PSY09 - Expression, Culture, Communication, & Well-Being

Cultural Display Rules

Cross-cultural guidelines that dictate how, when, and where it is socially acceptable to express emotions.

Nonverbal Leakage

Unconscious spillover of emotions into nonverbal behaviors, often revealing hidden feelings.

Emblems

Culture-specific gestures that carry direct, explicit verbal meanings (ex: a thumbs-up or waving)

Proxemics

The study of personal space and how distance communicates relationships across four spatial levels (public, social, personal, intimate).

Public Distance

Used for public speaking or addressing a crowd. (12 ft or more)

Social Distance

Used for casual interactions with acquaintances or strangers. (4 to 12 ft)

Personal Distance

Used for conversations with friends and family members. (1.5 to 4 ft)

Intimate Distance

Reserved for whispering, embracing, and close personal contact. (0 to 1.5 ft)

Polygraph Test

A lie detector test recording autonomic activity based on the assumption of a Pinocchio response, which yields high false

Guilty Knowledge Test

A lie detection method that assesses whether a suspect possesses secret details about a crime that only a guilty person would know.

Integrity Tests

Questionnaires designed to assess a person's tendency to lie, cheat, or steal.

Broaden and Build Theory

Proposes that positive emotions (like happiness) expand our thinking, making us more open-minded, creative, and resilient

Affective Forecasting

The ability to predict our own and others' future emotional states and happiness.

Durability Bias

The tendency to believe that both our good and bad moods will last much longer than they actually do.

Hedonic Treadmill

The tendency for our happiness levels to adapt quickly back to a stable baseline following major life events.

Self Esteem

An individual's overall evaluation of their own self-worth.

Narcissism

A personality trait defined by extreme self-centeredness and an inflated sense of self-importance.