Lecture 12: Communication Part 1

Question 1

interpersonal gap

Answer 1

disconnect between what the sender intends to communicate and the effect of the communication on the perceiver

Question 2

sender

Answer 2

• Private knowledge of what they wish to convey
• Must be encoded into verbal & nonverbal actions
• Various factors may interfere: skill, inhibition, mood, and distractions in the environment

Question 3

recipient

Answer 3

• Decode sender’s actions
• Potential interference: skill, biases, mood, distractions in the environment
• Interpretation (again private)

Question 4

relational consequences of communication

Answer 4

• Interpersonal gap may contribute to frustration and dissatisfaction in relationships
• In unhappy couples, intent isn’t necessarily more negative, but impact is
• Communication shapes how and whether relationships begin, how they unravel in the end, and everything in between

Question 5

interpersonal gap in close relationships

Answer 5

This gap may sometimes appear more frequently in close than casual relationships

Question 6

perspective-taking

Answer 6

• For successful communication, we need to recognize that others do not see the world exactly as we do
• Differing knowledge, expectations, motivations, and visual perspectives
• A skill that is developed over time
• Young children do not distinguish between what they know & what others know
• Ex. poor performance on Director Task

Question 7

director task

Answer 7

• A confederate acts as a director
• Both the participant and director look at a cubby from different perspectives
• The director will ask the confederate to select an item (ex. The smallest car)
• They then assess how well the participant is able to take the director’s perspective

Question 8

perspective-taking over time

Answer 8

• We still show egocentric bias even as adults
• We become better at effortfully correcting initial egocentric interpretations by taking into account the difference between the self and others’ perspectives

Question 9

false consensus effect

Answer 9

we overestimate the extent to which others share our attitudes & feelings

Question 10

curse of knowledge

Answer 10

we use our own knowledge as a guide to other’s knowledge

Question 11

illusion of transparency

Answer 11

we overestimate the extent to which our internal states are accessible to others

Question 12

dual process model of cognition

Answer 12

• Stage 1: automatic, effortless default (leans egocentric)
• Stage 2: effortful correction

Question 13

Differences between children & adults on the Director Task

Answer 13

• Adults make fewer mistakes (but still make some)
• Adults and children do not differ in their tendency to look at the egocentric object
• This suggests that adults are just more likely to correct for the egocentric bias

Question 14

corollaries

Answer 14

• Egocentric biases are increased under cognitive load
• Distractions, fatigue, stress
• Motivation can decrease egocentric bias
• But lack of motivation can increase it

Question 15

Why are we sometimes more egocentric when communicating with close others?

Answer 15

• Inclusion of others in the self
• We may overestimate the extent to which close others share our perspective
• We assume that a stranger’s perspective is different & pay more attention
• But we let our guard down when it comes to a close other’s perspective
• Ex. less correction on the Director Task when with a friend vs. a stranger

Question 16

gauging & communicating romantic interest

Answer 16

• Strong approach-avoid conflict in relationship-initiation contexts (Want to get closer to partner, but don’t want to be embarrassed or hurt)
• Social norms against being too direct
• We rely on less direct & efficient methods instead
• Make approach in an indirect, ambiguous way (partner must infer meaning)
• Communicate respect for the partner’s autonomy & lessen the sense of obligation
• Communicate that you do not want to impinge

Question 17

trial intimacy moves

Answer 17

escalate physical & psychological intimacy to see how the other person responds

Question 18

examples of trial intimacy moves

Answer 18

escalating touch/proximity, reciprocity of self-disclosure

Question 19

Escalating touch/proximity

Answer 19

move closer, and see how the other person responds

Question 20

Reciprocity: self-disclosure

Answer 20

do they reciprocate the disclosure?

Question 21

Diminishing self

Answer 21

making self-deprecating comments in the hope of reassurance

Question 22

withdrawing

Answer 22

testing to see whether the partner will sustain the interaction

Question 23

hazing

Answer 23

testing to see whether the target will provide some favour or service at a cost to themselves

Question 24

pluralistic ignorance

Answer 24

• Occurs when you observe others behaving similarly to you, but conclude that the behaviour reflects different underlying feelings & motivations
• Recognize the influence of social inhibitions on one’s own behaviour (ex. Fear of social disapproval, embarrassment) but not other’s behaviour

Question 25

prevalence of pluralistic ignorance

Answer 25

• Over 75% of participants report that fear of rejection has prevented them from pursuing a romantic relationship
• But we’re less likely to believe that potential partners had been inhibited by fear of rejection
• We attribute our own inaction to a fear of rejection and other’s inaction to a lack of interest

Question 26

signal amplification bias

Answer 26

We systematically overestimate how much interest our signals convey

Question 27

augmenting principle

Answer 27

we expect that a target will take into account the inhibitory forces acting on our behaviour

Question 28

illusion of transparency

Answer 28

• The target does not have access to the internal states that we do
• Thus, we generally underestimate how much other people fear rejection

Question 29

attachment anxiety and communication

Answer 29

• Anxiously attached individuals overestimate interest conveyed by their romantic overtures
• Feel especially inhibited and so are especially likely to think they look inhibited to others
• Expect the recipient to augment the signal, which doesn’t happen
• Bigger gap between behaviour & meta-perceptions (regardless of the actual level of behaviour)
• Temporary increases in fear of rejection (ex. Reflecting on previous rejection experience) have the same effect

Question 30

risky communications

Answer 30

• Not just relationship initiation or “defining the relationship” moments
• Could play a role any other time there is a heightened sense of vulnerability
• We overestimate warmth conveyed by any (potentially invisible) positive overtures -> sense of hurt, lashing out
• This may help explain why rejection sensitivity is associated with lower relationship satisfaction

