Ch 4 Social Perception

Question 1

Social Perception

Answer 1

SOCIAL PERCEPTION – The study of how we form impressions and make inferences about other people to explain why others behave as they do.

• All we have to go on is observable behavior: how people act, what they say, their facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice.
• These perceptions help us understand and predict our social universe.

Question 2

Nonverbal Communication

Answer 2

NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION – The way people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words.

• Nonverbal cues include:
  
  • facial expressions
  • tone of voice
  • gestures
  • body position
  • body movement
  • use of touch
  • gaze (eye contact)
• Emojis are so popular because they help fill in the gap created by the lack of nonverbal cues in digital communication.
• FACIAL EXPRESSIONS – are arguably the most important form of nonverbal communication, at times making the verbal part of communication nearly unnecessary.
• CHARLES DARWIN showed that the facial expressions for the SIX MAJOR EMOTIONS (anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness) are UNIVERSAL, perhaps the only comprehensive cross-cultural language in the world.
  
  • He showed that all humans ENCODE, or express, these emotions in the same way and that all humans can DECODE, or interpret them, with comparable accuracy.
  • Darwin also suggested other evolutionary implications in facial expressions:
    
    • Ex: He found that the “fear face” enhances perception, while the “disgust face” decreases it.
    • These would make particular sense in an environment before verbal communication or in scenarios where yelling might draw unwanted attention (i.e. predators)
      
      • A look of fear put everyone else on high alert.
      • A look of disgust would implore people to avoid the target of disgust.

ENCODE – is simply the action of using nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back to express your emotions.

DECODE – To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness. There are three reasons why DECODING can be difficult:

1. AFFECT BLENDS – Facial expressions in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion.
   
   • Ex: The look of being unimpressed – half mild smile, half disbelief or disgust?
2. CONTEXT – aspects of the same facial expression can have different implications based on context and other cues.
   
   • Ex: For an approach-oriented emotion like anger, decoding is quickest when a face stares right at you, presumably alerting you that you are the target of the anger and might need to prepare for confrontation. But for avoidance-oriented emotions like fear, decoding is easiest when a face displays an averted gaze.
3. CULTURE – though facial expressions are universal, other sorts of nonverbal communication are not.
   
   • DISPLAY RULES – Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.
     
     • Eye contact and gaze are particularly powerful nonverbal cues. In American culture, people often become suspicious when a person doesn’t “look them in the eye” while speaking, but, in other parts of the world, direct eye gaze is considered invasive or disrespectful.
     • Personal Space – deviations from culturally-determined “normal” spacing will affect your impressions of that person. Most Americans like to have a bubble of open space, a few feet in radius while many from other parts of the world favor much closer spacing.
     • Gestures are also different from culture to culture. These EMBLEMS – Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture, usually having direct verbal translations, such as the “OK sign” or “flipping the bird” – are NOT universal.
   • SUMMARY – the only universal nonverbal communication seems to be facial expressions of the SIX MAJOR EMOTIONS.

Question 3

First Impressions

Answer 3

FIRST IMPRESSIONS – Immediate, powerful, and lasting impressions we automatically make when first meeting someone or are first exposed to something.

• We make initial impressions of others based solely on their facial appearance in less than 100 milliseconds.
• From as early as 3 years old.
• The candidate who wins is the one with the most powerful face.

THIN-SLICING – Drawing meaningful conclusions about another person’s personality or skills based on an extremely brief sample of behavior.

• One study showed that Thin-Slicing is effective. The thin-sliced impressions of instructors were quite similar to the perceptions of students who spent an entire semester with the instructors. In fact, even when shorter, 6-second silent clips were used, participants were still able to accurately predict who the highest-rated teachers were.
• Our initial impressions have staying power—that they color the way we interpret the information we learn next.
  
  • Ex: Consider the following descriptions of Keith and Kevin:
    
    • “Keith is an interesting guy. People who know him say he’s intelligent. Another word often used to describe him is industrious. Keith can also be impulsive as well as critical. Still others have described him as stubborn and envious.”
    • “Kevin is an interesting guy as well. People who know him have called him envious. Also stubborn. And you know what, it just so happens that other descriptors that people use when talking about Kevin are critical, impulsive, industrious, and intelligent.”
    • Though both are described by the same exact descriptors, the adjectives used first colored our perceptions and everything that came after that fell into our initial context.
    • Keith’s positive traits of being intelligent and industrious create a filter—a schema—through which subsequent traits are viewed. After learning that he is smart and hardworking, perhaps you also perceived “impulsive” and “critical” in a positive light—as in, sure, Keith may make quick decisions and critique the work of others, but that can be productive for someone who’s intelligent.

