Slide Session 3 and 4

Question 1

What is nonverbal communication

Answer 1

Information conveyed by cues and our efforts to interpret it

Question 2

What are the 5 basic channels of nonverbal communication?

Answer 2

Facial expressions, 
Eye contact, 
Touching
Body movement and 
Posture

(together are called Body language)]

Question 3

What are emblems?

Answer 3

Certain Body movement, Posture and Gestures called emblems, e.g. middle finger

Question 4

What is attribution?

Answer 4

An important fact about social perception is that we often want to know why someone says or does certain things and what kind of person they really are. The process through which we seek such information and draw inferences is known as Attribution

Question 5

Positive ATTRIBUTIONS Style

Answer 5

Positive Events:
1. Internal, stable and global attributions are positive (adaptive) (e.g. I deserved that exam results because I am good at understanding psychology (internal), I always work hard (stable) and I have achieved good results before(global)

Negative Events
2) Attribution style characterized by external, unstable and specific attributions can be seen as positive (adoptive) AND includes good coping capacities (e.g. Maybe that person just wasn’t meant for me (external), This doesn’t happen often (unstable), This is only one person’s response towards me (specific)

Question 6

Negative ATTRIBUTION Style

Answer 6

1.) Positive events
External, unstable and specific attributions are negative (non-adaptive) with possible depression (e.g. not giving yourself credit for an achievement and believing it was achieved by chance).

Negative events:
2.) A personal Attribution style characterized by internal, stable and global attributions is seen as negative (non-adaptive), possible causing depression AND includes poor coping capacities (e.g. I will always be unattractive after being romantically rejected by another person because it’s about my shortfalls (internal), It has happened before (stable), Everybody considers me unattractive (global).

Question 7

Describe Kelley’s theory of causal attribution: understanding others

Answer 7

Kelly’s Covariation Theory of Causal attributions focuses on whether a behaviour is caused by situational factors or personal factors. To arrive at a decision of “cause” either being situational or personal factors we use:

1) Consensus - Typical social behaviour (Most people show up for a promised lunch date with a friend),
2) Consistency - Continuation of the same behaviour every time (e.g. Whenever we have to meet he/she never shows), and
3) Distinctiveness – The behaviour is consistent in all situations (e.g. that person never keeps commitments)

THEREFORE:
1.) Kelly’s Theory suggests that a decision of attributing external causes occurs when Consensus, Consistency and Distinctiveness are High because we attribute a person’s behaviour to external cues.

2. ) BUT when Consensus and Distinctiveness are Low and Consistency is High we attribute the person’s behaviour to internal causes.
3. ) Lastly, we usually attribute another’s behaviour to internal and external factors when Consistency and Distinctiveness are High and Consensus is low.

Question 8

What is correspondence bias and how does it relate to causal attribution?

Answer 8

(fundamental attribution error) The tendency to explain others’ actions as stemming from dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes.

Question 9

Consensus

Answer 9

• Typical social behaviour (Most people show up for a promised lunch date with a friend),

Question 10

Consistency

Answer 10

• Continuation of the same behaviour every time (e.g. Whenever we have to meet he/she never shows),

Question 11

Distinctiveness

Answer 11

– The behaviour is consistent in all situations (e.g. that person never keeps commitments)

Question 12

What are some fundamental attribution errors?

Answer 12

• correspondence bias (This is the phenomenon that says that people make more dispositional attributions for others’ behaviors. In other words, when we see people act a certain way, we tend to assume their behavior is indicative of their personality, not due to the situation they are in. )
• actor-observer effect (The tendency to attribute our own behavior mainly to situational causes but the behavior of others mainly to internal (dispositional) causes.)
• self-serving bias (The tendency to attribute positive outcomes to internal causes (e.g., one’s own traits or characteristics) but negative outcomes or events to external causes (e.g., chance, task difficulty).

Question 13

What is impression formation and impression enhancement?

Answer 13

Most people are concerned with making good first impressions on others because they believe that these impressions will exert lasting effects. Research on impression formation—the process through which we form impressions of others suggest this is true.

