Chapter 4 Flashcards
Social Perception
–The study of how we form impressions of and
make inferences about other people.
*Why are people the way they are?
*Why do people act the way do?
–Thinking about people and their behavior helps us to
understand and predict our social world
Nonverbal Behavior
*Nonverbal Communication
–How people communicate, intentionally or
unintentionally, without words
–Examples:
▪ Facial expressions
▪ Tone of voice
▪ Gestures
▪ Body position
▪ Movement
▪ Use of touch
▪ Gaze
Crown jewel of nonverbal communication:
the facial expressions channel
*Why?
–Communicativeness of human face
Encode
–Express or emit nonverbal behavior
▪Examples: smiling, patting someone on the back
Decode
–Interpret the meaning of nonverbal behavior
▪Example: deciding pat on the back was an
expression of condescension, not kindness
Darwin
–Nonverbal forms of communication is species, not
culture, specific
–Example: Susskind and colleagues (2008)
▪ Studied facial expressions of fear and disgust
▪ Found that muscle movements opposite each other
–Fear: enhanced perception—facial and eye movements
increase sensory input
–Disgust: decreased perception—facial and eye movements
decrease sensory input
Are facial expressions of emotion
universal?
Yes, for the six major emotional
expressions
–Anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and
sadness
Why Is Decoding Sometimes
Difficult?
Affect blends
–Facial expressions in which one part of the
face registers one emotion while another part
of the face registers a different emotion
*Display rules
–Dictate what kinds of emotional expressions
people are supposed to show
–Are culture-specific
–America: men discouraged from emotional displays
like crying, but women allowed
–Japan: women discouraged from displaying
uninhibited smile
Eye contact/gaze
–America: suspicious when people do not “look them in
the eye”
–Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Thailand: direct eye contact
considered disrespectful
Susskind and colleagues (2008)
Studied facial expressions of fear and disgust
▪ Found that muscle movements opposite each other
–Fear: enhanced perception—facial and eye movements
increase sensory input
–Disgust: decreased perception—facial and eye movements
decrease sensory input
Affect blends
–Facial expressions in which one part of the
face registers one emotion while another part
of the face registers a different emotion
Display rules
–Dictate what kinds of emotional expressions
people are supposed to show
–Are culture-specific
Display of emotion
–America: men discouraged from emotional displays
like crying, but women allowed
–Japan: women discouraged from displaying
uninhibited smile
Eye contact/gaze cross culture
–America: suspicious when people do not “look them in
the eye”
–Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Thailand: direct eye contact
considered disrespectful
Personal space
–America: like bubble of personal space
–Middle East, South America, southern Europe: stand
close to each other and touch frequently
Emblems
–Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood
definitions within a given culture
–Usually have direct verbal translations, like the “OK”
sign.
- not universal
How Quickly Do First Impressions
Form?
*Form initial impressions based on facial
appearance in less than 100 milliseconds!
*Infer character from faces as young as 3 years
old
*Example: Baby faces
–Features that are reminiscent of those of small
children
Thin Slicing
Limited exposure can lead to meaningful first
impressions of abilities and personalities
*Thin-slicing
–Drawing meaningful conclusions about another
person’s personality or skills based on an extremely
brief sample of behavior
Primacy Effect
When it comes to forming impressions, the first traits
we perceive in others influence how we view
information that we learn about them later
Belief Perseverance
The tendency to stick with an initial judgment even in
the face of new information that should prompt us to
reconsider
Attribution Theory (Fritz Heider)
The way in which people explain the causes
of their own and other people’s behavior
Fritz Heider)
–“Father” of attribution theory
–“Naïve” or “commonsense” psychology
▪Viewed people as amateur scientists
–Piece together information to figure out cause
When deciding about causes of behavior, we can
make one of two attributions
-Internal, dispositional attribution
–External, situational attribution
Internal Attribution
Infer a person is behaving in a certain way
because of something about the person (e.g.,
attitude, character, personality)
External Attribution
Infer a person is behaving a certain way because
of something about the situation
*Assume most people would respond the same
way in that situation
Attributions in a Happy Marriage
*Partner’s positive behaviors
–Internal attributions
▪ “She helped me because she’s such a generous person.”
