Chapter 4: Perceiving Persons

Question 1

Social Perception

Answer 1

A general term for the processes by which people come to understand one another

Question 2

Mind Perception

Answer 2

The process by which people attribute human-like mental states to various animate and inanimate objects, including other people

Question 3

Nonverbal Behavior

Answer 3

Behavior that reveals a person’s feelings without words, through facial expressions, body language, and vocal cues

Question 4

Attribution Theory

Answer 4

A group of theories that describe how people explain the causes of behavior

Question 5

Personal Attibution

Answer 5

Attribution to internal characteristics of an actor, such as ability, personality, mood, or effort.

Question 6

Situational Attribution

Answer 6

Attribution to factors external to an actor, such as the task, other people, or luck

Question 7

Covariation Principle

Answer 7

A principle of attribution theory that holds that people attribute to behavior to factors that are present when a behavior occurs and are absent when it does not

Question 8

Availability Heuristic

Answer 8

The tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind

Question 9

False-Consensus Effect

Answer 9

The tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes and behaviors

Question 10

Base-Rate Fallacy

Answer 10

The finding that people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented in the form of numerical base rates

Question 11

Counterfactual Thinking

Answer 11

The tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occurred but did not

Question 12

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 12

The tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situations on other people’s behavior

Question 13

Belief in a Just World

Answer 13

The belief that individuals get what they deserve in life, an orientation that leads people to disparage victims

Question 14

Impression Formation

Answer 14

The process of integrating information about a person to form a coherent impression

Question 15

Information Integration Theory

Answer 15

The theory that impressions are based on (1) perceiver dispositions and (2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits

Question 16

Priming

Answer 16

The tendency for recently used or perceived words or ideas to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information

Question 17

Central Traits

Answer 17

Traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions

Question 18

Primacy Effect

Answer 18

The tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later

Question 19

Need for Closure

Answer 19

The desire to reduce cognitive uncertainty, which heightens the importance of first impressions

Question 20

Confirmation Bias

Answer 20

The tendency to seek, interpret, and create information that verifies existing beliefs

Question 21

Belief Perseverance

Answer 21

The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited

Question 22

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Answer 22

The process by which one’s expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations