Lecture 2 - Perceiving Individuals

Question 1

What did Walster et al., (1966) find about physical appearance?

Answer 1

University students who rated others as more attractive also rated them higher on other domains, such as intelligence.

Question 2

What did Hart et al., (2011) find about physical appearance and politics?

Answer 2

More attractive (fictitious) political candidates are preferred. Relationship between attractiveness and preference may be present when people believe they have no other basis to make the judgement.

Question 3

Those with baby-facedness are what?

Answer 3

• less likely to be hired for jobs that require mature characteristics, such as competence and leadership.
• less likely to be convicted of violent crimes.

Question 4

What did Todorov at al., (2005) find about perceived competence?

Answer 4

Participants judging which political candidates were successful purely on confidence were right 66-70% of the time.

Question 5

How do we prefer feelings to be expressed?

Answer 5

Non-verbally

Question 6

What did Mason et al., (2005) find about how ratings differ depending on the angle of certain pictures?

Answer 6

If a person in a photo is directed towards the camera, they are more likely to be perceived as:

• more likeable
• more attractive (only for straight males)

Question 7

What is the mere exposure effect?

Answer 7

By seeing someone and merely being exposed to them, they are more familiar. This increased familiarity then increases perceived likeability and attractiveness.

Thought to be due to the association of the familiar person with a lack of negative outcomes.

Question 8

Which study supports the mere exposure effect?

Answer 8

Moreland & Beach (1992) - found that ratings of women seen in lectures were higher for how warm, intelligent, and interesting they were the more lectures they had attended (the more familiar they were).

Question 9

What are the elements of ‘raw material’ which might influence how others are perceived?

Answer 9

• familiarity

- environment

Question 10

What influences whether/which cues are noticed?

Answer 10

Salience

Question 11

Define salience

Answer 11

The ability of a cue to attract attention

Question 12

Define accessibility of environmental cues.

Answer 12

Ease and speed with which information comes to mind.

Question 13

What is chronic accessibility?

Answer 13

Frequent activation of certain cues will bias interpretations.

Question 14

What is temporary accessibility?

Answer 14

Short term activation of certain cues that may bias interpretations.

Question 15

What might influence the interpretation of environmental cues?

Answer 15

• Chronic activation
• Temporary activation
• Mood/motive
• Accessibility

Question 16

How might mood/motive influence interpretation of environmental cues?

Answer 16

Positive mood could cause ambiguous cues to be interpreted positively, and vice versa for negative mood (Isen, 1987).

Question 17

What is trait priming?

Answer 17

The biasing of interpretation of cues due to previous exposure to related traits.

(e.g. interpreting risky behaviour as adventurous or reckless)

Question 18

What are correspondence inferences?

Answer 18

The process of characterising someone as having a personality trait that corresponds to their behaviour. (correctly predicting an individual’s traits).

Question 19

What are correspondence biases?

Answer 19

The tendency to infer someone’s character from observed behaviour, even when the inference is unjustified. (incorrectly predicting someone’s character)

Question 20

When are correspondence inferences justified?

Answer 20

• When the behaviour is freely chosen
• when the behaviour has no other plausible causes
• When the behaviour is atypical or unexpected.

Ok to make personality judgements in these cases.

Question 21

What is Kelly’s co-variation model and what does it tell us?

Answer 21

Tells us when we are more likely to predict dispositions/traits in people, if they are not strangers:

• consensus (more dispositional if no one else does it)
• consistency (more dispositional if the target always does it)
• distinctiveness (more dispositional if the target does it across a variety of situations/people.
• distintiveness

Question 22

What are the 3 steps to impression formation?

Answer 22

1. Categorisation of the behaviour (automatic & fast)
2. Characterisation of the person (automatic & fast)
3. Correction of your interpretation - this is effortful.

Question 23

What is the perseverance bias?

Answer 23

It’s easier to form an impression than to change it.

Question 24

What does inconsistency in behaviour do?

Answer 24

• captures attention
• leads to more processing
• motivates perceivers to find explanations.

Question 25

What is the primacy effect?

Answer 25

Initial impressions shape interpretations.