6A - Judging and Perceiving Others Flashcards
What is social cognition?
How we perceive, think about and use the information we store in our brains to understand and make judgements about ourselves and others in different social situations.
What are 3 relationship types that may be experienced?
- intimate relationship (significant others/close family member)
- impersonal relationship (meeting someone for the first time - no personal attachment)
- formal relationship (takes place in only professional setting - school or work)
Person perception definition
The mental processes we use to understand and form opinions about others.
- can be direct from observation or interaction
- can be indirect from what we have heard from another source
What is person perception influenced by?
- physical appearance
- body language
- age
- gender
- ethnicity
- clothing
- culture
What can first impressions impact the processes of?
- Decision making - person perception acts as a source of information when making choices, such as wether to see someone again
- Interpersonal interactions - first impressions last and we tend to trust these ‘gut’ feelings and can treat people accordingly
First impressions are:
- formed based on physical appearance and non-verbal cues
- initial thoughts on someone based on first interaction (how they look/act)
First impressions from non-verbal cues
The process of sending and receiving information without using spoken or written words.
- help us analyse and interpret a social situation (whether we should approach someone or avoid them)
Attributions definition
An evaluation made about the causes of behaviour and the process of making this evaluation.
- different people may judge the same situation differently due to their own internal biases.
Example of cognitive process of attribution
- Observation of an outward act of behaviour (a person sees someone running down a busy street)
- Conscious determination or acknowledgement of behaviour (a person actively decides the behaviour they observed was someone running down a busy street)
- Attribute causes to this observed behaviour (a person running down the busy street is that they are disorganised and running late)
Internal attributions (personal)
Occurs when we judge behaviour as being caused by something personal within an individual.
- assuming someone is running late because they have poor time management, rather than because their car broke down on the way.
External attributions (situational)
Occurs when we determine the cause of a behaviour resulting from situational factors occurring outside the individuals.
- blaming the trains running behind schedule for being late to work
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to overestimate the influence of personal factors and underestimate the impact of situational factors on other peoples behaviours.
Example of fundamental attribution error
If you see a new student arguing with a teacher in the schoolyard at lunchtime, you might conclude that the student is rebellious, argumentative and/or rude. You might not consider that something in the situation, such as being blamed for rubbish that someone else dropped, caused the behaviour.
Social cognition definition
Process we use to analyse and interpret all the social situations that we are in so we can make decisions about what to do next.
Attitudes definition
An evaluation one makes about an object, person or group
