Chapter 4- Social Perception Flashcards
Social Perception
The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them
Nonverbal Communication
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
Encode
To express or emit nonverbal behaviour, such as smiling
Decode
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
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; usually have direct verbal translations, such as the “okay” sign
Implicit Personality Theory
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
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 a certain way because of something about them, such as their attitude, character, or personality
External Attribution
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
Covariation Model
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
Consensus Information
information about the extent to which other people behave the same way the actor does toward the same stimulus
Distinctiveness Information
Information about the extent to which the actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli
Consistency Information
Information about the extent to which the behaviour between the actor and the stimulus is the same across time and circumstances
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviour is due to personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational factors
Perceptual Salience
Information that is the focus of people’s attention; people tend to overestimate the causal role of perceptually salient information
Two-Step Attribution Process
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
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 Attributions
The tendency to make internal, dispositional attributions for our successes but blame our failures on external, situational factors
Defensive Attributions
Explanations 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 good people
Bias Blind Spot
The tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are
Top-down processing
using preconceived ideas and schemas as the basis for impression formation
Bottom-up processing
gathering individual observations of a person in order to form an overall impression
