Chapter 4

Social Perception: How We Come to Understand Other People

Social Perception

Social perception is defined as the

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

Chapter Outline

I. Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal communication is defined

as the way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words.

Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal behavior is used to

express emotion, convey attitudes, communicate personality traits, and to facilitate or modify verbal communication.

Nonverbal Behavior

Facial Expressions
Charles Darwin believed that human emotional expressions are universal -- that all humans encode and decode expressions in the same way

Nonverbal Behavior

Facial Expressions
Modern research suggests that Darwin was right for the six major emotional expressions: anger, happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, and sadness.

Nonverbal Behavior

Facial Expressions
Current research examines whether other emotions have distinct and universal facial expressions associated with them.

Nonverbal Behavior

Facial Expressions
Culture also influences emotional expression; display rules that are unique to each culture dictate when different nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.

Nonverbal Behavior

Facial Expressions
Facial expressions may sometimes be hard to interpret accurately because people may display blends of multiple affects simultaneously.

Nonverbal Behavior

Other Channels of Nonverbal

Communication
Eye contact and gaze are also powerful nonverbal cues. The use of personal space is a nonverbal behavior with wide cultural variation. Emblems are nonverbal gestures that have well understood definitions within a given culture.

Nonverbal Behavior

Multichannel Nonverbal
Communication
In everyday life, we usually receive information from multiple channels simultaneously.

Nonverbal Behavior

Gender Differences in Nonverbal

Communication
Women are better than men at both decoding and encoding nonverbal behavior if people are telling the truth. Men, however, are better at detecting lies. This finding can be explained by social-role theory, which claims that sex differences in social behavior are due to societys division of labor between the sexes.

Chapter Outline

II. Implicit Personality Theories: Filling in the Blanks

Implicit Personality Theories

An implicit personality theory is a

type of schema people use to group various kinds of personality traits together. Using these theories helps us form well-developed impressions of other people quickly.

Implicit Personality Theories

The Role of Culture in Implicit

Personality Theories
Hoffman and colleagues (1986) found that cultural implicit personality theories affect how people form impressions of others.

Chapter Outline

III. Causal Attribution: Answering the Why Question

Causal Attribution

Although nonverbal behavior may be

relatively easy to decode, there is still substantial ambiguity about why people act the way they do.

Causal Attribution

Attribution theory is a description of

the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other peoples behavior.

Causal Attribution

The Nature of the Attribution Process

Fritz Heider is considered the father of attribution theory. He believed that people are like amateur scientists, trying to understand other peoples behavior by piecing together information until they arrive at a reasonable cause.

Causal Attribution

The Nature of the Attribution Process

He proposed a simple dichotomy for peoples explanations: internal attributions and external attributions.

Causal Attribution

The Covariation Model: Internal

Versus External Attributions
The covariation model states that in order to form an attribution about what caused a persons behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and focus on the consensus information, distinctiveness information, and consistency information we gather from the situation.

Causal Attribution

The Covariation Model: Internal

Versus External Attributions
According to the covariation model, consensus information is the information regarding how other people besides the actor treat the target, distinctiveness information is the information about how the actor treats other people besides the target, and consistency information is the information about how the actor treats the target across time and different situations.

Causal Attribution

The Covariation Model: Internal

Versus External Attributions
People are most likely to make an internal attribution (attribute the behavior to the actor) when consensus and distinctiveness are low but consistency is high; they are most likely to make an external attribution (attribute the behavior to the target and/or situation) when consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high.

Causal Attribution

The Covariation Model: Internal

Versus External Attributions
The covariation model assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational, logical fashion.

Causal Attribution

The Fundamental Attribution Error:

People as Personality Psychologists

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to overestimate the extent to which a persons behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.

Causal Attribution

The Fundamental Attribution Error:

People as Personality Psychologists

One reason people make the fundamental attribution error is that observers focus their attention on actors, while the situational causes of the actors behavior are less salient and may be unknown.

Causal Attribution

The Fundamental Attribution Error:

People as Personality Psychologists

Thus, perceptual salience, or the information that is the focus of peoples attention, helps explain why the fundamental attribution error is prevalent.

Causal Attribution

The Fundamental Attribution Error:

People as Personality Psychologists

The Two-Step Process of Attribution occurs when people analyze another persons behavior -- they typically make an internal attribution automatically; they then may consciously choose to engage in the effortful, second step in the process, whereby they think about possible situational reasons for the behavior; after engaging in the second step, they may adjust their original internal attribution to take into account situational factors.

Causal Attribution

The Fundamental Attribution Error:

People as Personality Psychologists

The spotlight effect occurs when people overestimate the extent to which their behaviors and appearance are noticed by others. This indicates that people are aware of others tendencies to commit the fundamental attribution error.

