Chapter 4- Social Perception

Question 1

Social Perception

Answer 1

The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them

Question 2

Nonverbal Communication

Answer 2

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words; nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch, and eye gaze

Question 3

Encode

Answer 3

To express or emit nonverbal behaviour, such as smiling

Question 4

Decode

Answer 4

To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behaviour other people express, such as deciding that a smile was an expression of sincere liking and not just politeness

Question 5

Affect Blend

Answer 5

A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion

Question 6

Display Rules

Answer 6

Culturally determined rules about which emotional expressions are appropriate to show

Question 7

Emblems

Answer 7

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; usually have direct verbal translations, such as the “okay” sign

Question 8

Implicit Personality Theory

Answer 8

A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together; for example, many people believe that if someone is kind, they are is generous as well

Question 9

Attribution Theory

Answer 9

The study of how people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour

Question 10

Internal Attribution

Answer 10

The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about them, such as their attitude, character, or personality

Question 11

External Attribution

Answer 11

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation they are in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Question 12

Covariation Model

Answer 12

A theory stating that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behaviour, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and whether or not the behaviour occurs

Question 13

Consensus Information

Answer 13

information about the extent to which other people behave the same way the actor does toward the same stimulus

Question 14

Distinctiveness Information

Answer 14

Information about the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli

Question 15

Consistency Information

Answer 15

Information about the extent to which the behaviour between the actor and the stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Question 16

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 16

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviour is due to personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational factors

Question 17

Perceptual Salience

Answer 17

Information that is the focus of people’s attention; people tend to overestimate the causal role of perceptually salient information

Question 18

Two-Step Attribution Process

Answer 18

Analyzing another person’s 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 original internal attribution

Question 19

Actor/Observer Difference

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Self-Serving Attributions

Answer 20

The tendency to make internal, dispositional attributions for our successes but blame our failures on external, situational factors

Question 21

Defensive Attributions

Answer 21

Explanations for behaviour that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality

Question 22

Belief in a Just World

Answer 22

A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people

Question 23

Bias Blind Spot

Answer 23

The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are

Question 24

Top-down processing

Answer 24

using preconceived ideas and schemas as the basis for impression formation

Question 25

Bottom-up processing

Answer 25

gathering individual observations of a person in order to form an overall impression