Ch. 3 Perception & Social Experience

Question 1

what is the active process of creating meaning by selection, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, remember, and respond

Answer 1

Perception - the process we use to make sense of experience.

Question 2

when people recognize the value of power that creates different groups within the society.

Answer 2

Standpoint theory - those with more power develop views of social life that are likely to be more distorted than those who stand to gain little.

Question 3

What are the steps in the perception process?

Answer 3

1. selection - focus on certain cues, or stimulus that is more intense, or stimulus that reflects our motives or interest. Interests influence our perceptions, so do our motives.
2. organization
3. evaluation and interpretation (perceptual sets, affectors)
4. response (memory)

Question 4

What is it when we pay attention to some stimuli, and ignore others?

Answer 4

selective perception

Question 5

A component of the selection/perceptual process that reinforces our re-exiting views, beliefs, values, attitudes.

Answer 5

selective exposure

Question 6

A component of the selection/perceptual process that we focus on certain cues but ignore others

Answer 6

selective attention

Question 7

A component of the selection/perceptual process that we recall things that reinforce our thinking and forget things we find objectionable.

Answer 7

selective retention

Question 8

What are two bias in the perceptual process of selection?

Answer 8

1. horn effect - tendency to negatively interpret the communication and behavior of people or thing
2. halo effect- tendency to positively interpret what someone says or does because we have a positive feeling for them, so we attribute positive behavior.

Question 9

The three organization strategies:

Answer 9

1. figure-ground principle -focus on 1 person (figure), and the other details are in the ground (as background)
2. closure - fill in a missing perceptual piece
3. perceptual constancy - the tendency to maintain the same perception of stimuli over time.

Question 10

A cognitive framework, help us decide what others are like and whether we would like to get to know them better.

Answer 10

schema (schemata)

Question 11

A type of schemata that we predict sequence of events that indicate how we are suppose to act.

Answer 11

scripts

Question 12

What are the factors that color our responses in evaluation and interpretation stage?

Answer 12

culture, roles, biases, present emotional state. The horn and halo effects come into play as affectors shape our perceptions.
-also how well we know this person, our feelings about ourselves, assumptions we make, this person’s behavior etc.

Question 13

What helps us understand/make sense of our response to social experience?

Answer 13

Attribution theory -attempts to understand the behavior of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them. we like to be able to explain why others behave as they do.

Question 14

what is it when we presume that a person’s communication or behavior stems from internal causes, such as character or personality?

Answer 14

internal attributions

Question 15

What is it when we hold that a person’s communication is caused by factors unrelated to personal qualities?

Answer 15

external attributions

Question 16

Four principles that guide attributing behaviors to a cause of the response.

Answer 16

1. consensus - commonalities of behavior
2. consistency - repeated behavior
3. distinctiveness- shows similar behavior in different situations
4. controllability - determine if the person’s behavior was under his/her control.
   (why others behave as they do)

Question 17

What are the types of attribution errors?

Answer 17

1. fundamental attribution error- assuming that the primary motivation for behavior is in the person, not in the person’s situation
2. self-serving bias - overemphasize external factors and downplay internal ones (barrier to correct perception, while simultaneously helping to raise our own self-esteem)

Question 18

What defines our perceptions and reveal our perceptual vulnerabilities….The beliefs, patterns of beliefs, environment, view of themselves, of people, how we make meanings, a frameworks, this is what we notice that helps us decide what others are like which is?

Answer 18

schemata

1. Physical constructs
2. Interaction constructs - social behavior cues
3. Role constructs - social position (professor, student, admin)
4. Psychological constructs - generosity, insecurity, shyness, sense of humor

Question 19

The lessons that our family, friends, culture teach us condition us to perceive stimuli in set ways, helping us to construct our social reality?

Answer 19

perceptual sets.
Established over time, our past experiences influences us for the present.
Our motivation or internal state also causes us to exhibit perceptual preferences.

Question 20

Other behaviors that reduce our communication effectiveness and perception?

Answer 20

1. Unconscious bias - bias that we are unaware we have. Unknowingly take mental shortcuts from norms and stereotypes.
2. Ethnocentrism- right and wrong according to the categories and values of one’s culture.
3. Stereotypes - oversimplified preconceived generalizations applied to all members of a group regardless of the individual. -categorize others, paint qualities to most/all members of a group.

Question 21

Other Barriers to perception

Answer 21

1. category and person based processing
2. gender
3. age
4. fact inference confusion - mistake what we infer for something we have observed. *become aware of the inferences we make.
5. post-truth- repeating false claims causing them to be believed. label as fake news.
6. Allness - that we know all there is to know about a person, place or situation
7. Indiscrimination - a person focuses on groups of individuals or events , and fails to see that each is unique.
8. Frozen evaluations - assume that situations and people remain the same as they always were.
9. Snap Judgements - instant decisions
10. Blindering - seeing people only in certain ways, as if wearing blinders, keeps us from seeing who/what is really happening.

Question 22

How does culture effect our interpretations?

Answer 22

• Culture and past experiences condition us, create a lens
• Look for perceptual constancy
• Similar life experiences, the more similar a person tends to perceive things.

Question 23

What are the gender messages we receive in America?

Answer 23

• boys are to display strength, independence
• girls express feelings, being kind
• lessons shows us how society wants us to behave a gender prescription

Question 24

How does mass media influence us?

Answer 24

1. it identifies and generalizes what we consider appropriate behavior.
   - fits people into categories
2. Create perceptual shortcuts that cause us to forget that each person is an individual and not a stereotype
3. under representation of women and older people in leading roles
4. stereotype of gender portrayals, focus on women’s looks and their relationships, a sex object, incompetent, manipulative, passive.
5. Men are active, independent, powerful, and sexually virile, take care of business.
6. Minority groups- Asians as smart, Africans as the athletic one.
7. media creates viewers to be more fearful of the world.
8. perpetuate what is unreal

Question 25

What is social identity model of de-individuation effects?

Answer 25

we have different identities that make themselves visible in different situations.

Question 26

What is Memory?

Answer 26

A composite of what we read, pice together, experience, and/or want to be true.

Question 27

When we take mental shortcuts derived from social norms and stereotypes, we are exhibiting which of the following?

Answer 27

Unconscious bias

Question 28

_____ is a composite of what we read, piece together, experience, and/or want to be true.

Answer 28

Memory (pg 72)

Question 29

Perceptual constancy utilizes two different concepts; which are they?

Answer 29

Schemata and scripts

Question 30

A consequence of who we are, what we choose to see, and where we are is known as which of the following?

Answer 30

selective exposure

Question 31

Riley does not know what to think about Josh’s actions at her new school. So, she monitors the social environment to learn more about him so she can reduce her puzzling questions regarding Josh’ intentions. This is an application of which of the following?

Answer 31

social identity model of deindividuation effects

Question 32

If you believe that those in positions of power have overriding interests in preserving their place in the social hierarchy; you subscribe to which theory?

Answer 32

Standpoint

Question 33

___theory helps us to explain why others behave as they do.

Answer 33

Attribution

+ helps us understand our response to social experience.

Question 34

Stereotyping and racial ____ have the potential to ___ interracial and intercultural communication.

Answer 34

profiling; plague/harm

Question 35

our Preference for people and messages that confirm our existing beliefs, attitudes, or values is known as ____?

Answer 35

Selective exposure