unit 4- social perception

Question 1

What is social perception?

Answer 1

the study of how we form impressions of, and make inferences about, other people

Question 2

Examples of observable behavior:

Answer 2

• what people do
• what they say
• facial expressions
• gestures
• tone of voice
  (We never really know their true and complete thoughts and intentions)

Question 3

Sources of information:

Answer 3

• verbal communication
  -nonverbal communication
• our implicit personality theories

Question 4

What are the six major emotional expressions?

Answer 4

anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness

Question 5

Are facial expressions universal?

Answer 5

Yes, a study found all humans encode or express these emotions in the same way, and all humans can decode or interpret them with equal accuracy

Question 6

What other emotions occur later in human development and show less universality?

Answer 6

guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride

Question 7

Affect blends:

Answer 7

occur when one part of the face registers one emotion and another part, a different emotion

Question 8

Decoding facial expressions accurately is more complicated for three reasons:

Answer 8

1. affect blends occur when none part of the face registers on emotion and another part, a different emotion
2. at times people try to appear less emotional than they are so that no one will know how they really feel
3. culture can play a part in decoding facial expressions

Question 9

Display rules:

Answer 9

are particular to each culture and dictate what kinds of emotions expressions people are supposed to show

Question 10

Implicit personality theory

Answer 10

A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together; for example, many people believe that someone who is kind is generous as well

Question 11

Attractive people are assumed to be more:

Answer 11

-sociable
-friendly
- kind
-well-adjusted
-popular
-sexual

Question 12

Internal attribution

Answer 12

the inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality

Question 13

External attribution

Answer 13

-The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in
-the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Question 14

The nature of the attribution process

Answer 14

-Satisfied spouses tend to pair internal attributions with their partners’ positive behaviors and external attributions to their partners’ negative behaviors
- unsatisfied or distressed spouses tend to display the opposite pattern

Question 15

Correspondence bias (fundamental attribution error)

Answer 15

the tendency to believe that people’s behavior matches their dispositions

Question 16

Covariation model

Answer 16

a theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systemically note the pattern between the presence or absence of possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs.

Question 17

The covariation model focuses on:

Answer 17

-observations of behavior across time, place, actors, and targets
-it examines how the perceiver chooses either an internal or an external attribution

Question 18

What information do we use to choose an internal or external attribution?

Answer 18

• consensus
• distinctiveness
• consistency

Question 19

What is consensus information?

Answer 19

information about the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

Question 20

What is distinctiveness information?

Answer 20

information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to a different stimuli

Question 21

What is consistency information?

Answer 21

information about the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Question 22

What is perceptual salience ?

Answer 22

the seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention

Question 23

What is the two-step process we go through when making attributions?

Answer 23

1. we make an internal attribution (we assume that a person’s behavior was due to something about that person)
2. we attempt to adjust this attribution by considering the situation the person was in. But we often don’t make enough of an adjustment in this second step. To do this we need:
   - time
   -energy
   -motivation

Question 24

Why do we often stop at the first step when making attributions?

Answer 24

The first step occurs quickly and spontaneously. The second step requires more effort and conscious attention

Question 25

We will engage in the second step of attributional processing if we:

Answer 25

1. consciously slow down and think carefully before making a judgement
2. are motivated to reach as accurate a judgement as possible
3. are suspicious about the behavior of the target person (suspected lying)

Question 26

The actor-observer difference:

Answer 26

-Is an amplification of the correspondence bias
-we tend to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused, while we are more likely to see our own behavior as situationally caused.

Question 27

Self-serving attributions

Answer 27

explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors

Question 28

Defensive attributions

Answer 28

Explanations for behavior that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality

Question 29

Self-serving bias

Answer 29

the tendency to perceive ourselves favorably

Question 30

Four ways we demonstrate self-serving bias:

Answer 30

• self-serving attributions
• being better than average
• unrealistic optimism
• false consensus

Question 31

Attributions are:

Answer 31

explanations for events

Question 32

Self serving attributions:

Answer 32

people tend to give themselves more credit when they succeed, and less credit when they fail

Question 33

Lake-wobegon effect:

Answer 33

believing that we are above-average in virtuous traits, and below average in negative traits

Question 34

Why do we make self-serving attributions ?

Answer 34

Most people try to maintain their self-esteem whenever possible, even if that means distorting reality be change a thought of belief.
- when we fail at something and feel we can’t improve, and external attribution protects our self-esteem
- but if we believe we can improve, we’re more likely to attribute our current failure to causes under our control and then work on improving
- if you fail an exam and believe you can improve, you might attribute the failure to a lack of study

Question 35

Why do we make self-serving attributions?

Answer 35

1. Most people try to maintain their self-esteem whenever possible, even if that means distorting reality by changing a thought or belief
2. we want people to think well of us and admire us. Telling others that our poor performance was due to some external cause puts a “good face” on failure
3. We know more about our own efforts than we do about other people’s

Question 36

Belief in a just world

Answer 36

• The assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get
• Bad things only happen to bad people or people who make stupid mistakes/poor choices