Chapter 9: Social Cognition Part 1 Flashcards
What is social cognition?
How we interpret, analyse, remember and use info to make judgments about others in different social situations.
What is person perception?
Where we form impressions and make assumptions about the personal characteristics of other people.
What is the halo effect? Give an example:
A cognitive bias where the impressions we form about one quality of a person influences our beliefs and expectations about the person in other qualities.
Eg. If a person is good looking, they will have good personal qualities. If a person is ugly, they will have bad personal qualities.
What is non-verbal communication? Give some examples:
Our impression of people is influenced by their body language, such as facial expressions, eye contact, posture, gestures, and movement.
How is eye contact a way of non-verbal communication?
In Western cultures, eye contact is a sign of respect, while in some Asian cultures it is rude and confronting.
How are facial expressions perceived?
Some facial expressions are perceived and communicated in similar ways in many different cultures, particularly facial expressions of emotion.
What it is attribution?
Inferences that we make about the cause of events, where we tend to see the cause of a behaviour as being either internal or external.
-How we explain the causes of our own or other people’s behaviour.
What is personal attribution? Give an example:
(Internal) When we explain a person’s behaviour as a result of their personal characteristics.
Eg. He crashed his car because he’s a bad driver
What is situation attribution? Give an example:
(External) When we explain someone’s behaviour as being caused by external factors outside of their control.
Eg. He crashed his car because the road was icy.
What does the fundamental attribution error refer to?
The tendency to overestimate the influence of personal factors and underestimate the impact of situational factors on other people’s behaviour.
What does actor-observer bias refer to?
Our tendency to attribute our own behaviour to situational (external) causes, yet attribute other people’s behaviour to internal factors.
Eg. Failing a test and blaming it on the teacher for making it too hard, but when someone else fails a test it’s because they’re lazy and didn’t study.
What does self-serving bias refer to? Give an example:
When judging ourselves we tend to take credit for our successes and blame our failures on situational factors.
Eg. Doing well on a test and believing it was because of your hard work, but when you fail a test you blame it on the teacher for marking you too harshly.
What does an attitude refer to?
An evaluation a person makes about something.
- The judgement must be relatively consistent and lasting for it to be called an attitude
- Can be positive, neutral or negative.
What does the tri-component model of attitudes refer to?
The principle that any attitude is made up of affective, behavioural and cognitive components.
What does the affective component of attitudes refer to? Give an example:
The feelings an individual has towards something.
Eg. Feeling sad when a friend dies
