Chapter 3 Identities, Perceptions and communication

Question 1

Identity

Answer 1

a person’s uniqueness, represented by descriptions, a self-concept, inner thoughts, and performances, that is symbolized in interactions with other people and presented for their assessment and moral evaluation

Question 2

Perception

Answer 2

process of actively selecting, organizing, interpreting, and evaluating information, activities, situations, people, and essentially all the things that make up your world

Question 3

Selective exposure

Answer 3

the idea that you are more likely to expose yourself to that which supports your beliefs, values, and attitudes

Question 4

Selective retention

Answer 4

the idea that you are more likely to recall things that support your beliefs, values, and attitudes

Question 5

Prototype

Answer 5

the best-case example of something

Question 6

Schemata

Answer 6

Mental structures that are used to organize information partly by clustering or linking associated material

Question 7

Personal constructs

Answer 7

individualized ways of construing or understanding the world and its contents; they are bipolar dimensions used to measure and evaluate things

Question 8

Symbolic self

Answer 8

the self that is transacted in interaction with other people, that arises out of social interaction, not vice versa, and hence, that does not just “belong to you”

Question 9

Symbolic interactionism

Answer 9

how broad social forces affect or even transact an individual person’s view of who he or she is

Question 10

Attitude of reflection (symbolic interactionism)

Answer 10

thinking about how you look in other people’s eyes, or reflecting that other people can see you as a social object from their point of view

Question 11

Self-description

Answer 11

description that involves information about self that is obvious to others through appearance and behavior

Question 12

Self-disclosure

Answer 12

the revelation of personal information that others could not know unless the person made it known

Question 13

Dialectic tension

Answer 13

occurs whenever one is of two minds about something because one feels a simultaneous pull in two directions

Question 14

Altercasting

Answer 14

how language can impose a certain identity on people, and how language can support or reject the identity of another person

Question 15

Performative self

Answer 15

a self that is a creative performance based on the social demands and norms of a given situation

Question 16

Front region

Answer 16

a frame where a social interaction is regarded as under public scrutiny, so people have to be on their best behavior or acting out their professional roles or intended “faces” (contrast with back region)

Question 17

Back region

Answer 17

a frame where a social interaction is regarded as not under public scrutiny, so people do not have to present their public faces (contrast with front region)