Chapter 4 - Social Perception

Question 1

Social perception

Answer 1

the study of how people form impressions of others and make inferences about others

Question 2

Nonverbal communication

Answer 2

the ways in which people communicate either intentionally or unintentionally without using words
- facial expressions
- gaze
- touch
- voice tone
- body movement
- body position
- etc.

Question 3

Decoding

Answer 3

the interpretation of nonverbal behavior other people express

Question 3

Encoding

Answer 3

the expression of nonverbal behavior

Question 4

Six univeral emotional expressions

Answer 4

• anger
• happiness
• surprise
• sadness
• fear
• disgust

Question 5

Affect blends

Answer 5

facial expressions where one part of the face is registering one emotion, while another part of the face is registering a different emotion

Question 6

Display rules

Answer 6

culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display in social situations

Question 7

Emblems

Answer 7

nonverbal gestures that have a well-understood definition within a specific culture, and also a direct verbal translation

Question 8

Thin-slicing

Answer 8

the process of drawing meaningful conclusions about another person’s personality or skills based on a very brief sample of behavior

Question 9

Primacy effect

Answer 9

the first traits we perceive in others influence how we view information that we learn about them later

Question 10

Belief perseverance

Answer 10

the tendency to stick with an initial judgement even when people are shown new information that should change their previous judgement

Question 11

Attribution theory

Answer 11

a discription of the ways in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior
- internal attribution
- external attribution

Question 12

Internal attribution

Answer 12

a person behaves a certain way because of something about that person such as attitude, character, or personality

Question 13

External attribution

Answer 13

a person behaves in a certain way because of the situation that person is in, with the assumption that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Question 14

Covariation model

Answer 14

a theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we note the pattern between when the behavior occured and the presence or absence of possible causal factors

Question 15

Consensus information

Answer 15

the extent to which other people behave in the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

Question 16

Distinctiveness information

Answer 16

the extent to which a particular actor behaves in the way toward different stimuli

Question 17

Consistency information

Answer 17

the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Question 18

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 18

the tendency people have to overestimate the extent to which other people’s behavior results from internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors

Question 19

Perceptual salience

Answer 19

we pay attention to other people rather than their situation, and think that they are the cause of the behavior

Question 20

Two-step attribution process

Answer 20

• we make an internal attribution, assuming that the persons behavior was due to something about that person
• sometimes we adjust the attribution, but we often don’t take this extra step

Question 21

Self-serving attribution

Answer 21

people tend to take credit for their success by making internal attributions, however, when people fail they blame others or the situation

Question 22

Belief in a just world

Answer 22

people believe that bad things happen only to bad people

Question 23

Bias blind spot

Answer 23

the tendency to think that other people are more susceptible to attribution biases