Carmen is a 27 year old, Hispanic female who works in a law office and is chosen to sit on a panel of juries. During her interaction with the 11 other juries, two theories are demonstrated. I have chosen, an analysis of Carmen’s jury experience using Status Generalization theory, and Brewers model of perception. Overview of Status Generalization, written by Murray Webster, Jr and Martha Foshci, explains this theory as a social psychological process in which status characteristics of an individual affect cognitive and interactive conclusions in individual interaction. (Berger,1988)
Status, means importing of status distinctions that exist in the outside world and allow them to determine certain features during …show more content…
Similarly to a self-profiled prophecy. This “assignment” typically causes other members of the group to also attribute that characterization to the student as well them. Similarly, to when Thad was assigned as foreman, he took on a role of leadership, which explains Carmen physically looking at him for approval when making her suggestion, his status in the group encouraged him to respond assertively. …show more content…
Top down processing is when one uses a known category to classify unknown people, meanwhile, bottom up processing is when one observes specific features of an individual and build a particular impression of that person. (Brewer, 1988) This explains what occurred in the room of jury’s, once Thad was interacting with the others, the Top down processing begun. They examined him as a white male, doctor in his 50’s, all of these attributes immediately played him in a category causing the others to have an expectation of him. Thad exhibited certain behaviors of a specific category, therefore causing the others to internally, assume and confirm a porotype of him. The theory also labels someone as individuated, when one does not exhibit the behaviors that others expected him to.
Additionally Brewer explained “Businessman” for instance may be a category with “young men” and within “older man” however the featured associated with businessman will differ depending on the hierarchy in which it is contained, just like Thad’s experience. (Brewer