Several studies have been done since the proposal of self-perception theory that support Bem’s hypothesis. Research Support for Self-Perception Theory These different behaviors can elicit a different emotional experience. Now try walking across the room taking long strides, swinging your arms high, and smiling. You probably feel a bit down or depressed. What do you feel? Similarly, imagine sitting slouched over all day, sighing when people speak to you and talking in a really low voice. When you get up, walk back and forth across the room, shuffling with your shoulders hunched and your eyes looking down at the floor. Our behavior changes our attitude.Įven the way people walk can affect the way they feel. For most of us, our original feelings of irritability decrease after smiling and exhibiting “happy” behavior.

So, you smile instead and-in effect-pretend to be happy. When others at the gathering greet you with “Hi, how’s it going?” you respond with “Fine, how are you?” It is challenging to scowl and maintain your irritability at a party with friends.

When you arrive, you smile and elicit warm, polite behavior. However, you have made previous plans to meet up with some friends for a small social gathering that evening. Imagine for a moment that you have had a terrible day-several things have gone wrong and you feel very irritable and grouchy. People are angry because they scowl and are happy because they smile-this is the self-perception effect.Įveryone has experienced the self-perception effect. In this way, feelings are consequences of behavior rather than the other way around. In other words, people’s emotions and other feelings come from such actions as facial expressions, postures, level of arousal and behaviors. Self-perception theory provides a similar explanation for emotion by suggesting that people infer their emotions by observing their bodies and their behaviors. Thus, this person could infer that he or she is interested in road biking on the basis of frequent cycling trips and lavish spending on a nice road bike. Bem, however, reversed this relation by suggesting that it is also possible that people understand their attitudes and interests because they have made inferences based on their behavior. That is, the person’s attitudes and self-perception influence his or her behavior.

Most people would agree, for example, that a person who perceives himself or herself as interested in road biking may, as a result of that interest, buy bicycling equipment and go on long cycling rides. Daryl Bem proposed self-perception theory in 1967 when he argued that people sometimes analyze their own behavior in the same fashion as they would analyze someone else’s behavior.Īt the time, Bem was proposing something that was counter to how people’s attitudes and behaviors were thought of. According to self-perception theory, when people are unsure of their own attitudes, one way to infer them is by looking at their behaviors. Interestingly, sometimes people also observe their own behavior, much as an outsider might do, and make similar inferences about their own attitudes based on their behavior. Similarly, if you witness a school child scowling at her teacher, you might infer that she is upset or angry with the teacher. For example, if you view someone in a park recycling a plastic water bottle rather than throwing it in the garbage, you might infer that the individual is concerned about the environment. When people see how another person acts in a particular situation, they often attribute the behavior to the person’s traits and attitudes. In everyday life, people observe other people’s actions and behaviors and make inferences about others’ attitudes based on what they observe.

Self perception definition