1. Ch 4: Perceiving Persons
Part 1: Feb. 9, 2012

2. Social Perception Get info from people, situations, & behavior
We make quick 1st impressions of people
Attempt to read traits from faces
Baby-faced vs. mature features
Is there an evolutionary need?
Situations –
Scripts

3. Situations & Behavior Behavior & social perception:
Use situational cues to interpret behavior
Behavior & social perception:
Derive meaning from physical behavior
Includes nonverbal behavior
6 primary universal emotions – what are they?
Facial expressions across cultures – results?
Matsumoto’s research – results?

4. Face Recognition & Emotion
Evoluationary value to quick recognition
Angry faces?
Attentional blink = how does it work?
What are exceptions?

5. Nonverbal Behavior Importance of eye contact & touch
Interpretation of avoiding eye contact?
Differences in nonverbal cues across cultures
Examples?

6. Detecting Deception Can we use this info to detect deception?
Facial versus body movements
What leads to better accuracy?
Not much better than 50/50 chance
see Table 4.2 in book

7. Microexpression Research
Paul Ekman’s research:
What are microexpressions?
Examples of contempt, disgust…
Apply to security screening situations - how do these work?
High cognitive effort tasks

8. Attributions Attribution = explanation about a behavior
Heider – personal vs. situational
Attribution theories:
1. Jones – Correspondent Inference theory:
Infer from action - what give the most info about the person?
Did the person have a choice?
Was the behavior expected?
How many positive effects were there?

9. Attribution theories (cont.)
2) Kelly’s Covariation theory:
Attribute behavior to internal (person) or external (situation) based on 3 questions –
1. Consensus
2. Distinctiveness
3. Consistency
See fig 4.4

10. If low distinctiveness & low consensus, but high consistency, which attribution?
Example?
If high distinctiveness & high consensus, but low consistency, which attribution?