*Partner’s negative behaviors
–External attributions
▪ “He said something mean because he’s so stressed at work
this week.”
Distressed Marriage
Partner’s positive behaviors
–External attributions
▪ “She helped me because she wanted to impress our friends.”
*Partner’s negative behaviors
–Internal attributions
▪ “He said something mean because he’s a totally self-
centered jerk.”
The Covariation Model
A theory that states that to form an attribution
about what caused a person’s behavior, we
systematically note the pattern between the
presence or absence of possible causal factors
and whether or not the behavior occurs
*Focuses on how behavior “covaries”
– Across time, place, actors, and targets
*Examines how perceiver chooses an
internal or an external attribution
We make choices about internal versus
external attributions by using three pieces
of information
–Consensus
–Distinctiveness
–Consistency
Consensus Information
The extent to which other people behave
the same way toward the same stimulus as
the actor does
Distinctiveness Information
The extent to which one particular actor
behaves in the same way to different
stimuli
Consistency Information
The extent to which the behavior between
one actor and one stimulus is the same
across time and circumstances
When Internal Attribution Occurs
Internal attribution occurs when
–Consensus = Low
▪Behavior is unique to the person
–Distinctiveness = Low
▪Person displays same behavior with different
targets and in different situations
–Consistency = High
▪The person’s behavior occurs reliably across
occasions
Evaluation of the Covariation Model
*Information about all three dimensions may not
be available
–People still make attributions
*Consistency and distinctiveness used more than
consensus
Why does the fundamental attribution error
occur?
–Tend to focus attention on person, not the
surrounding situation
▪ The person is “perceptually salient”
–Use the focus of attention as a starting point
Perceptual Salience
–The seeming importance of information that is the
focus of people’s attention
Make an internal attribution
–Assume that a person’s behavior was due to
something about that person
–Occurs quickly, spontaneously
Adjust attribution by considering the situation
–May fail to make enough adjustment in second step
–Requires effort, conscious attention
Engage in the second step if:
–You consciously slow down, think carefully before
reaching a judgment
– You are motivated to reach an accurate judgment
–You are suspicious about the behavior (e.g., we
suspect lying)
Self-Serving Attributions (1 of 2)
Explanations for one’s successes that credit
internal, dispositional factors, and explanations
for one’s failures that blame external, situational
factors
Why do we make self-serving attributions?
- We want to maintain self-esteem.
- We want other people to think well of us and to
admire us. - We know more about the situational factors that
affect our own behavior than we do about other
people’s.
Belief in a Just World (1 of 2)
*Belief in a just world
–The assumption that people get what they
deserve and deserve what they get
–Type of defensive attribution
Belief in a Just World
*Advantage
–Allows people to deal with feelings of
vulnerability, mortality
*Disadvantage
–Blaming the victim
▪Rape victims
▪Battered wives
The “Bias Blind Spot”
*People realize biases in attribution can
occur
*Believe other people more susceptible to
attributional biases compared to self
Holistic thinking
– Values in Western cultures foster this kind of thinking
– Focus on properties of object or people, pay less attention to
context or situation
- Analytic thinking
– Values in Eastern cultures foster this kind of thinking
– Focus on the object or person AND the surrounding context and
relationships between them
* Generalized cultural difference, but variability within
cultures
Social Neuroscience Evidence
Hedden and colleagues (2008) used functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify where in the brain
cultural experience predicts processing
* Judged length of line inside boxes
* Two conditions:
– Ignore the box around each line (ignore context)
– Pay attention to the box around each line (attend to context)
* Results:
– Americans: greater brain activation when told to pay attention to
context
– East Asians: greater brain activation when told to ignore context
Members of individualistic cultures
–Prefer dispositional attributions
–Think like personality psychologists
Members of collectivistic cultures
–Prefer situational explanations
–Think like social psychologists
–Greater situational focus is matter of degree
–Greater situational focus is matter of degree
▪ Do they make dispositional attributions?
▪ Are they more likely to go on to the “second step”?
Failure
–Make attributions to external causes in U.S., but
internal causes in China
–Self-critical attributions hold groups together in some
Asian cultures
Belief in a Just World
–More prevalent in cultures with extreme differences in
wealth
