Chapter 4 Textbook Flashcards
Social perception
the study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them.
5 functions of nonverbal behavior
1) communicate emotion: anger –> straight mouth, slit eyes
2) communicate attitude: “I like you” –> smiling
3) communicates personality: extroverted
4) elicits empathy:
- we mimic other people’s facial expressions
5) substitute for a verbal message
empathy is linked to the presence of ___ ___, which respond when we perform and watch someone perform an action
MIRROR NEURONS
explain Darwin’s beliefs about emotion being biological
believed that:
- emotions conveyed evolutionary significance
- believed that all humans can encode and decode primary emotions with equal accuracy
- believed that the ability to perceive emotion allowed for increased survival (ex/ watching someone make a disgusted face when eating —> poison)
Encoding
to express or emit nonverbal behavior
Decoding
to interpret the meaning of nonverbal behavior other people express
___ discovered the 6 major emotions. list them
Paul Ekman
- anger
- sad
- happy
- fear
- surprise
- disgust
Examples of socially-tied emotions that are nearly universal
- contempt
- pride
- embarrassment
- pain
- anxiety
- shame
- guilt
- wonder?
T/F: Cultural differences are most pronounced for social emotions and least pronounced for reflex based emotions.
TRUE
Explain how CONTEXT in which a face is percieved may affect its identification
a given facial expression depended on what other faces were presented. Ex// exposed to a happy face and a neutral face–> neutral face is perceived as sad. But: expose a neutral face and a sad face –> neutral face is perceived as happy.
Explain how SITUATION may change emotional perception
if told that a person just came out of a frustrating interaction, many people think someone is showing an angry face even though they are expressing a FEAR face.
3 “problems” that affect the universality of emotion
1) culture
2) context
3) situation
Explain how cultural differences affect the PERCEPTION of facial expressions. Proof?
Asian –> HOLISTIC THINKERS: they tend to consider the CONTEXT in which the object is situated
Americans –> ANALYTIC THINKERS: considers the PRIMARY focal object alone.
Masuda: americans tended to rank the face as happy regardless of what the background faces were. Asians however ranked the face less happy when the faces in the background appeared sad. They also spend more eye movements and fixation time on the background (looking for CONTEXT) than americans.
both canadians and japanese people are faster at identifying facial expressions when the expression and the background:
match
ex/ both pleasant
Why is decoding sometimes inaccurate? (2 things)
1) affect blend
2) display rules
what is affect blends
one part of their face registers one emotion, while the other part registers a different emotion
what are display rules
culturally determined rules about which emotional expressions are appropriate to show.
T/F: DISPLAY RULES ARE UNIVERSAL
FALSE
Outline the gender differences to display rules
genders display emotions in public differently. Ex/ more acceptable for woman to cry in public than a man
themes of emotional showing (4)
1) intensification: EXAGGERATING the emotion to appear as if you are experiencing it more intensely than you are
2) deintensification: what we show on our face is MILDER than what we are feeling
3) neutralizing: sometimes we don’t show any emotion
4) masking: showing the opposite emotion to what we actually feel
T/F: personal space differs cross culturally
true
4 factors affecting personal space
1) situation
2) disabilities (people with autism don’t have social boundaries)
3) gender differences (male personal space is larger than female)
4) emotional state (anxiety)
interpersonal spacing conveys ___ ___ and ___
STATUS DIFFERENCE AND INTIMACY
Emblem
nonverbal gesture that we have well understood definitions within a given culture (ex/ thumbs up)
