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Social psychology > Chapter 3: Perceiving individuals > Flashcards

Chapter 3: Perceiving individuals Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a mental representation?

A

Knowledge that an individual has stored in memory about objects, situations, people and social groups

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2
Q

Why do we form impressions of individuals?

A

Impressions guide actions to meet our needs for rewards and connectedness to others

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3
Q

Which 5 (visible) cues guide our impressions?

A
  • Nonverbal communication
  • Physical appearance
  • Environment
  • Behavior
  • Familiarity
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4
Q

Which characteristic is the most important in Walster’s research on satisfaction in dates?

A

Physical attractiveness

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5
Q

Which effects does high physical attractiveness have on impressions? Name 3 effects

A
  • Teachers: pretty children are more intelligent
  • Dating success
  • People imitate pretty people more
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6
Q

What is the difference in benefits of being attractive in the job market between men and women?

A

Attractive women have more benefits when applying for feminine jobs and have less chance at a masculine job

For attractive men there is no difference

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7
Q

Why are people so bad at detecting deception? What should they do?

A

They look at the wrong cues, namely non-verbal cues in facial expression

The right cues are tone of voice and quivering that help us detect deception across cultures

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8
Q

How does familiarity influence our impressions?

A

If we know we are more familiar, we’re more likely to befriend people –> mere exposure effect

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9
Q

What is the mere exposure effect? What evidence is there?

A

Exposure to a stimulus without external reward, which creates familiarity with the stimulus and makes people feel more positive about it

E.g. when we encounter some people frequently in our everyday lives and we don’t interact with them.

Evidence: People who saw others more often (when no interaction) rated these people as more positive

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10
Q

Why is the lie detector test controversial? And what is an alternative that is being developed?

A

It isn’t very accurate and leads to many false convictions

Alternative: MRI based lie detector

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11
Q

Give an example of research on environmental factors that form first impressions. What were the results?

A

Gosling: looking around college dorm rooms and rating the first impressions of that person. This matched the way the occupants rated themselves

So you can describe someone’s personality pretty accurately based on what their room/office looks like

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12
Q

What is salience? Give an example

A

Ability of a cue to attract attention. Attributes that stand out in one situation may be normal in another. Salient attributes grab our attention and provide basis for first impressions

E.g. a tall person in a cafetaria is more salient than a tall person surrounded by people of equal height in a basketball team

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13
Q

What are automatic processes and when is it important in a social context?

A

Spontaneous effortless processes without intention and awareness

Important for first impressions

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14
Q

What is the ‘what beautiful is good’ heuristic?

A

We attribute more positive qualities to attractive people

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15
Q

What is heuristic?

A

Simple, efficient rules –> mental shortcuts

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16
Q

Which 2 characteristics do we use regarding salience?

A
  1. Figure-ground contrast
  2. Variation in context and appearance
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17
Q

What is the role of associations in interpretations? Give an example

A

If there is a strong link between 2 mental representations, conclusions are made quickly. If a concept is activated, all associated concepts are activated as well

If you think someone was stealing, you think he’s dishonest, because stealing is dishonest

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18
Q

What is the role of accessibility in interpretation?

A

Accessibility = ease and speed with which information comes to mind and is used

More accessible knowledge comes to mind more easily and guides our interpretation of cues

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19
Q

How does accessibility impact the impression we get of someone? Name 7 ways

A
  1. Parallel activation: if knowledge is activated whilst making an impression, this knowledge is more accessible and influences the impression
  2. Recent activation/priming: activation of mental representations before the event stays more accessible for a while.
  3. Frequent activation: if a thought is used more often, they are more accessible
  4. Context: event that happened in surrounding
  5. Expectation: someone tells you something about someone
  6. Motive: motive of interpreter reflected on another person
  7. Mood of interpreter at the time of forming the impression
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20
Q

What is subliminal priming?

