Social perception, or perception is a process of reflection of the subjective world. It is the most important personal mechanism of formation of images of objects of a social environment.
In the course of social perception allocate four stages. A similar phase is detection of an object. After that there is a distinction (directly perception which forms an image of an object), identification (its ratio with an ideal image) and identification (reference of objects to a certain class).
Refer concreteness, degree of structure, selectivity, intelligence to properties of perception.
One of the major research tasks which are set for themselves by political psychologists is the problem of definition of mechanisms of perception. Today mechanisms of identification, stereotypification, causal attribution, ingruppovy favoritism and a physiognomic reduction are the most studied.
The mechanism of identification designates that at perception of the leader occurs on the basis of comparison to prototypical lines of group to which the person belongs. So, the leader will be perceived more positively if proves that he is the typical representative of the group. Operation of the mechanism of stereotypification is closely connected with the mechanism of identification. So, researches show that all politicians, irrespective of their national identity have a number of the lines attributed on the basis of professional accessory (selfishness, aspiration to personal benefit and to self-affirmation). To some extent these representations are initial at assessment of political leaders in general. In turn, that good that is attributed to politicians, contacts the social system of the concrete state. The mechanism of causal attribution is an attributing of certain characteristics to object of perception in the conditions of deficiency information on it. So there can be attribution errors when responsibility for external circumstances are shifted to leaders. The mechanism of a physiognomic reduction operates in the conditions of a lack of information on the personality. In this case citizens draw a conclusion about personal qualities of the person on the basis of his external data. Mark out also effect of beauty which assumes that attribute to the attractive person more merits. And at last, the mechanism of ingruppovy favoritism is shown in a tendency to estimate own group, behavior of her members in more positive key, than other group. Also people believe that others concern them also as they to them. The effect of a projection assumes that the person considers that other people have a similar set of qualities. When studying perception of an image, phenomena of a logical mistake, effect of "aura" and a phenomenon of contrast and similarity are important. The phenomenon of "a logical mistake" is connected with the fact that citizens have certain opinions on interrelation of qualities. So, if the person is highly appreciated on a vigor scale, then will probably attribute him also other indirectly related qualities: youth, will, determination, etc. Close to this psychological phenomenon of perception there is also an effect of an aura – distribution one set of qualities on all others. For example, at high loyalty to the president, the population extends his positive image also on other close politicians to it. There is a phenomenon of similarity and contrast according to which all achievements and failures which happened in the country contact the leader's figure.