Asch’s classic research on impression formation indicated that impressions of others involve more than simple summaries of their traits and that some traits (central traits) can influence the interpreta- tion of other traits. First impressions are formed very quickly and even if based on limited information, can be somewhat accurate. However, confidence in the accuracy of such impres-sions is not closely related to their actual accuracy.
In order to make a good impression on others, individuals often engage in impression management (self-presentation). Many techniques are used for this purpose, but most fall under two major headings: self-enhancement—efforts to boost one’s appeal to others—and other-enhancement—efforts to induce positive moods or reactions in others. Existing evidence indi- cates that impression management works; it often succeeds in generating positive first impressions of the people using it. The use of such tactics is not closely related to behavior at later times, however. For instance, the people hired for jobs because they use impression management effectively don’t

Question 14

What do all the aspects of Social Perception mean when considering our Social life in a Connected World?

Answer 14

There is an interplay between the individual and the social sphere and the manner in which we construct our reality – they feed off each other in a continuous loop.
Our attribution style in combination with our ability to socially perceive the non-verbal and verbal communication from others allows us to better connect and interact with others.
The awareness of our own attribution is important in understanding the way in which we impact our social world
Cultural beliefs play a big role in our interaction with others socially, as well as the way in which we perceive ourselves.
Our social perception of ourselves affects the way we form our identity and that in turn determines how we interact in our social circles

Question 15

How do we manage ourselves?

Answer 15

Managing ourselves and who we are in different contexts is called Self presentation.
The methods of self presentation are:
1. Self-promotion with the aim to present ourselves as having positive attributes e.g. Facebook)

2. Self-verification- A continuous process we use to lead others to agree with our self-views through negotiations. We prefer to be around others who verify our self-views.
3. Favourable self-presentations (getting other to like us) can be created by using Ingratiation tactics that convey respect or positive regard (praising) for others in order for them to treat us with positivity or respect– impression management (Session 3- Social Perception)]
4. We can also be Self-deprecating - letting others believe they are better than us by communicating admiration or lowering others expectations of our ability

Question 16

What are key points on self-knowledge?

Answer 16

● One common method by which we attempt to gain self- knowledge is through introspection—looking inwardly to assess and understand why we do what we do.

● When it comes to self-queries about why we acted as we did, mistaken results can occur if we do not have conscious access to the factors that actually influenced
our responses, although after the fact we can and do construct explanations that seem plausible to us.

● When it comes to predicting how we might feel in the future, we fail to take into account other events that will moderate how we will feel besides the extreme and isolated event being judged.

●Most people believe that spending money on them- selves will make them happier than spending the same amount on others. But research demonstrates that
the opposite is true. What this means is we often don’t know how our actions will affect us and introspecting about it won’t help.

● One way self-reflection can be helpful is to take an observer’s standpoint on our behavior. Doing so leads us to see ourselves in more trait-like consistent terms.

Question 17

4 What is a social identity?

Answer 17

A social identity – membership of a group – tells you how to behave, what to think and what’s of value. It gives a structure to your identity, and through that, a way to achieve self-esteem.

Question 18

4 What are the key points of social identity theory?

Answer 18

● Social identity Theory asserts that the self-concept involves 2 major systems;
a) a personal identity (self-descriptions e.g. physical traits) b) a social identity (category descriptions e.g. gender)

●Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner) addresses how we respond when our personal or group identity is salient (the part of our identity that is the current focus of our attention).

● It suggests that we are on a personal-versus-social identity continuum. At the personal end of this continuum, we think of ourselves primarily as individuals. At the social end, we think of ourselves as members of specific social groups. We do not experience all aspects of our self-concept simultaneously; where we place ourselves on this continuum at any given moment will influence how we think about ourselves.

● This theory also suggests that if we focus on a group identity then individuals that perform better than us strengthens the group and therefore, enhances the groups identity (Opposite to Self-evaluation maintenance model in Social comparison)

● According to Social Identity Theory we can perceive ourselves differently at any time depending on where we are on the personal-social identity continuum.

●Therefore, Aspects of the self that will be influential at any given moment are determined by the Context, Individual differences and by others’ reactions towards us.

Question 19

4 Personal versus Social Identity

Answer 19

when you think of yourself as an individual, the content of your self-description is likely to differ from when you are thinking of yourself as a member of a category that you share with others.

Personal identity self-description can be thought of as an intragroup comparison—involving comparisons with other individuals who share our group membership.

Descriptions of the self at the social identity level are intergroup comparisons in nature—they involve contrasts between groups.

