Cognitive Flashcards
definitons
What is social cognition?
social cognition involves how we interpret, analyse, remember, and use information to make judgments about others in different situations.
person perception
Person perception refers to the mental processes we use to form impressions and draw conclusions about the personal characteristics of other people.
Person perception is based on: physical appearance, body language, eye contact, facial expressions and personal space.
halo effect
The halo effect is a cognitive bias in which the impression we form about one quality of a person influences our beliefs and expectations about the person in other qualities.
Body language
A person’s body language is an expression of behaviour that enables us to make quick and often accurate judgments about them.
Personal space
Personal space refers to a small, ‘invisible’, physical area immediately surrounding our body that is regarded as our personal territory.
When communicating or interacting with another person(s), the distance or space we maintain between our self and the other person(s) is called interpersonal distance or interpersonal space.
Salience Detection
In relation to person perception, salience refers to any personal characteristic that is distinctive, prominent, conspicuous or noticeable in its context and therefore attracts attention.
e.g Race, Gender, Physical, Appearance, Clothing
Attitudes
an evaluation a person makes about an object, person, group, event or issue.
Tri-Component Model of Attitudes
(ABC)
Affective Component- based on the feelings that someone has for something.
Behavioural Component- our actions toward something
Cognitive Component- the belief we have for something
what element of the tri-component model is most inconsistent?
Most of the time it is the behavioural component that is inconsistent.
Cognitive Dissonance
some people, if they experience discomfort or guilt because they are behaving differently to what they should behave, they are experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Limitations of the Tri-Component Model
Inconsistency can occur between the three different components of attitudes and appears to the observer as inconsistent usually between a person’s attitude and their actual behaviour.
