Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other People Chapter 4 Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other People

Social Perception Social perception is defined as the study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people. Necessary for social survival Fun and entertainment

Chapter Outline I. Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal Behavior Nonverbal communication is defined as the way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words.

Example: Babies

Nonverbal Behavior Nonverbal behavior is used to express emotion, convey attitudes, communicate personality traits, and to facilitate or modify verbal communication.

Nonverbal Behavior Facial Expressions Charles Darwin believed that human emotional expressions are universal -- that all humans encode and decode expressions in the same way.

Nonverbal Behavior Facial Expressions Modern research suggests that Darwin was right for the six major emotional expressions: anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness.

Nonverbal Behavior Facial Expressions Affective blend is a facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part registers a different emotion.

Nonverbal Behavior Facial Expressions Current research examines whether other emotions have distinct and universal facial expressions associated with them.

Nonverbal Behavior Culture and Channels of Nonverbal Communications Culture also influences emotional expression; display rules that are unique to each culture dictate when different nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.

Nonverbal Behavior Culture and Channels of Nonverbal Communications Emblems are nonverbal gestures that have well understood definitions within a given culture.

Nonverbal Behavior Multichannel Nonverbal Communication In everyday life, we usually receive information from multiple channels simultaneously.

Nonverbal Behavior Gender Differences in Nonverbal Communication Women are better than men at both decoding and encoding nonverbal behavior if people are telling the truth. Men, however, are better at detecting lies.

Nonverbal Behavior Gender Differences in Nonverbal Communication This finding can be explained by social-role theory, which claims that sex differences in social behavior are due to society’s division of labor between the sexes.

Chapter Outline II. Implicit Personality Theories: Filling in the Blanks

Implicit Personality Theories An implicit personality theory is a type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together. Using these theories helps us form well-developed impressions of other people quickly.

TWO TOUGH QUESTIONS Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates. Candidate A -- Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day. Candidate B -- He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college, and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening. Candidate C -- He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife. Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill. Candidate C is Adolph Hitler. And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question: If you said, "YES!" . ..you just killed Beethoven.

Implicit Personality Theories Culture in Implicit Personality Theories Hoffman and colleagues (1986) found that cultural implicit personality theories affect how people form impressions of others.

Chapter Outline III. Causal Attribution: Answering the “Why” Question

Causal Attribution Although nonverbal behavior may be relatively easy to decode, there is still substantial ambiguity about why people act the way they do.

Causal Attribution The Nature of the Attribution Process Attribution theory is a description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people’s behavior. Atıf, atfetmek

The Nature of the Attribution Process Causal Attribution The Nature of the Attribution Process Fritz Heider is considered the father of attribution theory. He believed that people are like amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behavior by piecing together information until they arrive at a reasonable cause.

Causal Attribution The Nature of the Attribution Process He proposed a simple dichotomy for people’s explanations: internal attributions and external attributions.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions The covariation model states that in order to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and focus on the consensus information, distinctiveness information, and consistency information we gather from the situation.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions According to the covariation model, consensus information is the information regarding how other people besides the actor treat the target.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions Distinctiveness information is the information about how the actor treats other people besides the target, and consistency information is the information about how the actor treats the target across time and different situations.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions People are most likely to make an internal attribution (attribute the behavior to the actor) when consensus and distinctiveness are low but consistency is high; they are most likely to make an external attribution (attribute the behavior to the target and/or situation) when consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions The covariation model assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational, logical fashion.

Causal Attribution The Covariation Model: Internal Versus External Attributions

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists The correspondence bias is the tendency to infer that people’s behavior corresponds to (matches) their disposition (personality).

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a person’s behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists "Laik Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin Atatürkçü bir vatandaşı olarak Kuran'a el basarım ki biz teknoloji kurbanıyız; âşık olduğum kadına tecavüz etmem". Sevgilisi Gamze Özçelik'i bayıltıp tecavüz ederken çektiği görüntüleri internette dağıtmakla suçlanan Gökhan Demirkol’un mahkemede kurduğu cümle...

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists One reason people make the fundamental attribution error is that observers focus their attention on actors, while the situational causes of the actor’s behavior are less salient and may be unknown.

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists Perceptual salience, or the information that is the focus of people’s attention, helps explain why the fundamental attribution error is prevalent.

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists The Two-Step Process of Attribution occurs when people analyze another person’s behavior by first making an automatic internal attribution, and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust original internal attribution.

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists The spotlight effect is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which our actions and appearance are salient to others.

Causal Attribution The Correspondence Bias: People as Personality Psychologists

Causal Attribution The Actor/Observer Difference The actor/observer difference is the tendency to see other people’s behavior as dispositionally caused, but focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining one’s own behavior.

Causal Attribution The Actor/Observer Difference One reason for the actor/observer difference is perceptual salience: actors notice the situations around them that influence them to act, while observers notice the actors.

Causal Attribution The Actor/Observer Difference The actor/observer difference also occurs because actors have more information about themselves than do observers.

Causal Attribution Self-Serving Attributions Self-serving attributions are explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors.

Causal Attribution Self-Serving Attributions Defensive attributions are explanations for behavior or outcomes that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality. Unrealistic optimism is a form of defensive attribution wherein people think that good things are more likely to happen to them than to their peers and that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to their peers.

Self-Serving Attributions Causal Attribution Self-Serving Attributions One way we deal with tragic information about others is to make it seem like it could never happen to us. We do it through the belief in a just world, a form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people, and that good things happen to good people. Examples: Candid, My name is Earl

Chapter Outline IV. Culture and Attribution

Culture and Attributions Culture and the Correspondence Bias The correspondence bias is the inclination to conclude that people’s behaviors match their personalities. Although the correspondence bias is prevalent across cultures, people from collectivist cultures are more likely than Westerners are to notice situational information and to use it to form situational attributions.

Culture and Attributions Culture and Other Attribution Biases Westerners are more prone to the self-serving bias than Easterners are. Defensive attributions, like the belief in a just world, are more prevalent in societies where extremes in wealth and poverty exist. And, the spotlight effect is more common among people in individualist cultures compared to those from collectivist cultures.

Chapter Outline V. How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions? Under many circumstances we are not very accurate, especially compared to how accurate we think we are.