A

Presentation of stimuli in a way that perceivers aren’t consciously aware of them (flash image on a computer). This makes mental representations more accessible and affects later interpretations

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21
Q

What is correspondent inference? Give an example

A

Characterizing someone as having a personality trait that corresponds to his/her observed behavior

Thinking deceitful behavior implies untrustworthiness

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22
Q

According to Jones & Davis, when is a correspondent inference justified? Name 3 conditions

A
  1. Individual freely chooses to perform behavior (child isn’t forced, but wants to write a thank you letter for birthday presents)
  2. Behavior has unique effects that other behaviors don’t (e.g. choosing for florida instead of alaska with only difference being the warmth)
  3. Behavior is unexpected rather than expected/typical
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23
Q

What is the correspondence bias? What is it also called?

A

Tendency to infer someone’s personal characteristics from observed behaviors –> what they do is who they are

Often unjustified because of other possible causes for this behavior

It’s also called the fundamental attribution error (FAE)

24
Q

In what ways can the correspondence bias be reduced?

A
  • Situation: someone’s laughing because of funny film, not because he’s a jolly person
  • Culture: individualist cultures see individuals as independent/autonomous and therefore there is more correspondence bias. Collectivists consider wider range of alternatives (situational + personal)
  • Distance in space and time: more correspondence inference if far away
25
Q

What is the difference between superficial and systematic processing?

A

Superficial = relying on accessible information to make inferences or judgments and little effort for processing

Systematic: thorough, effortful consideration of information

26
Q

What are the 2 ingredients of systematic processing?

A
  1. Motivation: people need to want to process more deeply
  2. Ability to process thoroughly: time to think, no distractions
27
Q

What are causal attributions? Which type of processing is related to this?

A

Judgment about cause of a behavior or other event

Systematic processing

28
Q

What are sources of attribution?

A

Whatever is salient –> draws attention

Accessibility –> representations that are already activated in our minds

Covariation information = info about potential causal factors that are present when event occurs and absent when it doesn’t

29
Q

What is the cultural difference between individualist and collectivist cultures in causal attributions?

A

Individualist: attribute behavior to person’s general personality traits
–> Mistake of prescriber

Collectivist: emphasis on person’s social roles and relationships
–> Mistake of pharmacy company

30
Q

What is discounting? Give an example and include the terms superficial and systematic processing

A

Reducing belief in one potential cause of behavior, because there is another viable cause

Example: Students are acting nervously in the exam hall, they must be very uptight and stressed persons (superficial). If you think longer, the circumstances give you another reason, namely exam stress (systematic)

31
Q

Why is the correspondence bias so prevalent?

A

Interpreting behavior and characterizing the person occur pretty automatically without conscious effort

Systematic processing requires more processing energy and causes have to be salient/accessible

32
Q

How do we integrate multiple traits into complex impressions? Give an example

A

Implicit personality theories = we expect particular traits to go together, because we have patterns of associations

Paul is daring because he races —> you immediately conclude he’s reckless/dominating

33
Q

Why are negative characteristics more heavily weighed than positive ones in integration of good/bad characteristics into complex impressions? Give 2 reasons

A

Negative characteristics are more surprising and extreme than positive ones, since most people are generally polite

Negativity bias helps deal succesfully with environment en is therefore adaptive and develops early in life. It reflects motivation for mastery

34
Q

Name 3 reasons why considered judgments aren’t automatically more accurate, even though they integrate multiple cues

A
  • Overweighing negative info
  • Overweighing initial info
  • Simple addition/building coherent impressions
35
Q

On which 3 types of motivation does systematic processing to make an accurate complex impression depend?

A
  • Accuracy: necessary if a lot depends on the choice of person
  • Belonging/valuing me & mine and connectedness: maintaining relationships, see the world in a way that results in good outcome for self,
  • Motivation to make an effort and undo biases
36
Q

How do we correct potential biases in how we see others?

