Chapter 3 Flashcards
A cognitive process through which one interprets one’s experiences and comes to one’s own unique understandings.
Perception
The means by which we gather, organize, and evaluate the information we receive.
Communication processing
The idea that schemas are socially constructed perceptions of reality
Social Constructivism
The argument that people change their opinion about the attributions of someone, particularly physical attractiveness, the more they interact with that person.
Interaction appearance theory
Name three challenges with schemas
- Mindlessness
- Selective Perception
- Distorted perception
A passive state in which the communicator is a less critical processor of information, characterized by reduced cognitive activity, inaccurate recall, and uncritical evaluation.
Mindlessness
The process of being focused on the task at hand—necessary for competent communication.
Mindfulness
Active, critical thought resulting in a communicator succumbing to the biased nature of perception.
Selective perception
Personal characteristics that are used to explain other people’s behavior.
Attributions
When we attribute it to the situation (or something outside the person’s control), that is an
external attribution
When we attribute behavior to someone’s personality (or something within the person’s control), we call that an
internal attribution
The tendency to overemphasize the internal and underestimate the external causes of behaviors we observe in others.
Fundamental attribution error
The idea that we usually attribute our own successes to internal factors while explaining our failures by attributing them to situational or external effects.
self-serving bias
Inaccurate perception occuring when an individual focuses on the negative over positive or neutral attributes of another.
negativity bias
The act of organizing information about groups of people into categories so that we can generalize about their attitudes, behaviors, skills, morals, and habits
Stereotyping
A deep-seated feeling of unkindness and ill will toward particular groups, usually based on negative stereotypes and feelings of superiority over those groups.
Prejudice
One’s awareness and understanding of who one is, as interpreted and influenced by one’s thoughts, actions, abilities, values, goals, and ideals.
Self-concept
A theory that explains our tendency to compare ourselves to others, such as friends and acquaintances or popular figures in the media, as we develop our ideas about ourselves.
Social Comparison
How one feels about oneself, usually in a particular situation.
Self-esteem
The ability to predict, based on self-concept and self-esteem, one’s effectiveness in a communication situation
Self-efficacy
A prediction that causes an individual to alter his or her behavior in a way that makes the prediction more likely to occur.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
The feelings and thoughts one experiences when one knows that one has negotiated a communication situation as well as possible.
Self-actualization
The feelings one experiences when one assesses one’s own communication competence as sufficient or acceptable—less positive than self-actualization
Self-adequacy
A negative assessment about a communication experience that involves criticizing or attacking oneself.
Self-denigration
Intentional communication designed to show elements of self for strategic purposes; how one lets others know about oneself.
self-presentation
Stories about oneself or one’s experiences to aid in self-presentation.
narrative
The ability to watch one’s environment and others in it for cues as to how to present oneself in particular situations
Self-monitoring
Revealing oneself to others by sharing information about oneself.
self-disclosure
Name three ways self perception is evaluated
Self-actualization
self-adequacy
self-denigration
The cognitive influences on how we perceive ourselves
Self concept
Social comparison
self esteem
Four ways we manage our identity
Self-presentation
Narrative
Self-monitoring
self-disclosure
