S1 Topic 1 - Person Perception Flashcards
What are first impressions affected by? (4)
Non-verbal cues
Rumors
Similarity to self
Self-esteem
What is the primacy/order effect?
the first information received carries more weight than the one following it
What are 5 characteristics of non-verbal communication?
Conscious or unconscious (e.g., body language)
Out of your control (e.g., blushing)
Congruent or incongruent (e.g., your tone doesn’t match what you’re saying)
Cultural boundaries
Ambiguous (e.g., expressing 2 emotions at once)
What are the 5 functions non-verbal communication?
Regulating (better understanding)
Accenting (placing emphasis)
Complementing (providing clarity)
Contradicting
Substituting
Name 9 forms of non-verbal communication
Clothes and belongings
Facial expressions
Gaze and eye contact
Posture
Gestures
Paralanguage (pace, pitch, volume)
Proximity
Touch (friendly/intimate/sexual)
Personal space
Who came up with looking-glass self theory?
Charles Cooley
What theories did Solomon Asch invent? (2)
The Primacy/Order Effect
The Centrality of Traits
Who invented the recency effect?
Hermann Ebbinghaus
What did Asch believe the primacy/order effect was caused by?
assimilation of meaning
In Jones et al’s experiment on the primacy effect, who did the observers think was the most intelligent:
the person who answered most questions correctly only in the beginning
OR
the person who answered most questions correctly only in the end
the person who answered most questions correctly in the beginning - even though his performance decreased in the second half
What is the recency effect?
the information presented last will dominate impressions
Explain the centrality of traits
Give an example
certain traits are more significant than others
E.g., substituting polite for blunt has less effect than substituting warm for cold - therefore the traits warm and cold are the more significant traits
Explain the implicit personality theory
it is the sum total of our accumulated hypotheses and expectations about the way people’s attributes and traits are organized
What is the Attribution Theory?
how we make inferences about the causes of our own and others’ behaviour
What 2 questions does Heider’s theory of naïve psychology ask?
- is the action caused by an internal disposition or by external pressures
- if caused by an internal disposition, was it intentional or unintentional
Name the Attribution Theories and who invented them (3)
Theory of Naïve Psychology - Heider
Correspondent Inference Theory - Jones and Davis
Covariation Model - Kelly
According to the correspondent inference theory, on what traits do we judge people’s behaviour (5)
Give an example for each (5)
Choice - e.g., choice of course
Social role - e.g., a lecturer eating lunch with students
Social desirability - e.g., liar/untrustworthy
Prior expectations - e.g., seeing a lecturer at a strip club
Non-common effect - e.g., consequences of making the decision to study law instead of medicine
Explain the non-common effect
the consequences of a chosen action must be compared with the consequences of possible alternatives
According to the covariation model, on what 3 principles do we determine the cause of a behaviour?
Give examples for each (3)
- Distinctiveness - does the student sleep during ONLY my lectures?
- Consistency - does the student sleep during ALL my lectures?
- Consensus - do other students ALSO sleep during my lectures?
What is the fundamental attribution error?
Give an example
Since behaviour is motivated by the person’s predisposition and attitude, people tend to overattribute the behaviour of others to dispositional causes, ignoring context or role
E.g., when a lecturer is in a bad mood, a student regards him as a bad lecturer, without considering that the lecturer may have had a bad day
What is the actor observer effect?
Give an example
We attribute our own behaviour to external factors to justify it
E.g., I failed an exam because the examiner is tough, not because I didn’t study
Distinguish between:
self-based consensus
self-centered bias
self-serving bias
self-based consensus - assuming others will do the same thing as you would in a given situation
self-centered bias - taking more credit for a joint effort on a successful task
self-serving bias - take credit for success but deny responsibility for failure
What is the defensive attribution hypothesis?
observers attribute more responsibility for an accident that produces sever rather than mild consequences
What are negativity biases? (2)
negative info has a disproportionately large weight in determining impressions
a negative first impression is more resistant to change
What is the leniency bias?
in the absence of negative info, we expect people to have positive qualities
What are biases due to expectations?
What can this lead to?
if we have positive expectations, we look for information that proves us right - and vice versa
This can lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy or the Pygmalion effect
What is the Pygmalion effect?
a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the way an individual treats another
What is evaluative consistency?
the tendency to consider a partial structure of a person’s personality that is visible to us, as though it is their total personality
What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?
an expectation or belief that can influence your behaviors, thus causing the belief to come true
List the 12 cognitive biases (AA-BB-CC-OOO-P-SS)
- Anchoring bias (primacy effect)
- Availability of heuristic bias
- Bandwagon effect (groupthink)
- Blind spot bias (thinking you aren’t biased)
- Choice supportive bias (not pointing out your choice was the worse one)
- Confirmation bias (focus only on info that supports our belief)
- Ostrich bias (ignore negative info)
- Outcome bias
- Overconfidence (following gut feeling)
- Placebo bias
- Survivorship bias
- Selective perception (noticing more what appeals to you)
