Social Perception Flashcards
(24 cards)
What is social perception?
The study of how people form impressions of others and make inferences about their personalities.
What are common inferences made from baby-faced features?
Warm, kind, naïve, submissive.
What are common traits inferred from neat dressers?
Conscientious
What traits are inferred from poor eye contact?
Nervous, dishonest.
What is the Thatcher Illusion?
We process faces holistically; when upside down, we process features individually.
What is objectification in social perception?
Sexualized bodies are processed more like objects than non-sexualized bodies.
What are “thin slices of behavior”?
Brief, nonverbal cues used to judge traits, such as teaching effectiveness or sexual orientation.
What is the paralinguistic channel?
Speech-based cues like volume, pitch variability, and rate of delivery.
What is the visible channel in nonverbal communication?
Includes eye contact, touch, body posture, head movement, and facial expressions
Why do we have facial expressions according to evolutionary psychology?
To signal emotions and regulate behavior in social interactions.
What evidence supports facial expressions being evolutionary?
Universality of emotions, research on blind individuals, infants, and other primates.
How accurate are people at detecting deception?
Only 53% accuracy based on meta-analysis of 253 studies.
Why are people poor at detecting deception?
Truth bias, using wrong cues, overconfidence, unfamiliarity with person’s normal behavior.
What is causal attribution?
Judgment about the cause of behavior—internal or external.
What is Heider’s view of attribution?
People are “naïve scientists” trying to infer causes.
What are internal vs. external attributions?
Internal: due to person; External: due to situation.
What is the covariation model (Kelley, 1967)?
Attributions based on distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
What pattern in covariation leads to external attribution?
High distinctiveness, high consensus, high consistency.
What pattern in covariation leads to internal attribution?
Low distinctiveness, low consensus, high consistency
What are traits?
Stable dispositions underlying behavior across time and situations.
What are spontaneous trait inferences?
Automatic trait judgments based on observed behavior.
What are implicit personality theories?
Attributions based on distinctiveness, consensus
What did Asch’s study show about impression formation?
Traits interact holistically, not additively.
What is cross-situational consistency?
