Check Point

Evaluation and Judgment

University of Phoenix

What are the different ways in which we evaluate people?

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

What are the disadvantages of these expectations?

ANSWER:

What are the different ways in which we evaluate people?

There are so many different factors that come into play when evaluating people it would be impossible to list them all. I think the first thing people do is evaluate another person by their physical traits things like their height, eye color and their race. Through conversation is another way to evaluate a person. For example, if the person soft-spoken and gentle I would think to evaluate the person as shy. This is not the type of person I would choose to defend me in a hostile situation. On the other hand if the person is stern and is controlling during the conversation I would tend to evaluate them as a confident person able to stand up for him or herself. However, people are also evaluated on things like financial status, socioeconomic level and by how much stuff they have. At the workplace a person might be evaluated on how well they work with others, their ability to learn new tasks, their leadership or managerial skills. People also can be evaluated based on emotions such as the compassion they have toward others, the number of close friendships, and how strong their love life is. In today’s society we have so many different ways to evaluate one another so it can become confusing. Anytime a person is evaluated the person doing the evaluating needs to keep an open mind and be sure not to make the person evaluated feel like they are judged.

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

Through conversation we can learn many things about the people we are communicating with. Prior to any conversation, I expect the person I am talking with to be open-minded, but this is always not the case. Monitoring attitude and behavior traits during conversation can explain great deal about person. Deciding if the attitude and behavior is negative or positive will determine what my expectations of that person will be. These different factors play a huge role in our expectations of people because these factors make each person unique. Because each person is unique and have different factors in their life we cannot just generalize each of them or put them in a group. Furthermore, each different situation has a different set of factors attached to it and because of this people tend to act differently. Body language could be considered a factor and create certain expectations. For example, a person with a large open posture takes up a large amount of space within any given environment and this tends to portray strength and leadership. So if the person being evaluated wanted to be in a position of leadership they may act in a certain way to make their body language convey it. So we should never let our evaluation of the person define our expectations of the person. A rule of thumb is never judge a person by their outward appearance because they might be wolf in sheep’s clothing.

What are the disadvantages of these expectations?

One disadvantage of evaluating attitude and behavior is that the person being evaluated may be feeling distressed, which leads to a negative behavior. One bad accident may lead the evaluation to negativity, while the complete opposite to be the case. Another disadvantage of expecting things from people is that it may seem insensitive or make you appear shallow as well as have serious negative effects on the person were making expectations about. Another disadvantage of expectations is that with our preconceived notions of someone is that we may expect something of them that they might not be able to fulfill to our expectations, which is not their fault but our own for making assumptions. Assuming things from people is never a good practice because assumptions usually turn out to be false.

References:

Understanding Psychology, Chapter 14, Ninth Edition, by Charles G. Morris and Albert A. Maisto.