Chapter 4 - Social Perception

Question 1

Two-step process of attribution

Answer 1

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 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 or patting someone on the back

Question 4

Self-serving attributions

Answer 4

Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors

Question 5

Consensus information

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Defensive attributions

Answer 6

Explanations for behaviour that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality

Question 7

Consistency information

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Distinctiveness information

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Perceptual salience

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Emblems

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Display rules

Answer 12

Culturally determined rules about which emotional expression are appropriate to show

Question 13

Belief in a just world

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Internal attribution

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Decode

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Affect blend

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Social perception

Answer 17

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

Question 18

External attribution

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Implicit personality theory

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Actor/observer difference

Answer 20

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 21

Attribution theory

Answer 21

A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behaviour

Question 22

Covariation model

Answer 22

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