Psychological motives and defensive person perception: A brief historical account and a revised model

Three stages in the development of the theoretical framework which has guided research on motives and defensive person perception are described, beginning with a trait approach and ending in a process oriented interactive model. Then, in order to accommodate findings showing that threatening stimuli are often processed in a realistic rather than a defensive way, a revised interactive model is proposed as a 4th stage of conceptualization. According to the revised model, perceiver’s motives lead to defensive person perceptions only if (a) the interaction of perceiver’s motives with the attributes of the stimulus person and the situation produces emotional arousal in the perceiver; and (b) the perceiver assumes that defensive processing of information related to the stimulus person has higher hedonic value than realistic processing. It was found that defensive effects of motives on person perception are likely to occur primarily outside the lab-oratory, in the context of lasting and meaningful interpersonal relationships.