Chapter 4 How We Come To Understand Other People Flashcards
Social Perception
The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inference about them
Nonverbal communication
The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words; facial expressions, and one of voice, gestures
Encode
To express or emit nonverbal behaviour, such as smiling
Decode
To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behaviour other people express,
Affect blend
A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion
Display rules
Culturally determined rules about which emotional expressions are appropriate to show
Emblems
Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture
Implicit personality theory
A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together, example minded with generosity
Attribution theory
The study of how people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour
Internal attribution
The inference that a person is behaving in certain way because of something about him or her such as attitude, character
External attribution
The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of a current situation he she is in.
Covariation model
A theory stating that to form an attribution about what caused a persons behaviour, we systematically note the pattern between the presence of possible casual factors and wether or not the behaviour occurs
Consensus information
Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way towards the same stimulus.
Distinctiveness information
the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way toward different stimulus ( people, situation)
Consistency information
Information about the extent to which the behaviour between the actor and the stimulus is the same across time and circumstances
Perceptual salience
Information that is the focus of people’s attention; people tend to overestimate the casual role of perceptually salient information.
Two-step attribution process
Analyzing another persons behaviour first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behaviour, after which one may adjust the behaviour
Actor/observer difference
The tendency to see other people’s behaviour as dispositionally caused, while focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behaviour
Self-serving attribution
The tendency to make internal dispositional attribution a for our successes but blame our failures on external, situational factors.
Defensive attribution
Explanation for behaviour that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality
Belief in a just world
A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to hold people
