships. Empirical research has documented the behavioral conformation of stereotypes associated with race and gender. Moreover, the very act of labeling another person may initiate a chain of events that induces that person to behave in accord with that label. Empirical investigations have demonstrated the behavioral confirmation of labeling other people, for example, as hostile or non-hostile and as intelligent or non-intelligent. Even when individuals attempt to use social interaction as opportunities to evaluate and assess the accuracy of beliefs, hypotheses and, theories about other people, their "reality-testing" procedures may channel social interaction in ways that provide behavioral confirmation for the beliefs, hypotheses, and theories under scrutiny.

I wonder how testing your own beliefs about someone else plays out in reality. There are going to be beliefs you know you are testing out and beliefs your unconscious mind is testing out for you. You form many beliefs and have many different views about people that you aren't aware of. You probably project this via your subtle mannerisms without your awareness. In that way, you are testing out the beliefs you have about someone else completely without knowing what you are doing.

The consequences of behavioral confirmation processes in social interaction and interpersonal relationships may be both profound and pervasive. As consequences of behavioral confirmation processes, individuals may construct for themselves social worlds in which the behavior of those with whom they interact reflects, verifies, maintains, and justifies their preexisting conception of other people, including many highly stereotyped assumptions about human nature. It is as though, as a consequence of behavioral confirmation processes, individuals construct their social worlds in their own images of the social world.