PRIMACY EFFECT – When it comes to forming impressions, the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later.

• We use a few known characteristics to determine what other characteristics a person likely has

BELIEF PERSEVERANCE – The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in the face of new information that should prompt us to reconsider.

• This is why people still think Obama is a Muslim, that having been infected with Covid offers no protection against subsequent infection. jurors have a hard time disregarding evidence ruled inadmissible, and why scientists are slow to discount published research conclusions that turn out to be based on fabricated data.,
• We find inconsistent thoughts unpleasant and uncomfortable. Once we make up our minds, we’re inclined to keep them made up. And so first impressions, once formed, can prove pretty hard to shake. There are clear implications of the research on first impressions:
• When trying to win people over, there’s no overemphasizing how important it is to start off on the right foot.

Question 4

External vs. Internal Attribution

Answer 4

ATTRIBUTION THEORY – A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior.

EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION – The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in, with the assumption that most people would respond the same way in that situation.

INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION – The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality.

• We interpret behavior differently depending on which type of attribution we use.
• Ex: If a man yells at a child:
  
  • Using an EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION, we would explain the man’s yelling as due to the situation (maybe his daughter had just stepped into the street without looking).
  • Using an INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION, we would explain the man’s yelling as due to his personality (maybe he’s just a jerk who yells a lot).

Question 5

Covariation Model

Answer 5

COVARIATION MODEL – A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we note the pattern between when the behavior occurs and the presence or absence of possible causal factors. We look at THREE types of information:

1. CONSENSUS INFORMATION – The extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does.
   
   • High Consensus Information leads to EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION.
     
     • Ex: The man yelled at the child because EVERYONE would have yelled at the child in that situation.
   • Low Consensus would lead to the use of INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION.
     
     • Ex: The man yelled at the child even when no one else would have yelled at the child in that situation.
2. DISTINCTIVENESS INFORMATION – The extent to which a particular actor behaves in the same way toward different stimuli.
   
   • High Distinctiveness would lead to the use of EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION.
     
     • Ex: The man ONLY yells at that child.
   • Low DISTINCTIVENESS Information leads to INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION.
     
     • Ex: The man yelled at the child because he yells at EVERYONE.
3. CONSISTENCY INFORMATION – The extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances.

• High CONSISTENCY Information leads to either EXTERNAL of INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION depending on the assessment of CONSENSUS And DISTINCTIVENESS.
  
  • Ex: The man yelled at the child because he ALWAYS yells at that child, regardless of the circumstances.
• Low CONSISTENCY would not clearly lead to the use of one attribution over the other.
  
  • Ex: The man only SOMETIMES yells at that child.
• EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION would be used when:
  
  • Consensus is HIGH
  • Distinctiveness is HIGH
  • Consistency is HIGH.
• INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION would be used when:
  
  • Consensus is LOW
  • Distinctiveness is LOW
  • Consistency is HIGH.
• Issues include the facts that people don’t use CONSENSUS information as much as the model assumes and also people don’t always have all three types of information available.

Question 6

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 6

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR – The tendency to OVERESTIMATE the extent to which other people’s behavior results from INTERNAL, dispositional factors and to UNDERESTIMATE the role of EXTERNAL (situational) factors.

PERPETUAL SALIENCE – The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention.

• Why do people fall prey to the fundamental attribution error? One reason is that when we try to explain someone’s behavior, our focus of attention is usually on the person, not on the surrounding situation. In fact, the situational causes of another person’s behavior are practically invisible to us.
• We notice people. And what we notice seems like the reasonable and logical cause of the observed behavior. We can’t see the situation, so we overlook its importance.
  
  • People, not the situation, have PERCEPTUAL SALIENCE for us; we pay attention to them, think about them, and tend to assume that they alone cause their behavior
• Researchers found that people rated an actor they could physically see more clearly as having the greater importance between two people in a conversation.
• The PERCEPTUAL SALIENCE of a suspect, when shown alone, triggered the fundamental attribution error, making him appear guiltier than when he was less perceptually salient.
  
