Chapter 1-6: Social Perception - Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering key concepts from the notes on social perception, nonverbal communication, attribution theory, and cross-cultural differences.

Social perception

The process of forming impressions and judgments about others from observable cues and limited information, including first impressions and attribution processes.

Nonverbal communication

Communication without words, using facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body language, touch, and eye gaze.

Facial expressions

A primary channel of nonverbal communication through which emotions are conveyed; highly informative and often universal across cultures.

Universal emotions

Basic emotions thought to be expressed similarly across cultures: anger, happiness, fear, surprise, disgust, and sadness.

Darwin (facial expressions)

Proposed that facial expressions are universal and evolved as adaptive physiological reactions.

Ekman & Friesen (1971)

Classic cross-cultural study showing recognition of six basic emotions across Western and remote cultures.

Pride (nonverbal display)

Prototypical pride expression includes a small smile, head tilted back, expanded chest, and arms raised.

Shame (nonverbal display)

Expression associated with losing, often showing slumped shoulders and a sunken chest.

Display rules

Cultural norms that govern how and when emotions are shown, varying by culture and gender.

Emblems

Culture-specific nonverbal gestures with agreed meanings (e.g., thumbs up) that are not universal.

Eye contact

Nonverbal cue whose acceptability and meaning vary across cultures.

Personal space

The physical distance people prefer; varies by culture (e.g., U.S. vs. Middle East, South America).

Thin slicing

Forming quick judgments from very brief observations (often less than a tenth of a second).

Primacy effect

First information learned about a person colors subsequent judgments.

Schemas

Mental frameworks about traits or categories that guide interpretation and inference about others.

Belief perseverance

Tendency to cling to initial conclusions even when contradictory information is presented.

Impression management

Efforts to control how others perceive us, including appearance, behavior, and online presentation.

High power pose

Adopting expansive postures to increase perceived power and improve performance in evaluations.

Attribution theory

Study of how we infer causes of others’ behavior, distinguishing internal vs external causes.

Naive/common sense psychology

Heider’s idea that people are amateur scientists piecing together clues to explain behavior.

Internal attribution

Attributing behavior to dispositional traits within the person (e.g., personality).

External attribution

Attributing behavior to situational factors outside the person.

Covariation model

Kelly’s framework that explanations consider how behavior covaries across time, place, and targets.

Consensus information

Whether others behave similarly toward the same stimulus, indicating communal input.

Distinctiveness information

Whether a person’s behavior is unique to a particular stimulus or situation.

Consistency information

How regularly the same behavior occurs across time and circumstances.

Fundamental attribution error

Overestimating internal causes for others’ behavior and underweighting situational factors; also called correspondence bias.

Just world belief

Belief that people get what they deserve; can lead to blaming victims and justify outcomes.

Self-serving attributions

Tendency to attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors to protect self-esteem.

Karma (cultural concept)

Belief that moral actions have consequences across lifetimes; used to explain behavior in some cultures.

Analytic thinking (individualistic cultures)

Focusing on objects or people and their properties, with less attention to context.

Holistic thinking (collectivistic cultures)

Focusing on the whole context, relationships, and situational factors in understanding others.

Bicultural priming

Experimentally activating bicultural identity (e.g., American or Chinese cues) to influence attribution style.

Cross-cultural differences in attribution

Cultural norms influence whether people make dispositional or situational attributions.