Chapter 4 Lecture Notes

Question 1

3 forms of non verbal communication

Answer 1

1) facial expression of emotion
2) eye contact
3) interpersonal spacing

Question 2

How can eye contact convey a person’s internal state?

Answer 2

lots of eye contact= friendly, good emotional state.

not much eye contact = maybe flaky/they don’t like us, maybe feeling guilty, hiding something, nervous, insecure etc.

Question 3

Explain Kleinke’s study on eye contact

Answer 3

participants saw a video of a couple and were told that the couple was engaged.

• in one video, the actors were instructred to make a lot of eye contact with each other, and the other group was told not to make much eye contact.
• participants were aksed “how much do you think this couple likes each other? Do you think they will have a successful marriage?”
• found that a high level of eye contact= lots of love for each other and conveyed STRONG EMOTION

Question 4

Generally, humans like eye contact. When is it weird? What does this convey? What happens to us?

Answer 4

when the eyecontact is maintained for too long and then it becomes staring. we don’t like it because it can be a sign of hostility or anger. We experience physiological arousal and fight or flight mode may kick in.

Question 5

Explain the experiment by Greenbaum, who studied the effect of staring. What were the variables?

Answer 5

-naturalistic observation study
IV: amount of staring
DV: how fast the people left the intersection

• had a male confederate who was stopped at a red light and was instructed to stare or not stare at the driver beside him.
• people in the pushes measured the amount of time drivers left the intersection when it turned green.
• found that if the confederate stared at the drivers, they left the scene faster.
• if there was room for the drivers to creep ahead of the confederate car to avoid eye contact, they tried to move.
• findings: staring makes people aroused and agitated.

Question 6

What info do we get from looking at interpersonal spacing?

Answer 6

the 1) status of people

2) level of intimacy

Question 7

Explain the experiment of Dean et. al who studied interpersonal spacing. What scenario was an exception?

Answer 7

hypothesis: wanted to test the STATUS DIFFERENCE in people at the military based on their physical distance between each other
methods: had floor tiles where the soldiers and observers were (in the cafeteria) that could be used as a measurement.
findings: the greater difference in status between 2 people, the greater the physical distance between them.

exception: when it was a higher status person who initiated the interaction, higher status person interacted at whatever distance they felt like.
Therefore, it is likely that higher status people “set the stage” for interpersonal spacing.

Question 8

According to Hall, people who are in intimate relationships can interact at a distance at ____ feet or less without it being weird

Answer 8

1.5 feet or less. That’s really close.

Question 9

According to Hall, the average personal zone is :

Answer 9

1.5-4 feet away (friend)

anything below 1.5 feet is intimate

Question 10

according to Hall, what is the “social zone”

Answer 10

12ft- 4ft. (ex/ talking to a teacher)

Question 11

According to Hall, what is a “public zone”

Answer 11

12 feet-25 feet (listening to a speech, attending a concert)

Question 12

cultural differences in interpersonal spacing

Answer 12

in latin and mediterranean cultures, distance tends to be smaller between people.

western countries (US, Britain) tend to have the furthest interpersonal spacing.

Question 13

3 conclusions to Darwin’s “the expression of emotion in man and nature”

Answer 13

1) there is a high degree of similarity among groups of people in how they express emotion
2) continuity in the expression of emotion between animals and humans
3) expression of emotion serves as a communication function.

Question 14

T/F: Darwin believed emotion was hardwired .

Answer 14

true. he believed that emotion was bioogical and served evolutionary purposes.

Question 15

How did Paul Ekman determine the 6 basic emotions? What are they?

Answer 15

Studied a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea and they were able to describe the tones of the story using American faces that depicted certain emotions.

6 emotions

• happy
• sad
• angry
• disgust
• surprise
• fear

Question 16

out of the 6 universal emotions, which two gets confused the most?

Answer 16

fear and surprise.

Question 17

4 components to display rules of emotions

Answer 17

1) intensification: we feel more emotion on the inside than we show
2) deintensification: individuals give off the impression that the emotion they are feeling is less intense than what they’re actually feeling.

3) neutralizing: Certain situations occur where you don’t want to display any emotion at all
4) Masking: communicating an emotion that is totally different from the emotion that you are actually feeling

Question 18

personal space

Answer 18

your preferred amount of space between you and another person.

