Chapter 4 - Social Perception Flashcards
Two-step process of attribution
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
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 or patting someone on the back
Self-serving attributions
Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors
Consensus information
Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way as the actor does toward the same stimulus
Defensive attributions
Explanations for behaviour that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality
Consistency information
Information about the extent to which the behaviour between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances
Distinctiveness information
Information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli
Perceptual salience
Information that is the focus of people’s attention; people tend to overestimate the causal role of perceptually salient information
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people’s behaviour stems from personality traits and to underestimate the role of situational factors
Emblems
Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translations, such as the “okay” sign
Display rules
Culturally determined rules about which emotional expression are appropriate to show
Belief in a just world
A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people
Internal attribution
The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about him or her, such as his or her attitude, character, or personality
Decode
To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behaviour other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness
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
Social perception
The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about them
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
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, he or she is generous as well
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
Attribution theory
A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour
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
