CHAPTER 2

1. CHAPTER 2 SOCIAL PERCEPTION UNDERSTANDING OTHERS

2. Chapter objectives • After reading this chapter, you should be able to: • Describe the major purpose and functions of social perception. • Define what is meant by nonverbal communication and how it is related to the concepts and terms "irrepressible," "deception," and "emotional contagion." • Describe the six (or perhaps seven) basic emotions expressed in unique facial expressions. Does this mean we are limited to only a small number of facial expressions? • Describe how body language, including gestures, posture, and movements can communicate emotion, including such examples as ballet and various emblems. • Identify and describe the five key nonverbal cues that may allow us to recognize deception. • Compare and contrast the key elements of Jones and Davis' theory of correspondent inference with Kelley's theory of attribution. • Explain the difference between internal and external causes and controllable versus uncontrollable factors. • Contrast the discounting and augmenting principles. • Describe and contrast the major attributional errors: the correspondence bias, the actor-observer effect, and the self-serving bias. Consider cultural differences with respect to these biases . • Discuss how attribution theory has been applied to the study of depression and prejudice . • Discuss how Asch's research on central and peripheral traits support his view that forming impressions involves more than simply adding together individual traits. • Contrast older models of how we combine diverse information about others into unified impressions of them with more contemporary perspectives. • Describe the role played by exemplars and abstractions when we make judgments about others. • List self-enhancement tactics and other-enhancement tactics used in impression management, and describe research results on whether these tactics "pay off" for persons using them. • Provide evidence to support the idea that we are quite accurate in social perception.

3. SOCIAL PERCEPTION • The process through which we seek to know and understand other people. • We will focus on four aspects of social perception which are: • Nonverbal communication • Attribution • Impression formation and impression management. • How accurate social perception really is?

4. NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION: THE LANGUAGE OF EXPRESSIONS, GAZES AND GESTURES • Nonverbal Communication: Communication between individuals that does not involve the content of spoken language. It relies instead on an unspoken language of facial expressions, eye contact, and body language. • Nonverbal cues are provided by changes in facial expressions, eye contact, posture, body movements and other expressive actions.

5. Nonverbal Communication: The Basic Channels • Research findings Research findings indicate that information about our inner states is often revealed through five basic channels: • Facial expressions • Eye contact • Body movements • Posture • touching

6. FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AS CLUES TO OTHERS EMOTIONS • Roman orator Cicero stated “The face is the image of the soul” • It appears that there are 6 basic emotions are represented clearly and from an early age on the human face (Izard (1991) Rozin, lowery & Ebert (1994) • Anger • Fear • Happiness • Sadness • surprise

7. ARE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS UNIVERSAL? • Early research seemed to suggest that facial expressions are universal. Ekman & Friesen(1975) • The results of more recent studies (Russell, 1994, Carroll & Russell 1996) indicate that while facial expression may indeed reveal much about others emotions, our judgments in this respect are also affected by by the context in which the facial expressions occur and various situational cues. • Overall while facial expressions are not totally universal around the world, cultural and contextual differences do exist with respect to their precise meaning.

8. GAZES STARES: EYE CONTACT AS ANONVERBAL CUE • Ancients poets often described the eyes as “windows of the soul” • We do learn a lot about others feelings from their eyes. • High levels of gazing from others is interpreted as asign of liking or friendliness(Kleinke 1986) • A stare however is a form of eye contact in which a person continues to gaze steadily at another regaredless of what the recipient does, it is often interpreted as a sign of angeror hostility.

9. BODY LANGUAGE GESTURES POSTURES AND MOVEMENTS • Body language often reveals others emotional states. • Large numbers of movements (touching, rubbing, Scratching) suggest emotional arousal. • Gestures often provide specific information about others feelings. • Gestures fall into several categories, the most important being emblems. • Emblems are body movements carrying a specific meaning in a given culture

10. TOUCHING • Depending on various factors touch can suggest affection, sexual interest, dominance, caring, or even aggression. • When considered appropriate it often produces positive reactionsin the person being touched. • Research findings indicate that handshaking provides useful nonverbal cues about others’ personality and can influence first impressions of strangers.

11. ATTRIBUTION: UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSES OF OTHERS BEHAVIOUR • Attribution is the process through which we seek to identify the causes of others behaviour and so gain knowledge of their stable traits and disposition. • Many theories of attribution have been proposed but we will look at two: • The theory of Correspondence inference: This theory describes how we use others behaviour as a basis of their stable dispositions. • Kelley’s theory of causal attribution: How we answer the question “why?”

12. The Theory of Correspondence Inference • In order to infer stable dispositions from people’s behaviour we need to look at the following according to Jones and Davis’s theory: Behaviour is low in social desirability Behaviour is freely chosen Behaviour yields distinctive noncommon effects Conclude behaviour reflects stable traits

13. Kelley’s theory of causal attribution: • Many times we want to know why people have acted in a certain way or why events have turned out in a specific way. • To help us answer the why question Kelley proposed a theory based on three sources of information: • Consensus:The extent to which other people react to some stimulus or event in the same way as the person we are considering. • Consistency: a)The extent to which an individual responds to a given stimulus or situation in the same way on different occasions.(i.e across time) • Distinctiveness: a)The extent to which an individual in the same manner to different stimuli or events.

14. An example of Kelley’s Theory of Causal Attribution • An example of a server who flirts with a customer Many other servers also flirts with Customer (Consensus high) This server’s behaviour is Attributed to External causes e.g. the customer’s attractiveness This server also flirts With this customer at Other times (Consistency is high) Server flirts With customer This server does not flirt with other customers (distinctiveness is high)

15. An example of Kelley’s Theory of Causal Attribution • An example of a server who flirts with a customer No other servers flirt with Customer (Consensus low ) This server’s behaviour is Attributed to internal causes e.g. the customer’s attractiveness This server also flirts with the Customer at other times (Consistency is high) Server flirts With customer This server also flirts with other customers (distinctiveness is low)

16. Attribution: Some Basic Sources of Error • The Correspondence Bias: Overestimating the role of dispositional causes. • Jones (1979)labeled the correspondence bias – the tendency to explain others actions as stemming from (or corresponding to) dispositions even in the presence of clear situational causes. • This bias seems so general in scope that many social psychologist refer to it as the fundamental attribution error. • The reasons for this error are varied but one is