Toward a Broader Agenda for Research on Self- and Other Perception

Abstract

It is not uncommon for psychologists to grumble about the disarray in their field. Once in a while, we hear our colleagues muttering something like, What we really need to do is clean up the field and systematize the findings-someone should do all the basic studies using a common design and put it all together to establish some clear facts about what's going on. Rarely does any one researcher devote that kind of sustained attention to a set of basic problems. Yet, this is exactly what David Kenny has done for the area of social perception. In his recent book, Interpersonal Perception: A Social Relations Analysis, he summarizes more than 40 studies that he and his collaborators have conducted over the past 15 years. Kenny's book is testimony to the excitement and vibrancy that once again pervade research on how people perceive themselves and others. Interpersonal Perception is a milestone in the field, and we believe it will have a lasting impact. The book is essentially a manifesto for research on interpersonal perception, simultaneously accomplishing three broad goals. First, it provides researchers with powerful new conceptual and methodological tools to explore both new and long-standing questions about interpersonal perception. Second, it establishes a set of basic findings, providing a knowledge base upon which the field can build. Third, it specifies a set of basic questions researchers should explore and thus defines an agenda for the future. In this review, we first describe the research tools Kenny offers the field and then discuss some of the major themes of the book, identifying possible directions for future research to expand the agenda set forth by Kenny.