A colleague in the office was very quiet and conservative. She gave the impression that she was unfriendly and withdrawn so just my other colleagues, I avoided her as much as I could. One day, we were left in the office alone. She came over to me during tea break and offered me some snacks. We ended up having a lively conversation and I discovered that she was a very eloquent and friendly person.
Social psychological theory explains how an individual tend to compare themselves to others and thus forming a first impression based on the comparison. I assumed that my colleague was unfriendly because she was quiet (Buunk & chaufeli, 2017). This was based on my own outspoken and loud personality. I assumed that she must be opposite of me because of the different forms of expressions that we exhibited. This is a form of downward comparison because I considered myself better than my colleague (Shibutani, 2017). I found my personality and self expression better.
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The colleague had an average physical attractiveness. With this in mind, I strongly believed that my colleague was reserved. People who are perceived to be attractive are often presumed to be friendly (Buunk & chaufeli, 2017). This is because many are the times when people approach attractive people with the intention of being their friend (Fredman et al., 2015). Moreover, this becomes more profound if the person in question shares the same race or ethnicity with the person they associated with. However, my colleague had an average physical attractiveness. With this in mind, I strongly believed that my colleague was reserved.
Group behavior is another factor that led to stereotype my colleague rather than taking time to know them better. Another aspect of social psychology theory that led to my perception is social perception and non verbal behavior (Shibutani, 2017). All my assumptions stemmed from my colleague's outward perception and their general interpretation of its meaning (Fredman et al., 2015). Social psychological theory describes false impressions of all as mentioned through downward comparison, physical attractiveness, social perception and non verbal behavior.
References
Buunk, B. P., & chaufeli, W. B. (2017). Burnout: A perspective from social comparison theory. In Professional burnout (pp. 52-69). Routledge.
Fredman, L. A., Buhrmester, M. D., Gomez, A., Fraser, W. T., Talaifar, S., Brannon, S. M., & Swann Jr, W. B. (2015). Identity fusion, extreme progroup behavior, and the path to defusion. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9 (9), 468-480.
Shibutani, T. (2017). Society and Personality: Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology . Routledge.