A

With motivation and cognitive ability. The correction depends on our beliefs about the nature and direction of the bias

37
Q

Name 2 ways we make judgments about others on the basis of impressions

A
  1. Superficial processing : using a single attribute
  2. Systematic processing : integrating multiple factors
38
Q

What is a primacy effect? Of which principle is this an example?

A

Pattern in which early encountered info has a greater impact than later encountered info –> Can lead to perserverance bias

Cognitive conservatism: initial info shapes our impression and then resists change

39
Q

What is the perseverance bias?

A

Tendency for information to have a persisting effect on our judgments even after we find out the initial impression is false

40
Q

How do we defend our impressions? Name 3 ways

A
  1. Perseverance bias: persist on original beliefs
  2. Selectively seeking and creating impression-consistent behavior –> confirmation bias
  3. Self-fulfilling prophecies: expectations about another become reality by eliciting behaviors that confirm expectations
41
Q

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy? Give an example

A

A person’s expectations about another become reality by eliciting behaviors that confirm the expectations

E.g. southeners are kind. So when you go south you act kind so they act kind as a reaction

42
Q

What are 3 conditions/limits under which self-fulfilling prophecies can’t develop

A
  1. If the target has strong views about oneself, the effects are weaker
  2. Weaker effects if targets are aware of perceivers’ expectations
  3. Weaker effects when targets are more concerned about conveying an accurate impression –>when targets confirm expectations, it’s out of desire for connectedness to make interaction more smoothly
43
Q

Which 3 characteristics make a person more susceptible to the self-fulfilling prophecy?

A

Uncertain self-views, unaware of others’ beliefs, focused on making interactions run smoothly

44
Q

What are 3 ways to deal with inconsistent information?

A
  • Explain it in various other ways
  • Assume that the other has changed
  • Impressions of others are stable and don’t change
45
Q

Which two central social motives are endangered by inconsistencies in information? How do we most often deal with it?

A
  1. Mastery/understanding: unexpected information
  2. Ability to maintain a relationship

–> deal with it by ignoring it, sometimes triggering systematic processing

46
Q

Important inconsistencies can enhance systematic processing. In which 3 ways?

A
  1. Think more about unexpected behavior than expected behavior
  2. People try to explain unexpected behaviors to make sense of them
  3. Extra processing improves people’s ability to recall inconsistent behaviors
47
Q

When are people most likely to change their initial impressions?

A

When they look for change in an individual.

If they are faced with inconsistent info without any obvious situational explanations, people explain behavior by assuming the person has changed.

48
Q

What is the attractive-is-good belief?

A

People from different cultures often agree on who is considered physically attractive and about the traits it communicates

49
Q

How do baby-faces impact our impression?

A

Men with babyface: more honest, naive, friendly, warmer –> chosen as dates by a dominant type, less likely to be picked for jobs that require mature characteristics (presidency)

50
Q

How does non-verbal communication affect impressions?

A

We tend to like others who express feelings nonverbally compared to less expressive individuals

The impressions are formed fast and are often accurate

51
Q

What is the difference between consensus, distinctiveness and consistency information? What is the name of the theory that introduces this?

A
  1. Consensus: do other people show the same behavior? (high: everyone does this)
  2. Distinctiveness: is the behavior present with other objects? (high: the person only does it to this person)
  3. Consistency: does behavior happen in other situations? (high: he does this all the time)

–> Covariation theory

52
Q

What does high consensus, high distinctiveness and high consistency tell you?

A

The target is the origin of the behavior

53
Q

What does low consensus, low distinctiveness and high consistency tell you?

A

The person is the origin of the behavior

54
Q

What does low consensus, high distinctiveness and low consistency tell you?

A

Context/situation is origin of the behavior

55
Q

Why doesn’t discounting work often?

A

Capacity and motivation for systematic processing is missing

56
Q

When is using causal reasoning to correct initial impressions hard?

A

When there is no salient situational cause

Social psychology (21 decks)

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