Chapter 4 - Social Perception Flashcards
What is social perception?
The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them
Define: nonverbal communication
The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words
Mirror neurons respond when we perform an action AND ___________.
when we see someone else perform the same action
Wicker et al. (2003) showed that smelling obnoxious odors and watching a film of an actor wrinkling his face with a disgusted look activated the same region of a participant’s brain. (T/F)
True
Define: encode
To express or emit nonverbal behaviour
Define: decode
To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behaviour other people express
Becker, Kenrick, Neuberg, Blackwell & Smith (2007) did a study that showed people were more likely to be able to decode ______ expressions on male faces and ______ expressions on female faces.
angry; happy
According to Ekman and colleagues, the six major (universally recognized) emotions are:
anger, fear, disgust, sadness, surprise, happiness
Ekman and Friesen (1975) showed photographs of their six basic emotions to participants in the US, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Japan, and New Guinea. What were their main findings?
- 82% of all participants correctly labelled the ‘happiness’ expression
- only 54% of participants in Argentina and New Guinea labelled the ‘fear’ expression correctly
- 44% of New Guinea participants recognized the ‘disgust’ expression
Russell, Suzuki, and Ishida (1993) showed there is even less agreement when participants are asked to name the emotion shown in a face, rather than to select emotion terms from a list in which the number of emotion terms matches the number of faces (a common procedure in Ekman and Friesen’s studies). (T/F)
True
Masuda et al. (2008) presented research participants in the US and Japan with cartoon drawings of people in groups. One person in each cartoon was the central figure, shown in the foreground. The participants’ task was to judge the central person’s emotion. What did the results show?
The facial expressions on the group members’ faces had little effect on the Americans’ ratings of the central figure. The facial expressions of the group members had a significant effect on the Japanese participants’ ratings of the central figure.
Define: 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
Define: display rules
Culturally determined rules about which emotional expressions are appropriate to show
The more collectivist a culture is, the more likely it is for the expression of emotions to be encouraged. (T/F)
False; individualist cultures are more likely to encourage the expression of emotions, collectivist cultures prefer to keep emotions more hidden
What are emblems?
Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations, such as the “okay” sign
** Kruger et al. (2005) gave college students a number of topics to communicate that were matched to one of four emotions: sarcasm, sadness, anger, or seriousness. They had to communicate these messages either by email, voice only, or face-to-face. Finally, participants communicated their messages to either a stranger or a close friend. What did the results show?
Although message senders were highly confident they could communicate the emotions in all of the three types of messages, they were in fact most likely to fail to communicate the emotions accurately over email. This occurred whether the email recipients were their friends or strangers.
Define: 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 also generous
** Hoffman, Lau, and Johnson (1986) wrote stores in English and Chinese, describing a person behaving artistic or shi gú. They gave the stories written in English to unilingual English speakers and Chinese-English bilingual participants. They gave the stories written in Chinese to another group of Chinese-English bilingual participants.They then had to write down their impressions of the characters in the stories. What did the results show?
English and Chinese-English bilingual speakers who read the stories in English were more likely to form impressions of the artistic type (consistent with a Western implicit personality theory) while Chinese-English bilingual speakers who read the stories in Chinese were more likely to form impressions of the shi gú type (consistent with a Chinese implicit personality theory).
What is attribution theory?
A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour
Define: internal attribution
The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about him or her, such as his or her attitude, character, or personality
Define: external attribution
The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation
What is the 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
Define: consensus information
Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way as the actor does toward the same stimulus
Define: distinctiveness information
Information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli
