Social Psychology Ch 4

Front 1

Social Perception

Back 1

The study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people

Front 2

Nonverbal Communication

Back 2

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, with out words; nonverbal cues include facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch, and gaze

Front 3

Encode

Back 3

To express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back

Front 4

Decode

Back 4

To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness

Front 5

Affect Blend

Back 5

A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion

Front 6

Display Rules

Back 6

Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display

Front 7

Emblems

Back 7

Nonverbal gestures that have well-understood definitions within a given culture; they usually have direct verbal translation, such as the “OK” sign

Front 8

Social Role Theory

Back 8

The theory that sex differences in social behavior are due to society’s division of labor between the sexes; this division leads to differences in gender- role expectations and sex- typed skills, both of which are responsible for differences in men’s and women’s social behavior

Front 9

Implicit Personality Theory

Back 9

A type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together; for example, many people believe that someone who is kind is generous as well

Front 10

Attribution Theory

Back 10

A description of the way in which people explain the cause of their own and other people’s behavior

Front 11

Internal Attribution

Back 11

The inferences that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality

Front 12

External Attribution

Back 12

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in; the assumption si that most people would respond the same way in that situation

Front 13

Covaration Model

Back 13

A theory that states that to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence or absence or possible causal factors and whether or not the behavior occurs

Front 14

Consensus Information

Back 14

Information about the extent to which other people behave the same way toward the same stimulus as the actor does

Front 15

Distinctiveness Information

Back 15

Information about the extent to which one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli

Front 16

Consistency Information

Back 16

Information about the extent to which the behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances

Front 17

Correspondence Bias

Back 17

The tendency to infer that people’s behavior corresponds to (matches) their disposition (personality)

Front 18

Perceptual Salience

Back 18

The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people’s attention

Front 19

Two-Step Process of Attribution

Back 19

Analyzing another person’s behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution

Front 20

Spotlight Effect

Back 20

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which our actions and appearance are salient to others

Front 21

Actor/ Observer Differences

Back 21

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

Front 22

Self-Serving Attributions

Back 22

Explanations for one’s successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational factors

Front 23

Defensive Attributions

Back 23

Explanations for behavior that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality

Front 24

Unrealistic Optimism

Back 24

A form of defensive attributions wherein people think that good things are more likely to happen to them than to their peers and that bad things are less likely to happen to then than to their peers

Front 25

Belief in a Just World

Back 25

A form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people