Chapter 3: Social Perception

Thursday, December 10, 2015

10:43 PM

Nonverbal Communication
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Five Basic Channels

Facial expression

Anger, fear,

happiness, sadness, disgust, and

surprise (sometimes) are the most basic emotions that can
be expressed with the face
Ekman and Friesen (1975)

Facial expressions are universal and do not

need to be as heavily translated from culture to
culture
Gold, silver, and bronze medalists (2006)

The facial expressions of Olympic medalists

were recorded and analyzed

Gold medalists were extremely happy, smiled

genuinely and showed no sadness

Bronze medalists were also very happy, smiled

genuinely, and showed some sadness

Silver medalists however were typically never

happy, only social smiled (not genuine), and showed a
lot of sadness

Difference between bronze and gold medalists

exist because bronze medalists are happy to have won
anything, while silver medalists torture themselves
with COUNTERFACTUAL thoughts about what went
wrong and what they could have done
Eye contact
High level of eye contact can be interpreted as
someone liking and enjoying a conversation and being
friendly

Exception to the rule is staring, which can be

interpreted as hostile
Low level of eye contact is seen as someone being
shy and unfriendly

People also avoid eye contact when they are

lying and tend to blink more often
Body Language
More diagonal and angular positions are associated
with threatening emotions, while rounder positions are
associated with warmer emotions

Ballet Study
Emblems

Gestures that carry different meanings in

different cultures

Touching Others

The reaction we get when someone touches us is

very dependent on the context

Gender (opposite or same)

Status of the person touching

Friend, stranger, family

Brief or prolonged

Gentle or rough

Body part

Can cause feelings of affection, sexual interest,

dominance, caring, security, or aggression

When the behavior is viewed as appropriate,

touching often creates positive feelings

ONLY WHEN VIEWED AS APPROPRIATE

People interpret stronger, firmer, and longer lasting

handshakes as coming from people who are more
extraverted and likeable

Small brief touches on the arm are very likely to

make people more comfortable and secure ONLY if it comes
from a woman

People who were touched by a woman were

even more likely to display riskier behavior in
investment trading, probably because they felt more
secure and safe

Scents

Men were given shirts of women who were either

ovulating or not to smell

The men who smelled the shirts of women ovulating

showed much higher levels of testosterone than those who
didnt, which shows that smell can create non verbal cues
in other people
Recognizing Deception

Nonverbal cues are relatively irrepressible

Micro-expressions

Are created immediately following an emotionprovoking event and are hard to repress

Inter-channel discrepancies

Channel = type of nonverbal cue

When people are lying, they might have

difficulty controlling all of their channels at once
because they are overwhelmed

Example:

Someone might be able to control their

facial expressions while they lie, but still avoid eye
contact
Changes in characteristics of speech (Paralinguistic

cues)
Higher pitch indicates lying, especially when
they are highly motivated to lie

People who lie often stutter and take longer to

begin and complete their sentences

Change in eye contact

People who lie might show a decreased amount

of eye contact or an exaggerated amount because
they try to hard to hide their lie

Excessive blinking and dilated pupils are also

signs of lying
Causal Attributions
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We like to determine WHY people act the way they do because it
helps us predict their future behaviors

Low or high self esteem

Whether or not they are able to control their temper

o
Theory of Correspondent Interference

Concerned with how we decide what people's traits are

based on their behavior

Not that easy because some behaviors are forced

and may not accurately represent someone's actual traits

Focus on three things

Freely chosen behavior

Behaviors that are performed ONLY because

that is how the person would normally behave, and not
because of any other external factors

Example:

A waitress might be nice and friendly

only because her job depends on it, not because
that is how she normally behaves

Noncommon effects

Behaviors that are caused by ONE factor a and

not many

Allows people to zero in on exactly what causes

someone's behavior

Example:

