ABSTRACT
We have briefly considered some of the phenomena of person perception, and we have seen how the effective stimulus consists of the complete pattern of verbal and nonverbal behaviors presented more or less consciously by the stimulus person. Now as we begin to focus our attention on the more narrowly bounded body of attribution theory, we turn to the contribution of the perceiver. Anyone who has listened to the court testimony of several eyewitnesses to a crime knows that different perceivers can form quite divergent impressions from exactly the same stimulus material. The same is true for more routine attributions. Whether the perceiver's role is described as performing the constructive process, as engaging in categorization, or as making dispositional attributions, it is an active role that contributes meaning to the perceptual result. To clarify the perceiver's place in the process, we first consider some of the factors that can contribute to accuracy in interpersonal judgment and then identify some of the motivational influences that can lead to perceptual and attributional distortion. The chapter concludes with an outline of the basic stages of the attribution process.
