Chapter 4Social 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.

–Necessary for social survival

–Fun and entertainment

Chapter Outline

I. Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal communication is defined as

the way in which people communicate,

intentionally or unintentionally, without

words.

Example: Babies

Sarı mutluluğun rengi• İnsanın ruh sağlığı ile renkler arasındaki ilişkiyi araştıran bilim adamları,

duyguların da rengi olduğunu ortaya koydular.

Depresyondaki insanların donuk, kendini iyi hissedenlerin ise sıcak renkleri tercih ettiğine işaret eden bilim adamları, bunun, çocukların ve iletişim sorunu yaşayanların hastalıklarının teşhisine yardımcı olabileceğini belirttiler.

İtalyan La Repubblica gazetesinde yayımlanan habere göre, İngiltere'deki Manchester Üniversitesinden bir grup bilim adamı, sağlıklı 105 ve depresyondaki 108 yetişkinin her birinden, kırmızı, turuncu, sarı, yeşil, mavi, lacivert, mor, kahverengi, siyah, beyaz ve grinin 38 tonunun bulunduğu renk tablosundan ruhsal durumlarına en uygun olan rengi seçmelerini istediler. Araştırmacılar, depresyondakilerin grinin, sağlıklı katılımcıların ise sarının tonlarını tercih ettiklerini gözlemlediler.

Araştırmanın ikinci bölümünde ise sağlıklı 204 gönüllüden renkleri pozitif, negatif ve nötr olarak ayırmalarını ve en sevdikleri renkleri seçmelerini isteyen bilim adamları, katılımcıların sadece yüzde 10'unun, ruhsal durumlarını temsil etmesi için griye yöneldiklerini belirttiler.

Araştırma sonuçlarının, beynin, insanın ruh haliyle renkleri hemen eşleştirdiğini ve bu şekilde dış dünyayla iletişim kurduğunu gösterdiğini kaydeden bilim adamları, bu ilişkinin sürekli dile getirildiğini, ancak şimdiye kadar bu konuda yapılmış tam ve gerçek bir araştırmanın mevcut olmadığını vurguladılar.

Araştırma ekibinin başındaki Peter Whorwell, şu anda asabi bağırsak sendromu görülen ve dolayısıyla da oldukça sıkıntılı olan hastalar üzerinde çalışmakta olduğunu belirterek, "Renk çarkının, bu hastaların psikolojik tedavilere verdikleri yanıtı görmemize yardımcı olmasını umuyorum" dedi. Kelimelerin yetersiz kaldığı ve sözsüz ifade yöntemlerinin daha etkili olduğu durumların olduğunu ifade eden Whorwell, bu gibi durumlarda renklerden faydalanılabileceğini söyledi.

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

Affective blend is a facial expression in

which one part of the face registers one

emotion while another part registers a

different emotion.

Nonverbal Behavior

• Facial Expressions

Current research examines whether other

emotions have distinct and universal facial

expressions associated with them.

Facial expressions 'not global'

• A new study suggests that people from different cultures read facial expressions differently.

• East Asian participants in the study focused mostly on the eyes, but those from the West scanned the whole face.

• In the research carried out by a team from Glasgow University, East Asian observers found it more difficult to distinguish some facial expressions.

• The work published in Current Biology journal challenges the idea facial expressions are universally understood.

• In the study, East Asians were more likely than Westerners to read the expression for "fear" as "surprise", and "disgust" as "anger".

• The researchers say the confusion arises because people from different cultural groups observe different parts of the face when interpreting expression.

•

Facial expressions

Facial expressions for "fear" and "surprise" were confused by some participants

Nonverbal Behavior

• Culture and Channels of Nonverbal Communications

Culture also influences emotional

expression; display rules that are unique to

each culture dictate when different

nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to

display.

Erkekler ne zaman ağlar?

• Bir yakını öldüğünde 74

Bir film, televizyon programı ya da kitapta acıklı bir hikayeye rastladığında 44

Yaşadığı romantik bir ilişki sona erdiğinde 39

Sevdiği biri zarar gördüğünde 25

Sevdiği biriyle kavga ettiğinde 24

Yalnızlık hissettiğinde 22

Duygusal bir müzik dinlediğinde 18

Kendine acıdığında 17

Fiziksel bir acı hissettiğinde 16

Duyguları incindiğinde 13

Düğünlerde 9

Nonverbal Behavior

• Culture and Channels of Nonverbal Communications

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.

Nonverbal Behavior

• Gender Differences in Nonverbal

Communication

This finding can be explained by social-role

theory, which claims that sex differences in

social behavior are due to society’s 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.

TWO TOUGH QUESTIONS

Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids

already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded,

and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.

Here are the facts about the three candidates.

Candidate A -- Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with

astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to

10 martinis a day.

Candidate B -- He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used

opium in college, and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C -- He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't

smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Candidate B is Winston Churchill.

Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to

the abortion question:

If you said, "YES!" . ..you just killed

Beethoven.

Implicit Personality Theories

• 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

• The Nature of the Attribution Process

Attribution theory is a description of

the way in which people explain the

causes of their own and other people’s

behavior.

Atıf, atfetmek

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 people’s behavior by

piecing together information until they

arrive at a reasonable cause.

Beggar= Poor, lazy or drug addicted…or?

Causal Attribution

• The Nature of the Attribution Process

He proposed a simple dichotomy for

people’s 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 person’s

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.

*Fikir birliği

Causal Attribution

• The Covariation Model: Internal Versus

External Attributions

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.

*Ayırdedicilik

** Tutarlılık

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 Covariation Model: Internal Versus

External Attributions

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

The correspondence bias is the tendency to

infer that people’s behavior corresponds to

(matches) their disposition (personality).

=Fundamental attribution error

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

The fundamental attribution error is the

tendency to overestimate the extent to

which a person’s behavior is due to

internal, dispositional factors and to

underestimate the role of situational

factors.

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: 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 actor’s behavior

are less salient and may be unknown.

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

Perceptual salience*, or the information

that is the focus of people’s attention,

helps explain why the fundamental

attribution error is prevalent.

*Algıda belirgin olma durumu

Causal Attribution• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

Who had taken the lead in the conversation?

Who had chosen the topics to be discussed?

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

The Two-Step Process of Attribution occurs

when people analyze another person’s

behavior by first making an automatic

internal attribution, and only then thinking

about possible situational reasons for the

behavior, after which one may adjust original

internal attribution.

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

Causal Attribution

• The Correspondence Bias: People as

Personality Psychologists

The spotlight* effect is the tendency to

overestimate the extent to which our

actions and appearance are salient to

others.

* Projektör ışığı, sahne ışığı

Causal Attribution

• The Actor/Observer Difference

The actor/observer difference is the

tendency to see other people’s behavior

as dispositionally caused, but focusing

more on the role of situational factors

when explaining one’s 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 one’s successes that credit internal,

dispositional factors and explanations for

one’s failures that blame external,

situational factors.

Example: Sports

Causal Attribution

• Self-Serving Attributions

Defensive attributions are explanations

for behavior or outcomes that avoid

feelings of vulnerability and mortality.

Example: Explaining a bad grade in a test

Self-Serving Attributions

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.

Examples: Candid, My name is Earl

Chapter Outline

IV. Culture and Attribution

Culture and Attributions

• Culture and the Correspondence Bias

The correspondence bias is the inclination to

conclude that people’s 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.

Culture and Attributions

• 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.