Question 19

Hayduk realized that personal space isn’t a bubble. What is the general shape of a personal area?

Answer 19

conical. Largest amount of space preferred around the head, and tapers at your feet.

Question 20

explain the gender differences of personal space

Answer 20

male-male interactions have the furthest amount of space
female-female is closest
male-female is dependent on relationship.

Question 21

t/f; females generally have closer personal space requirements than males

Answer 21

true. females will typically move into the males personal space, and the male usually won’t do anything about it. But males typically start with larger personal spaces.

Question 22

3 models for personal space purposes

Answer 22

1) information overload model
2) stress theory model of personal space
3) PS serves as a form of non verbal communication

Question 23

Explain the informational overload model. Explain the study conducted on it

Answer 23

the closer someone is to use, the greater the sensory info we have to process. Too close = potential sensory overload

Nesbitt studied this by comparing amusement park interactions to nature park interactions. notives that people tried to maintain greater distances in the amusement park when there were already very high levels of stimulation in order to prevent overload.

Question 24

explain the stress-theory model of personal space. Explain the study conducted on it.

Answer 24

personal space protects us from stressors that may get triggered when someone else gets too close. Prevents us from physically feeling outcomes of aggression.

Middlemist measured the stress levels when personal space is invaded by measuring the “delayed onset of urination” in men in the washrooms when a confederate stood beside a urinal beside them instead of using a urinal further away.

• found that it took men longer to pee when the confederate was standing next to them – stress.

Question 25

2 main different types of attributions

Answer 25

1) internal (personality traits)

2) external (situational)

Question 26

3 dimensions of attributions

Answer 26

1) internal vs external
2) stable vs unstable (permanent vs temporary characteristic)
3) global vs specific (seeing a bheavior in many different situations)

Question 27

stable attributions are typically paired with ____ dimensions of attributions

Answer 27

stable is typically paired with internal attributions.

Question 28

actor-observer bias:

Answer 28

tendency in general to attribute our own behavior to situational factors, and other people’s behaviors in terms of interal or dispositional factors.

Question 29

How can the actor observer bias be mitigated?

Answer 29

by coaching ourselves to think about the situation from their partner’s point of view.

Question 30

Explain the study conducted by Arriaga et al. about reducing actor-observer biases.

Answer 30

• sought to study if adopting the other person’s perspectives would reduce the actor-observer bias
• created different scenarios that weren’t ideal in a relationship (ex/ partner lied)
• asked how they owuld feel if they were in the situation
  -asked how they think their partner feels in the situation
  Outcome: actor observer bias was reduced a bit, but not completely.

Question 31

Self serving bias

Answer 31

tendency to make an internal attribution for our success, but a situational attribution for our failures.

Question 32

Explain the study that looked at the self serving biases in relationships

Answer 32

Ross and Sicoly” gave couples a list of daily household tasks. Told to indicate “how much time do YOU take repsonsibility” What about your partner?

• found that when comparing answers, both couples amount of the repsonsibilities add up to more than 100%.
• we attribute that we work harder than our partners.

Question 33

How is the self serving bias manifested in relationships?

Answer 33

we tend to take credit when things are going well, but we don’t take much responsibility if the relationship is having problems. Tend to blame our partners when things are not going well in the relationship.

Affairs
- if we are the ones having the affair, you think that it is not that damaging to the relationship. But if your partner had an affair, we see it as much more severe.

Question 34

What is the relationship enhancing attribution effect?

Answer 34

Happy couples tend to make INTERNAL, STABLE, GLOBAL attributions to positive partner behavior and external, unstable, and specific attributions to negative partner behavior

Question 35

what is the distress-maintaing attribution effect?

Answer 35

Unhappy couples tend to make external, unstable, and specific attributions to POSITIVE partner behavior.

they make internal, stable, and global attributions to NEGATIVE partner behavior. (this is who he his, he does this all the time, and he does this in all other situations)

Question 36

Karney and Bradbury studied the distress maintaining attribution effect. What did they conclude?

Answer 36

they noticed that neurotic and anxious people tend to make distress maintaining attributions.
-if you had a messy negative breakup in the past, you are more vulnerable to distress maintaining attributions

• this can be a downwhirl spiral and can lead to the demise of the relationship.