Someone who marries an attractive, rich,

friendly person might have married that person
for many reasons

That person is a catch all around

Someone who marries an attractive,

broke, mean, and indifferent person is probably
someone who only cares about physical beauty

Social desirability

Behaviors that are not socially desirable (out of

the ordinary) are probably more valuable in
determining someone's characteristics

Example:

Anybody can hold the door open for

someone, but someone who stops in the middle of
the street to help someone in a car accident is
probably more of a nice person
Kelley's Theory of Causal Attributions
Explains why events turned out the way they did and why
people acted the way they did
Can help determine whether actions were caused by
internal factors, external factors, or a combination of both
Relies on three characteristics of behavior:

Consensus

Do other people act the same way given the

same situation?

Consistency

Does the same person react to the same

stimulus in the same way in other occasions over
time?

Distinctiveness

Does the same person react in the same

manner when given different stimuli?

If distinctiveness is low, then the person reacts

the same way
If all three characteristics are high, then the behavior is
probably attributed to external factors
If consensus and distinctiveness are low then the behavior
is probably attributed to an internal factor
Augmenting and Discounting
Augmenting

When a factor that would facilitate a behavior is

present with a factor that would inhibit it, and the behavior
occurs, then we add weight to the behavior

The behavior occurred despite the odds

Discounting

The importance of a particular explanation for a

behavior is reduced if there are other possible explanations
for the behavior
Bias in the Attribution Process
Fundamental Attribution Error

We perceive others as acting how they do because

they are "that type of person" even when there are clear
situational causes that can explain the behavior
We dont give enough credit to situational factors
that might have caused behavior, and place too much
emphasis on internal factors
The Ultimate Attributional Error

Associating positive behaviors of an in-group

with internal factors, and associating positive
behaviors of an out-group with external factors, and
vice versa
Actor-Observer Effect
We attribute our own behavior as being caused by
external effects, and attribute other people's behavior as
being caused by internal effects
Example:

If we see someone trip, we attribute it to their

clumsiness, but if we trip, we attribute it to there being
something on the floor that causes us to trip
This happens because we are more fully aware of the
external factors that cause our behavior so we are more
aware of those factors than we are aware of the external
factors that might influence other people's behavior
Self-Serving Bias
We attribute our own positive outcomes to internal
factors, but attribute our misfortune to external factors
This allows us to protect our self esteem because we
tend to expect success
Varies across cultures

In Asia, the self serving bias is less common

because there is a greater emphasis on group
harmony

The self-serving bias is stronger in the US and

Europe because there is a greater emphasis on
individual achievement
Attributional Style Depression
People who are depressed tend to do the opposite of
the self-serving bias and blame themselves for their
negative outcomes while explaining positive outcomes as
temporary good luck
This can be treated with learned optimism and
learned helplessness

The depressed person will learn to take credit

for some of the good things in their life while also
attributing misfortunes to bad luck
Misattribution

Incorrectly associating people's behavior with a

certain factor
Impression Formation and Management
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Impression Formation

First impressions can be made even from "thin slices" of

information

Impressions form very quickly

Confidence in impressions is unrelated to accuracy

Although first impressions are good for knowing how to

start interacting with someone, they are far from accurate

Implicit Personality Theories

Beliefs about what characterisitcs/traits go together

If a person has one set of traits, then they are likely

to have another related set of traits

Example:

What is beautiful is good

A jock typically prefers beer over wine, loves

sports, and can be loud and obnoxious

Birth order traits

Factors that influence us regarding others (formation)

Source of information

Positive/negative

Unusual formation

Primacy effect

Schemas
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Methods of Impression Management

Self-Enhancement

Appearance

Achievements

Positive qualities

Credentials

Other forms of enhancement

Inducing positive moods into the people that they are

trying to impress

Examples:

Flattery

Favors

Eye contact

Smiling

Nodding

May backfire if it's overdone

Reasons for impression management

To boost other people's reaction towards us

To boost our own mood