Question 20

4 What does Social comparison theory say

Answer 20

Festinger (1954) suggested that people compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative.

Question 21

4 What is upward social comparison and downward social comparison?

Answer 21

● Social comparison is a central means by which we evaluate ourselves.
● Downward social comparison refers to instances in which we compare to someone of lesser ability than ourselves. Such comparisons can be flattering.
● Upward social comparisons, in contrast, refer to instances in which we compare to someone who out- performs us in areas central to the self.

If we want an accurate comparison, we compare our abilities to others who are similar to them in terms of broad social categories such as gender, race, or experience with a task.

Question 22

4 Self-evaluation maintenance

Answer 22

Self-evaluation maintenance applies when we categorize ourselves at the personal level-comparing ourselves to only one other person)

The model suggests that when our personal identities are salient, in order to maintain a positive view of self we keep away from those who appear better than us and move closer to those who are doing worse than us.

However, in Social identity theory where our group identities are salient we are happy when a group member performs well because that boosts the perceived status of the whole group.

The salient point is:

social comparison theory spawned two perspectives on the consequences of negative or upward social comparisons for the self: the self-evaluation maintenance model and social identity theory. When we are categorized at the individual level, we distance from a better-performing other, but when we are categorized at the social identity level, we distance from the poor- performing other.

Question 23

4 Self-serving Bias

Answer 23

also known as above average effect- a tendency to rate ourselves as above average (above the average person) on almost every dimension.

Question 24

4 What is self-esteem?

Different forms of self-esteem? How can they be measured?

Answer 24

• refers to one’s overall attitude about the self.
• The degree to which we perceive ourselves positively or negatively; our overall attitude toward ourselves. It can be measured explicitly or implicitly.

Explicit self-esteem

• refers to feelings about the self of which we are consciously aware of
• can be measured by the Rosenberg self-esteem scale

Implicit self-esteem

• refers to feelings about the self of which we are not consciously aware.
• can be measure by Implicit Associations Test

Question 25

What are associations with High self-esteem and low self-esteem in individuals?

Answer 25

High self-esteem

• acts as a protecting barrier against failure and negative situations
• is associated with narcissism, bullying, exhibitionism, self-aggrandizing, and interpersonal aggression.

Low self-esteem
- is associated with drug abuse, poor school performance and various forms of violence

Question 26

The self as target of prejudice. How do people act?

Answer 26

People who conceal their identities for the fear of prejudice might exhibit lower self-esteem and greater psychological distress than those who choose not to conceal their identities

Question 27

What are the emotional, cognitive and behavioural consequences for the self as target of prejudice?
How can they be managed?

Answer 27

Emotional consequences
- It is important to understand that attributions to prejudice and its effects on psychological well-being depend on how often we are discriminated against and what attribution style we have (i.e. Positive or Negative Attribution Style). Therefore, the effect of prejudice is worse if we assume it is a stable and a global occurrence
- this means, our well-being is most affected if we perceive prejudice as reflecting pervasive discrimination.
The most critical consequence for well being is therefore, the perceived likelihood that the same prejudice will occur again.

Cognitive consequences –
The impact is present in the extent in which Individuals feel defined by negative stereotypes and therefore stop developing themselves.

This can be counter acted by -

a) Having the individual recognize a greater non-stigmatized aspect of their identity or / re-affirm their entire worth and
b) Making salient the stereotype-defining accomplishments of a role model from the same stigmatized group (Barack Obama’s election and African-American test scores)

Behavioural consequences –
- experiencing stereotype threat
stereotype threat refers to people’s belief that they might be judged based on a negative stereotype about their social identity, “He probably has AIDS just because he is Gay” or mistakenly through their behaviour confirm a negative stereotype of their group ( e.g. A gay man walking in a feminine manner).
-When People who are vulnerable to the threat are reminded that the stereotype might apply to them, they might end up behaving as expected and inadvertently confirming the stereotype (e.g. Maths and Woman).

People manage this threat -

a) by distancing themselves from situations in which they are stereotypically vulnerable
b) to cease identifying with the group as a whole
c) maintain identification with the group but to distance themselves from the stereotypical dimensions that represent a threat to their performance.

Stereotype threat can affect historically disadvantaged and advantaged because it’s the insinuation of one group being weaker than the other that can cause individuals to respond negatively or perform poorly