Person perception, reputations, and shared information in the social network context

这项资助支持的研究超越了传统的研究印象形成的方法。 印象的形成一直是社会心理学的核心课题，一般认为印象形成是一个认知过程。 相反，这项研究在社交网络的背景下考察了印象，当许多人与他人互动和分享信息时就会出现这种情况。 人们对他人的印象是社会生活的基本工具。 它们影响我们是否相信某人的意见，或者选择与某人交朋友，约会或合作。 虽然现有的研究已经澄清了形成印象所涉及的许多认知过程，但其他重要方面仍然没有得到研究，特别是感知者如何整合他人沿着的关于另一个人的信息，而不仅仅是依靠第一手观察。 印象形成的更全面的图景不仅涉及个体感知者的认知过程，还涉及感知者主动从他人那里获取信息的二元互动过程，以及社交网络中的信息流动过程。 该研究使用计算建模和实验方法来解决四个关键问题：（1）当感知者可以主动选择他们接收到的关于一个人的信息时，印象如何不同，而不是局限于固定的，预先指定的信息主体（如大多数现有研究）？ (2)感知者是否意识到他人的一般声誉，这些声誉如何影响感知者自己的印象？ (3)感知者是否意识到社会传播信息中的潜在偏见，他们能否纠正这种偏见？ (4)当A对B了解很多（从第三方那里了解到的），而B对A一无所知时，不对称的熟悉度是如何影响人际互动的？ 由此产生的研究结果将对偏见和陈规定型观念产生影响，这些偏见和陈规定型观念也是通过社交网络形成和传播的，并将解决对人们日常生活很重要的问题。除了这项工作将带来的科学进步外，该项目还旨在促进本科生和研究生的教学，培训和学习。

The research supported by this grant innovates beyond traditional approaches to studying impression formation. Impression formation, which has been a core topic in social psychology for a long time, has generally been treated as a purely cognitive process within one perceiver. This research instead examines impressions in the context of the social network, as emerging when many people interact and share information with others. People's impressions of others are fundamental tools for social life. They influence whether we trust someone's opinion, or choose to befriend, date, or cooperate with someone. While existing research has clarified many of the cognitive processes involved in forming impressions, other important aspects remain unexamined, especially the ways perceivers incorporate information about another person passed along by others rather than relying solely on firsthand observations. A fuller picture of impression formation must involve not only cognitive processes within the individual perceiver, but also dyadic interaction processes through which perceivers actively elicit information from others, and processes of information flow in social networks. The research proposed uses computational modeling and experimental approaches to address four key questions: (1) How do impressions differ when perceivers can actively choose what and how much information they receive about a person, rather than being limited to a fixed, pre-specified body of information (as in most existing research)? (2) Are perceivers aware of others' general reputations, and how do those reputations affect the perceiver's own impression? (3) Are perceivers aware of potential biases in socially transmitted information and can they correct for such bias? (4) How does asymmetric familiarity influence interpersonal interaction, when person A knows a lot about B (learned from third parties) but B does not know A at all? The research findings resulting from this will have implications for prejudice and stereotyping, which are also constructed and spread through social networks, and will address questions that are important to people's daily lives. In addition to the scientific advances that will result from this work, the project also aims to promote teaching, training, and learning among undergraduate and graduate students.