Lecture 7 social cognition and attribution

Question 1

Give an example of an impression formation that is common in society. What are the consequences to this?

Answer 1

• physcial beauty is one example of an impression formation component that is common within society. there is a notion that what is beautiful equals that thing/object/person being good.
• attractiveness used as a type of impression formation has consequences including people wanting to help more attractive people and that people would rather meet attractive strangers than un-attractive

Question 2

What are some components of physcial features within impression formation?

Answer 2

1. Clothing
2. Historical and cultural connotations
   - wealth
   - power status
   - authority
   - credibility

Question 3

What are some competing associations associated with physical features?

Answer 3

• Physcial features have competing associations
• Baby-faced ppl often seen as
  1. Honest kind, warm BUT
  2. Less competent, childlike + submissive

Question 4

How do we know what is going on between ppl without communicating?

Answer 4

1. Eye contact
   * Provides useful social information - gaze, direction/duration, fixation length, fixation frequency, fixation duration
2. Facial expressions
   * Smiling/frowning
3. Body language
   * Body angle, body movements, personal space etc..

Question 5

What is important to consider when interpreting impression formaton factors of non-verbal communication?

Answer 5

impression formation factors of non-verbal communication is very cultural specific. This means that non-verbal communication factors are interpreted differently between different cultures

Question 6

How important is eye-contact, facial expression and body language to impression formation of other people? What is a good theory that emphasises the importance?

Answer 6

the mind-blindness theory of autism illustrate the importance of non-verbal communication to impression formation of others.

• mind blindness is a cognitive disorder where indiviausals are unable to put mental states to others
• this results in individuals unable to “put themselves in other peoples shoes”