Impression Information Flashcards
What is the face “pop-out” effect?
Human faces tend to capture our attention much quicker than non-human faces.
How quickly can we recognize human faces?
Within 32-100 milliseconds.
How quickly do we form impressions of people?
Within 100 milliseconds.
What is the overgeneralization hypothesis?
We infer personality characteristics based on the similarity of one’s appearance with learned associations.
What are the main things we focus on when trying to perceive emotional expressions?
The brow, the eyes, and the mouth.
What does the face in the crowd effect do?
It is important because self-directed anger (with eye gaze) tends to indicate a threat, it is important for us to be able to detect and avoid or respond to that threat as quickly as possible.
What are the 5 big personality factors (OCEAN)?
Openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (emotional stability)
What is the attribution theory?
Not considering the context as playing a role and just assuming that it’s an internally driven force that’s driving us/ We tend to use intrinsic rather than extrinsic attributions which leads us to make more unfavourable assumptions about people. It’s easier for our brains to jump to conclusions than to reason an external factor that could be contributing to someone’s behaviour
What is an intrinsic inference?
A dispositional or personal attribution which leads to an unfavourable reaction.
What is an extrinsic inference?
A situational attribution that leads to a sympathetic reaction
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Also known as correspondence bias. It is the tendency to overlook the impact of a situation and attribute someone’s actions to their disposition
What is the two-step process of impressions?
1) form impression - this is automatic, we aren’t consciously exerting effort into forming this impression
2) correct/update impression for context - this takes effort and mental resources which we don’t always have enough of
What are perceiver factors?
When a perceiver’s goals/beliefs influence how others are perceived. This happens more often with men perceiving women. It is an automatic function to assume someone is showing you interest.
These can improve accuracy/social sensitivity.
Perceiver factors can be influenced by motivation, cognitive beliefs and current emotions.
What is the smoke detector principle?
Basically, it’s better to be safe than sorry. You should always be biased towards interpreting something as interest so that you don’t miss any opportunities to mate.
What is negativity bias?
We perceive negative or unexpected information about someone as more diagnostic of their character than positive information. Knowing negative facts about people is rare, so when we do learn a negative fact about someone, it is valuable and tends to hold more weight when forming impressions about people.
What is the primacy effect?
Learning about some traits first influences how all subsequent traits are perceived. If we use more positive words first when describing someone, we will have a better impression of them than if we use more negative words first.
What is a confirmation bias?
Once a first impression is formed, people tend to look for information that confirms what their first impression was, rather than information that disconfirms it. This results in attending to confirming information and disregarding disconfirming information.
What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Information that we are given guides the outcome of the situation.