Question 31

nonverbal communication

Answer 31

• Not just what we say, but also what we do
• Gestures, posture, facial expressions, tone of voice, touch, and physical appearance

Question 32

functions of nonverbal communication

Answer 32

• providing information
• regulating interaction
• defining the nature of the relationship
• interpersonal influence
• impression management

Question 33

providing information

Answer 33

nonverbal information can be informative for making inferences about the sender’s mood, intentions, traits, and meaning behind their words

Question 34

regulating interaction

Answer 34

subtle nonverbal cues allow people to take turns in a conversation smoothly

Question 35

defining the nature of the relationship

Answer 35

nonverbal actions express intimacy and carry signals of power and status

Question 36

interpersonal influence

Answer 36

nonverbal information can be used to influence someone else

Question 37

impression management

Answer 37

nonverbal behaviour can be used by an individual or a couple to convey a certain image of the self or the relationship

Question 38

evidence for the universality of emotional expression

Answer 38

• Collected 3,000 photographs of people portraying anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. People in Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and the U.S. were asked to identify the emotion and had 70-90% accuracy
• Isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea living in preindustrial hunter-gatherer-like conditions. They were able to recognize Western emotions with above-chance accuracy. The reverse is true as well: Americans were able to recognize emotions displayed by the tribe members
• Cross-species similarities in emotional displays
• Congenitally blind people express emotions in the same way that sighted people do

Question 39

functionalist view of emotion

Answer 39

• Emotions do something (adaptive response to environmental challenges)
• One of those functions is a signalling function

Question 40

example of cultural variation in emotional expression

Answer 40

Expressions of shame are universal but more pronounced in collectivistic vs. individualistic cultures

Question 41

display rules

Answer 41

culturally specific rules that govern how, when, and to whom people express emotions

Question 42

result of display rules

Answer 42

Can intensify (exaggerate), de-intensify (minimize), neutralize (poker face), or mask

Question 43

are display rules always successful?

Answer 43

Not always successful: cues of inauthenticity, microexpressions

Question 44

social gaze

Answer 44

• Rich source of information about mental/emotional states
• Signal attention & interest
• Can promote social bonding
• May facilitate approach in relationship initiation context by reducing uncertainty
• Helps regulate interactions
• Communicates intimacy
• Communicates dominance

Question 45

example of using the social gaze as a source of information

Answer 45

Ex. people can often glean expressions from just looking at someone’s eyes

Question 46

using the social gaze to signal attention & interest

Answer 46

• May not be entirely under our control
• Ex. pupil dilation in response to emotional and sexual arousal
• This is used by perceivers to evaluate sexual interest

Question 47

using the social gaze to promote social bonding

Answer 47

• Mutual gaze increases feelings of attraction & love
• Increases self-disclosure

Question 48

high openers

Answer 48

individuals who are good at eliciting self-disclosure (communicate more interest and attentiveness through gaze & other channels)

Question 49

using the social gaze to regulate interactions

Answer 49

• Lets us know whether someone is open to approach
• Provides feedback on how the message is received
• Helps negotiate turn-taking
• Ex. tend to look at partner less when speaking (vs. listening): shift gaze back to partner to signal end of turn

Question 50

using the social gaze to communicate intimacy

Answer 50

Lovers spend more time gazing at each other

Question 51

using the social gaze to communicate dominance

Answer 51

• Normally, look at partner 40% of the time when speaking, 60% when listening
• Reversed for powerful, high-status individuals

Question 52

Higher visual dominance ratio

Answer 52

% looking while speaking / % looking while listening

Question 53

social touch

Answer 53

• We possess a finely tuned tactile communication system
• Communicates emotion
• Can decode anger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy through touch
• Can also decode these emotions by watching others communicate through touch

Question 54

social touch & intimacy

Answer 54

• Can infer couples’ level of intimacy from touch
• Duration, body part (touch to more vulnerable body parts considered more intimate))
• Quantity of touch increases as the relationship emerges, peaks in the intermediate stages of dating, declines in the first year of marriage
• Happily married couples use more intimate touch than less happy couples
• Can signal care, affection, and concern
• Can therefore be considered a nonverbal form of responsiveness
• Increases sense of intimacy

Question 55

touch & attachment

Answer 55

• Important means through which partners regulate each other’s emotions
• Contributes to a sense of security, boosts positive affect, alleviates pain, stress, and psychological distress (safe haven in attachment terms)
• Signals the “all-clear” to the nervous system, downregulating metabolically expensive stress responses and reducing threat vigilance

Question 56

touch & attachment in animals

Answer 56

Social grooming in primates reduces physiological (e.g., heart rate, glucocorticoid levels) and behavioural (scratching, yawning) markers of stress; attenuates heart rate acceleration after encounter with dominant conspecific

Question 57

touch & attachment in humans

Answer 57

Touching or holding a loved one’s hand reduces physical pain, neural activation in response to threat of pain, hormonal stress response

Question 58

touch & attachment avoidance

Answer 58

Avoidantly attached individuals engage in less touch (less comfortable with intimacy)

Question 59

are avoidants indifferent to the effects of touch?

Answer 59

• Positive association between touch & well-being regardless of the level of avoidance
• Lack of touch mediates the relationship between avoidance & lower well-being

Question 60

nonverbal cues of affection in avoidants

Answer 60

• In general, nonverbal cues of affection may be particularly beneficial for avoidants
• Tend to be distrustful of others; nonverbal communication is perceived as more trustworthy than verbal