4. Social perception Flashcards
Define social perception
Study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them
Define nonverbal communication
Nonverbal communication: The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words
What are some nonverbal cues? Which one is the most significant channel?
Facial expression, tones of voices, gestures, body position and movement, use of touch, eye gaze
Facial expressions!!
Define encoding and decoding
- Encoding: to express or emit nonverbal communication, such as smiling or patting someone on the back
- Decoding: Interpreting the meaning of the nonverbal communication that others express (encode)
Explain the universality of facial expressions
It’s an ongoing debate!
- Some cross-cultural research (Ekman et al.) support the universality of at least 6 facial expressions: sadness, joy, anger, disgust, fear, surprise (these emotions can be universally encoded and decoded)
- Other researchers question the universal recognition of the basic facial expression of emotions (ex: decoding can depend on number of faces presented or on context)
- Both context and culture influence how facial expressions are interpreted
What are affect blends?
- Combination of different expressions of emotions; When one part of a person’s face registers one emotion while another part registers a different emotion
- People often display affect blends, which can make facial expressions hard to decode accurately
Explain the influence of cultural norms on display of emotion (display rules)
- Display rules: culturally determined rules (implicit or explicit) about which nonverbal behaviours are appropriate to display
- The more individualistic a culture, the more likely is it that expression of emotions is encouraged
- In collectivist cultures, the expression of strong negative emotions is discouraged because it can disrupt group harmony
- Display rules sometimes make it hard to decode facial expressions accurately
What are emblems?
- Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture
- Usually have direct verbal translations (ex: ok)
- Not universisal, each culture has devised its own emblems
- When we’re exposed to emblems, we’re drawing from our schemas to understand the interaction, but the schemas between the cultures don’t match. We need to accomodate this new information into our schemas
Explain first impressions
- We can form impressions of others, usually based on facial expressions, within milliseconds
- Tendency to infer what people are like based solely on facial appearance emerges as early as the age of 3
- First impressions are often wrong, but they can also be very accurate
- Influenced by schemas (we use schemas to fill in our gaps of knowledge!)
- First impressions can be influenced by schemas about the personality qualities believed to accompany certain features
Explain implicit personality theories
- A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits; we draw from our schemas to understand a person’s personality
- Research shows that people tend to attribute less positive characteristics to individuals with low self-esteem
What’s the Halo effect?
- A form of sociocognitive bias where we assign positive attributes to a person based on a single trait or traits that we deem positive/are attracted to
- Once we assign positive attributions to a person, we’re likely to attribute more positive aspects to them; same with negative traits (all good or all bad)
Explain attribution theory
- Description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior
- Internal/dispositional attribution: inference that a person’s behavior is due to something about them, such as their character, attitude or personality
- External/situational attribution: inference that a person’s behavior is because of something about the situation they are in (assumption that most people would respond the same way in that situation)
- External attributions help protect our self-esteem
- We tend to look past external attributions because internal attributions make more sense with our schemas
What is Kelley’s covariation model?
- Kelley’s covariation model proposes that we make an internal/external attribution about what caused a person’s behavior by noting a pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs
- The data we use are how a person’s behavior “covaries” (changes) across time, place, as well as different targets of the behavior
What are the components of Kelley’s model?
Actor: person whose behavior you’re trying to figure out
Stimulus: person on the receiving end of the behavior in question
3 types of information
- Consensus information: the extent to which other people behave the same way the actor does toward the same stimulus
- Distinctiveness information: the extent to which the actor behaves the same way to different stimulus
- Consistency information: the extent to which the behavior between the actor and the stimulus is the same across time and circumstances
Explain the Covariation Model table
Internal attribution: low consensus, low distinctiveness, high consistency
External attribution: high consensus, high distinctiveness, high consistency
People are likely to think it was something peculiar about the particular circumstance: low/high consensus, low/high distinctiveness, low consistency
What’s the fundamental attribution error?
- Tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors
- It’s a response to Kelley’s model; when we don’t have enough information, we go back to our schemas and tend to make internal attributions
- It’s a defense mechanism, we want to protect our self-esteem
What are consequences of the fundamental attribution error?
Victim blaming!
- Tendency to explain other people’s behavior in dispositional terms can lead us to see those who are stigmatized or victimized as being responsible for their plight
What’s the two-step process in attributional theory?
1- We make an internal attribution, assuming that the person’s behavior is caused by something about that person
2- We attempt to adjust this attribution by considering the situation that the person was in
- The 2nd step is often skipped due to lack of time and effort -> internal attributions are mainly made
- We typically engage in the 2nd step when we’re motivated to be accurate or we are suspicious of a person’s behavior
Explain attribution theory and culture
- Collectivist cultures are more likely to make situational attributions - they engage in more hollistic thinking
- Individualist cultures tend to make more dispositional attributions
What is the actor/observer difference?
The tendency to see others’ behavior as dispositionally caused, while focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior
Explain self-serving attributions
- Happens when people’s self-esteem is threatened
- Tendency to take credit for one’s own successes
- Tendency to blame others or the situation for one’s own failures (external attributions)
- Can cause a person to overestimate their contribution to a shared task
Explain defensive attributions
- Explanations for our behaviors that help us avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality
- Also a way to deal with threats to our self-esteem
- Belief in a just world: assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get (ex: bad things happen to bad people, but I am good so no misfortune will happen to me); convicing themselves that there is a higher power in control
- Will engage in irrational behavior and thinking to preserve this belief
- More victim blaming
- Bias blind spot: tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are
