Social Perception

Question 1

social perception

Answer 1

a general term for the processes by which people come to understand one another

Question 2

mind perception

Answer 2

process by which people attribute humanlike mental states to various animate and inanimate objects, including other people

Question 3

first impression

Answer 3

people evaluate unconsciously and spontaneously whether a face indicates that a person is dominant / submissive and trustworthy / untrustworthy

Question 4

physiognomy

Answer 4

the art of reading character from faces

Question 5

effect of baby-facedness on first impressions

Answer 5

humans are evolutionarily programmed to respond gently to infantile features

Question 6

nonverbal behavior

Answer 6

reveals a person’s feelings without words, through facial expressions, body language and vocal cues

Question 7

disgust recognition in faces

Answer 7

in nature, food poisoning is a real danger, so it is an adaptive trait to recognize disgust in facial expressions

Question 8

familiarity breeds accuracy

Answer 8

people are 9% more accurate at judging faces from their own ethnic group (in-group advantage)

Question 9

central traits

Answer 9

traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions

Question 10

information integration theory

Answer 10

impressions are based on 1) perceiver dispositions 2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits

Question 11

implicit personality theory

Answer 11

a network of assumptions people make about the relationships among traits and behaviors

Question 12

attribution

Answer 12

the process by which we explain people’s behavior

Question 13

people learn about others from behavior that is:

Answer 13

• freely chosen
• unexpected
• results in a small number of desirable outcomes

Question 14

personal attribution

Answer 14

attribution to internal characteristics of an actor, such as ability, personality, mood or effort

Question 15

situational attribution

Answer 15

attribution to factors external to an actor, such as a task, other people or luck

Question 16

Kelley’s covariation theory (covariation principle)

Answer 16

people attribute behavior to factors that are present when a behavior occurs and are absent when it does not

Question 17

consensus

Answer 17

the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation
e.g. Alison smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only Alison smokes, it is low.

Question 18

distinctiveness

Answer 18

the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations
e.g. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at any time or place, her distinctiveness is low.

Question 19

consistency

Answer 19

the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs
e.g. If Alison only smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

Question 20

correspondent inference theory

Answer 20

a model describing how people form inferences about other people’s stable personality characteristics from observing their behaviors

Question 21

correspondence between behaviors and traits is more likely to be inferred if the actor is judged to have acted:

Answer 21

• freely,
• intentionally,
• in a way that is unusual for someone in the situation, and
• in a way that does not usually bring rewards or social approval

Question 22

cognitive heuristics

Answer 22

rules of thumb enabling us to make judgments quick (with errors)

Question 23

belief in a just world

Answer 23

individuals get what they deserve in life, an orientation that leads people to disparage victims

Question 24

fundamental attribution error

Answer 24

overestimation of the role of personal factors while underestimating situational ones

Question 25

cultural differences in attribution

Answer 25

asians are more likely than americans (collectivist vs individualist) to consider the impact of social and situational factors

Question 26

counterfactual thinking

Answer 26

tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have occured but didn’t

Question 27

belief perseverance

Answer 27

tendency to maintain beliefs even after they’ve been discredited

Question 28

confirmation bias

Answer 28

tendency to interpret, seek and create information in ways that confirm existing beliefs; people formulate theories to support their initial ideas

Question 29

need for closure

Answer 29

desire to reduce cognitive uncertainty, which heightens the importance of first impressions

Question 30

primacy effect

Answer 30

tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions (remembered better)

Question 31

self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 31

process by which one’s expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations

Question 32

availability heuristic

Answer 32

tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind

Question 33

false consensus effect

Answer 33

tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes and behaviors

Question 34

base-rate fallacy

Answer 34

people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented in the form of numerical base rates