Evaluation and Judgment

Evaluation and Judgment
Jason M. Abele
BEH/225
May 25, 2012
Nancy Russell

Evaluation and Judgment

1. What are the different ways in which we evaluate people?

      One of the ways in which we begin to evaluate people that we encounter is through     observation. We watch them to see how they react to certain situations. Another way in which we evaluate people is through Schemata. When we meet someone for the first time, we notice a number of things about that person, their clothes, gestures they may make, manner of speaking, body build, and facial features. We then draw on these cues to fit the person into a category. No matter how little information we have or how contradictory it is, no matter how many times our initial impressions have been wrong, we still categorize people after meeting them only briefly. Associated with each category is a schema, or an organized set of beliefs and expectations based on past experience that is presumed to apply to all members of that category (Morris, 2010).

2. How do these factors play a role in our expectations of other people?

An individual should never demand someone to give that which they do not want; and one can never give to someone that which they do not have. We have to realize that everything human has its limits. Asking people to do what is beyond their ability is like trying to catch the wind. It cannot be done.   Over time, as we continue to interact with people, we add new information about them to our mental files. However, our later experiences generally do not influence us nearly as much as our earliest impressions. This is known as the primacy effect.

3. What are the disadvantages of these expectations?

There can be lots of disadvantages that come from placing expectations on other people. Often times, people simply do not "meet" our expectations of them, or, wittingly, or unwittingly, we place unfair or unrealistic expectations upon them. When they fail to live up to them, we condemn...