CH.2: perception and communication

Question 1

perception

Answer 1

the active process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and activities

Question 2

selection

Answer 2

what you choose to focus your attention on:
- things that stand out
- acuity of senses
- change or variation

Question 3

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 3

one acts in ways consistent with how one has learned to perceive oneself

Question 4

organization

Answer 4

how we make selected material meaningful (constructivism)

Question 5

constructivism

Answer 5

theory that we organize and interpret experience by applying cognitive structures called schemata

Question 6

prototype

Answer 6

a knowledge structure that defines the best or most representative example of some category (ex. ideal friend, ideal partner, ideal teacher)

Question 7

personal construct

Answer 7

bipolar mental yardstick that allows us to measure people and situations along specific dimensions of judgement (ex. attractive-not attractive, kind-not kind)

Question 8

stereotype

Answer 8

predictive generalization about people and situations

Question 9

script

Answer 9

guide to action; a sequence of activities that define what we and others are expected to do in specific situations (ex. greeting acquaintances, talking w/ professors)

Question 10

cognitive schemata (4)

Answer 10

prototypes, personal constructs, stereotypes, scripts

Question 11

interpretation

Answer 11

subjective process of explaining perceptions to assign meaning to them

Question 12

attribution

Answer 12

explanation of why things happen and why people act as they do

Question 13

dimensions of attributions (4)

Answer 13

locus, stability, scope (specificty), responsibility

Question 14

locus

Answer 14

attributes what a person does to to either internal factos or external factors (ex. he’s sick vs. the traffic jam frustrated him)

Question 15

stability

Answer 15

explains actions as resulting either from unchanging, stable factors or temporary, unstable factors (ex. she’s type A vs. she’s irritable bc she just had a fight)

Question 16

scope (specificity)

Answer 16

defines behavior as part of a global pattern or a specific instance (ex. she’s a mean person vs. she gets angry when tired)

Question 17

responsibility

Answer 17

attributes behaviors to factors people can control or to ones they cannot (ex. he doesn’t try to control his outburts vs. he has a chemical imbalance)

Question 18

self-serving bias

Answer 18

we tend to construct attributions that serve our personal interests

Question 19

influences on perception

Answer 19

physiology, culture, social/professional roles, cognitive abilities

Question 20

culture

Answer 20

beliefs, understandings, practices, and ways of interpreting experience that are shared by a number of people

Question 21

standpoint theory

Answer 21

a culture includes a number of social groups that have different degrees of social status and privilege

Question 22

cognitive complexity

Answer 22

the number of constructs used, how abstract they are, and how elaborately they interact to shape perceptions

Question 23

person-centered perception

Answer 23

the ability to perceive another as a unique and distinct individual apart from social roles and generalizations

Question 24

empathy

Answer 24

the ability to feel with another person or to feel what that person feels in a given situation