Causal Attribution

The Actor/Observer Difference

The actor/observer difference is the tendency to see other peoples behavior as dispositionally caused, while focusing more on the role of situational factors when explaining ones own behavior.

Causal Attribution

The Actor/Observer Difference

One reason for the actor/observer difference is perceptual salience: actors notice the situations around them that influence them to act, while observers notice the actors.

Causal Attribution

The Actor/Observer Difference

The actor/observer difference also occurs because actors have more information about themselves than do observers.

Causal Attribution

Self-Serving Attributions
Self-serving attributions are explanations for ones successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and explanations for ones failures that blame external, situational factors.

Causal Attribution

Self-Serving Attributions
One reason people make self-serving attributions is to maintain their self-esteem. A second reason is self-presentational, to maintain the perceptions others have of one. A third reason is because people have information about their behavior in other situations, which may lead to positive outcomes being expected and negative outcomes being unexpected.

Causal Attribution

Self-Serving Attributions
Defensive attributions are explanations for behavior or outcomes that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality. Unrealistic optimism is a form of defensive attribution wherein people think that good things are more likely to happen to them than to their peers and that negative events are less likely to happen to them than to their peers.

Causal Attribution

Self-Serving Attributions
One way we deal with tragic information about others is to make it seem like it could never happen to us. We do it through the belief in a just world, a form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen to bad people, and that good things happen to good people.

Chapter Outline

IV. The Role of Culture in the

Attribution Process

The Role of Culture

Culture and the Fundamental

Attribution Error
Individualist cultures socialize people to prefer dispositional attributions over situational ones. In comparison, collectivist (often Eastern) cultures emphasize group membership, interdependence, and conformity to group norms. Therefore, Westerners are more likely than Easterners are to commit the fundamental attribution error.

The Role of Culture

Culture and the Correspondence

Bias
The correspondence bias is the inclination to conclude that peoples behaviors match their personalities. Although the correspondence bias is prevalent across cultures, people from collectivist cultures are more likely than Westerners are to notice situational information and to use it to form situational attributions.

The Role of Culture

Culture and Other Attribution Biases

Westerners are more prone to the self-serving bias than Easterners are. Defensive attributions, like the belief in a just world, are more prevalent in societies where extremes in wealth and poverty exist. And, the spotlight effect is more common among people in individualist cultures compared to those from collectivist cultures.

Chapter Outline

V. How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Under many circumstances we are

not very accurate, especially compared to how accurate we think we are.

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Why Are Our Impressions of Others

Sometimes Wrong?
One reason is because of the mental shortcuts, for example the fundamental attribution error, we use in forming social judgments.

How accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Why Are Our Impressions of Others

Sometimes Wrong?
Another reason is because people may use faulty implicit personality theories to guide their inferences.

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Why Do Our Impressions Seem

Accurate?
One reason is that we often see people in only a limited number of situations and never have the opportunity to see that our impressions are wrong.

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Why Do Our Impressions Seem

Accurate?
A second reason is because people create self-fulfilling prophecies about others and treat them in ways that make their prophecies come true.

How Accurate Are Our Attributions and Impressions?

Why Do Our Impressions Seem

Accurate?
A third reason we may not realize our impressions are wrong is if a lot of people agree on what a person is like -- even though they may all be incorrect.

Study Questions

What are the most often used and diagnostic channels of nonverbal communication? What are other channels of nonverbal communication? What functions do nonverbal cues serve?

Study Questions

What is the relationship between encoding and decoding? What are the six major emotional expressions that are universally encoded and decoded?

Study Questions

What are affect blends? What are display rules? What are examples of cross-cultural differences in display rules?

Study Questions

What are emblems? What are examples of these?

Study Questions

Who may be better at decoding nonverbal cues, extroverts or introverts, men or women?

Study Questions

How does the social-role theory explain gender differences in encoding and decoding nonverbal communication?

Study Questions

What is an implicit personality theory? What are functions of implicit personality theories?

Study Questions

What is attribution theory? What does it try to describe and explain? How do internal attributions differ from external ones?

Study Questions
What is the premise of the covariation model? What information do we examine for covariation when we form attributions? When are people most likely to make an internal attribution and an external attribution according to the covariation model?

Study Questions
What is the fundamental attribution error? Why does it occur? What is perceptual salience? What is the two-step process of attribution? What is the spotlight effect?

Study Questions
What is the actor/observer difference? Why does it occur?

Study Questions

When we form self-serving attributions to what do we attribute our successes and our failures?

Study Questions

What are defensive attributions? What is unrealistic optimism? What is the belief in a just world? What functions do these defensive attributions serve?

Study Questions
What are cultural differences in the rate of the fundamental attribution error? What is the correspondence bias? What cultural differences exist regarding other attribution biases?

Study Questions

What are some reasons why our impressions of others are sometimes incorrect? Why dont we know when our impressions of others are wrong?