Chapter 6 - Perceiving Others

Question 1

Person perception

Answer 1

The process of learning about other people

Question 2

Nonverbal behavior

Answer 2

Any type of communication that does not involve speaking, including facial expressions, body language, touching, voice patterns, and interpersonal distance

Question 3

Central traits

Answer 3

Traits (such as warm or cold), that are very important in how we perceive a person especially compared to other traits

Question 4

Primacy effect

Answer 4

Information that we learn first is weighted more heavily than information that comes later

Question 5

Causal attribution

Answer 5

The process of trying to determine the causes of people’s behavior

Question 6

Personal/internal/dispositional attribution

Answer 6

An attribution made when we decide that a behavior was caused primarily by the person’s own personality, not situation

Question 7

Situational/external attribution

Answer 7

An attribution made when we decide that a behavior was caused primarily by the situation

Question 8

Covariation principle

Answer 8

A given behavior is more likely to have been caused by the situation if that behavior covaries (or changes) across situations

Question 9

Consistency information

Answer 9

A situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the situation always produces the behavior

Question 10

Distinctiveness behavior

Answer 10

A situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the behavior occurs when the situation is present but not when it is not present (ex. crying at weddings but not at any other time)

Question 11

Consensus information

Answer 11

A situation seems to be the cause of a behavior if the situation creates the same behavior in most people

Question 12

Fundamental attribution error (correspondence bias)

Answer 12

When we tend to overestimate the role of person factors and overlook the impact of situations

Question 13

Actor-observer difference

Answer 13

We tend to make more personal attributions for the behavior of others than we do for ourselves and to make more situational attributions for our own behavior than for the behavior of others

Question 14

Self-serving attributions

Answer 14

Attributions that help us meet our desires to see ourselves positively

Question 15

Need for cognition

Answer 15

The tendency to think carefully and fully about social situations

Question 16

Entity theorists

Answer 16

People that believe that people’s traits are fundamentally stable and incapable of change

Question 17

Incremental theorists

Answer 17

People who believe that personalities change a lot over time and who therefore are more likely to make situational attributions for events

Question 18

Attributional style

Answer 18

The type of attributions that we tend to make for the events that occur to us (including external vs internal)

Question 19

Learned helplessness

Answer 19

The tendency to make external, rather than internal, attributions for our behaviors

Question 20

Unrealistic optimism

Answer 20

The tendency to be overly positive about the likelihood that negative things will occur to us and that we will be able to effectively cope with them if we do