chapter 3: perceiving individuals Flashcards
mental representations
a body of knowledge that an individual has stored in memory
o Our beliefs about members of particular occupations, nationalities, ethnic groups
how does perception of others begin
visible cues (physical appearance, nonverbal communication, environments, behaviour)
what’s beautiful is good
expect highly attractive people to be more interesting, warm, out-going, socially skilled
o Transcends specific cultures – people from different cultures generally agree about who’s physically attractive and about the traits attractiveness conveys
attraction studies
o People are more likely to imitate the behaviour of an attractive stranger seen in a photograph, than a less attractive one
o Elementary school teachers rate more physically attractive children as having more IQ and academic potential
o More attractive defendants have lower bail set and receive lower prison sentences
o College students prefer more attractive political candidates
- paired college men and women for dates + rated each person’s attractiveness, social skills, grades, IQ tests, personalities - Physical attractiveness is the most important for date satisfaction
photography experiment
tendency to photograph themselves from above, men from below – might be related to dominance Women – tendency to photograph themselves from above, men from below – might be related to dominance
baby faced features
large round eyes, high eyebrows, small chin
baby faced features experiment
in both US and Korea – baby-faced adult males were viewed as more naïve, honest, kind, warm
o More likely to be chosen as dates by people who like to dominate others, less likely to be recommended for jobs that require mature characteristics (competence, leadership ability)
candidates running for office experiment
which one appeared more competent?
o Candidates chosen by the participants were actually more likely to win elections
o Candidates who looked more threatening were less likely to win
appearance - salary
newly hired professional men taller than 190cm received starting salaries 10% higher
o Workers with below-average looks earned as much as 10% less than average-looking counterparts, those with above-average looks earned 5% more than average
CEOs experiment
students had to rate the traits of CEOs of some US corporations based on photos
o Judgement of their “power-related” traits (competence, maturity) – predicted actual profits
o Maybe their facial features gave the CEOs an advantage in negotiations
o Recent works – direction of causality is reversed – more competent CEOs are hired by companies that were more profitable
nonverbal communication
influences whether we like people, how we think they’re feeling and what we think they’re like
o We like people who express their feelings nonverbally
body language in individualist cultures
people like those who orient their bodies towards them (facing them directly, leaning towards them, nodding while they’re speaking) + those who look at them with dilated pupils (even if they don’t notice)
are emotions universal
- Across cultures (Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey, US) – people express sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust – similar bodily postures and facial expressions
o Universal language, but other findings say that interpretations of emotional expressions often differ between cultures (sadness, surprise, disgust)
nonverbal communication studies
o Ex: students watch 3 10-second silent videos of teachers giving lectures, asked to rate them on warmth, honesty, confidence, enthusiasm
o Agreed with how actual students rated the teacher at the end of the semester
o Ex: video of an interaction between 2 co-workers they didn’t know – able to guess who had a higher status
o Ex: students listened to the recorded voice of a person reading text and then tried to judge which photo showed that person – accurate 75% of the time
lying studies
- Perceivers are correct in classifying statements as lies or truths 54% of the time
o Cues they look out for – gaze aversion, fidgeting – actually aren’t good predictors
o Actual cue: quivering or high-pitched tone of voice
o Some individual difference factors are associated with these cues: African-Americans tend to show more gaze aversion
cheating study
gave students a test under conditions that tempted them to cheat by working together – hot topic
o Obtained students’ self-reports of their level of extraversion
o Showed pictures of those students and asked others to rate their intelligence, extraversion, trustworthiness
o Intelligence as judged was related to students’ actual performance + ratings of extraversion were correlated with self-reports
o The raters agreed on trustworthiness, but unrelated to if the students have cheating on the test
o Activity in the amygdala – relates to judgements of trustworthiness
polygraph
measures signs of psychological arousal (rapid breathing, increased heart rate, sweating) – correctly detects 75% of guilty suspects, declared guilty 37% of the innocent ones
o New methods – fMRI
mere exposure
exposure to a stimulus without any external reward which created familiarity with the stimulus and generally makes people feel more positively about it
mere exposure experiment
- Ex: 4 women attended a varying number of large college lectures, didn’t interact with anyone
o Students looked at picutres and answered about their impressions
o The students thought the women they had seen more often were more interesting, warm and intelligent + would rather spend time with them
rating rooms experiment
looked at student dorms, had to rate the person – similar to the way the occupants of the rooms rated themselves
o The same levels of accuracy – study that looked at single-person offices or cubicles in a bank, real estate agency and other business
salience
the ability of a cue to attract attention in its context
automatic
refers to processes that operate spontaneously (without the perceiver’s deliberate intent) and often efficiently and without awareness
association
a link between two or more mental representations
o Can arise from similarity in meanings between two mental representations, but even unrelated ideas can become associated if they’re repeatedly thought about together
accessibility
the ease and speed with which information comes to mind and is used
o The more accessible the knowledge, the more likely it is to come to mind automatically, without our consciously trying to retrieve it, and the more likely it is to guide our interpretation of cues
English language bias
metaphors of physical weight used to describe concepts that are serious or important
o People asked to judge a job candidate whose resume was placed in a heavy or light cupboard – those holding the heavier one rated him as more serious about the job
lecturer experiment
before a lecture, students given background information: either “a very warm person, industrious, critical, practical, determined” or “a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical, determined”
o People who were told he’s warm – much better rating
the effect of expectations on social perception experiment
o Supports of opposing candidates in debates expect their candidates to show leadership potential and win – each group reports just that
o The same expression looked grief-stricken when told it’s a funeral and as a tearful laughter when told it’s a comedy show
Donald story
students told to memorize words – either positive or negative
o Story about Donald – those who read positive had “adventurous” as accessible and rated his behaviour positively + the opposite for the other group
priming
the activation of a mental representation to increase its accessibility and thus the likelihood that it will be used
o Can be long lasting (24 hours)
subliminal
presentation of stimuli in such a way (usually with a very brief duration) that perceivers aren’t consciously aware of them
- The frequent use of mental representations – makes it chronically accessible
o People repeatedly use the same concepts in interpreting others’ behaviours
