Social Relations Model

Definition

The social relations model is a theoretical and statistical approach to studying how people perceive others. Although investigations of person perception have a long history in social psychology, early methodological approaches relied on research participants reporting their perceptions of fictitious others who were described in brief stories. The social relations model allows researchers to move beyond such vignette studies and address a variety of questions related to interpersonal perception while studying real people engaged in real social interactions.

Background and History

Perceptions of other people are fundamental components of social interactions and, therefore, have a prominent place in social psychology. A person must perceive other people's traits accurately so that he or she can predict how they will behave. If you correctly perceive that someone is friendly, ...

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