  • This is a problem because videotaping suspects alone is standard operating procedure in criminal investigations. In fact, one country, New Zealand, has adopted a rule of “equal focus” camera perspective.
• People don’t adjust their judgments enough. In an experiment, participants who knew that an essay writer did not have a choice of topics nevertheless thought that what he had written told them something about his true attitudes.

Question 7

Self-Serving Attributions

Answer 7

SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS – Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors.

• We do this to maintain our self-esteem whenever possible, even if that means distorting reality by changing a thought or belief.
  
  • Here we see a specific attributional strategy that can be used to maintain or raise self-esteem: just locate “causality” – the reason something happened – where it does you the most good.
• We tend to engage in SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS when we fail at something and we feel we can’t improve at it. The EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION protects our self-esteem, as there is little hope we can do better in the future.
  
  • But if we believe WE CAN IMPROVE, we’re more likely to attribute our current failure to INTERNAL causes and then work on improving.

BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD – A DEFENSIVE ATTRIBUTION wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people.

• The belief in a just world keeps anxiety-provoking thoughts about one’s own safety at bay.

Question 8

Bias Blind Spot

Answer 8

BIAS BLIND SPOT – The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases in their thinking than we are.

• In a study, participants felt they were only “somewhat” susceptible to self-serving attributions, while the average American was rated as much more susceptible, an ironically self-serving belief in its own right.
• This is likely due to the fact that we feel our own thought seem rational and sensible (that’s why we think them!) but other people aren’t quite so clever as us.

Question 9

2-Step Attribution Process

Answer 9

TWO-STEP BIAS – The process of understanding why people act the way they do.

1. Assume the person’s behavior is due to their personality (INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION). This part is quick and often subconscious.
2. Take a step back and think of possible situational reasons for the observed behavior (EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTION).

• Many people often rely on the first step and are quick to assume someone’s behavior is caused by who they are, this can lead to incorrect assumptions about someone’s personality.

Question 10

Holistic vs. Analytic Thinking: Cultural Effects on Social Perception

Answer 10

The cultural value of INDIVIDUALISM followed by Western cultures can be traced from the Judeo-Christian belief in the individual soul and the English legal tradition of individual rights

The cultural value of COLLECTIVISM followed by East Asian cultures tends to stress group autonomy and can be traced to the Confucian tradition of “community man” – as well as from Taoism and Buddhism.

• These differing cultural values predict the kind of information that people notice and pay attention to.
  
  • INDIVIDUALISTIC cultures use an ANALYTIC THINKING STYLE – focusing on the properties of objects (or people) while paying much less attention to the context or situation that surrounds that object.
    
    • Ex: To determine the mood of a girl with other group members in the background, an ANALYTICAL THINKER would focus on the face alone of the girl and determine her mood.
  • COLLECTIVISTIC cultures use a HOLISTIC THINKING STYLE – focusing on the “whole picture” that is, the object (or person) and the context that surrounds that object as well as the relationships that exist between them
    
    • Ex: The HOLISTIC THINKER, on the other hand, would scan the faces of the others in the group, compare them to hers, and then reach a decision.
• Cultural Differences in the FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR:
  
  • People in INDIVIDUALISTIC CULTURES prefer Dispositional (INTERNAL) attributions to explain others’ behavior.
  • People in COLLECTIVISTIC CULTURES prefer Situational (EXTERNAL) attributions to explain others’ behavior.
• Cultural Differences in the SELF-SERVING BIAS:
  
  • People in INDIVIDUALISTIC CULTURES prefer (INTERNAL) attributions to explain SUCCESS and EXTERNAL attributions to explain FAILURE.
  • People in COLLECTIVISTIC CULTURES prefer Situational (EXTERNAL) attributions to explain their SUCCESS and INTERNAL attributions to explain FAILURE.
• Cultural Differences in ‘BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD:
  
  • People in INDIVIDUALISTIC CULTURES where most people tend to believe the world is a just place:
    
    • Economic and social inequities are considered “fair.”
    • People believe that the poor and disadvantaged have less because they deserve less.
  • In cultures with extremes of wealth and poverty (INDIVIDUALISTIC), just-world attributions are more common than in cultures where wealth is more evenly distributed (COLLECTIVISTIC).