Chapter 3

Social Perception: Perceiving and

Understanding Others
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Social Perception

• Nonverbal Communication
• Attribution
• Impression Formation and
Impression Management

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Social Perception

• Social Perception—process
through which people seek to know
and understand others

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Nonverbal Communication
• Nonverbal Communication—communication between individuals
that relies on an unspoken language of facial expressions, eye
contact, and body language
– Basic channels
• Facial expressions—reveal current moods/feelings
• Eye contact—indicates positive feelings (except staring)
• Body language (gestures, posture, movements)—reveals emotional states, cultural
emblems
• Touching—suggests affection, sexual interest, dominance, caring, aggression

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Nonverbal Communication
• Recognizing Deception: The Role of Nonverbal
Cues
– Microexpressions—fleeting facial expressions lasting only a
few tenths of a second
– Interchannel discrepancies (nonverbal cues are inconsistent)
– Eye contact (blink more, unusually low or high eye contact)
– Exaggerated facial expressions (overly broad smile)
– Linguistic Style—aspects of speech apart from the meaning
of the words employed (pitch of voice)
• Lies are less complex, less related to the self, and more negative.

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Nonverbal Communication
• What are your thoughts?
– Which channels of nonverbal communication are
the most reliable?
• Why?

– What explains why women are generally better than

men are at sending and interpreting nonverbal cues?
– Why is it difficult to tell if someone is lying?
• Why is it typically harder for women to detect deception
than it is for men?

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Attribution
• Attribution—process through which people
seek to identify the causes of others’
behavior and so gain knowledge of their
stable traits and dispositions

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Attribution
• Theories of Attribution
– Jones and Davis’ (1965) Theory of Correspondent
Inference—describes how people use others’
behavior as a basis for inferring their stable
dispositions
• What factors are considered important in this process?
– Behavior is freely chosen.
– Behavior yields noncommon effects—effects produced by a
particular cause that could not be produced by any other apparent
cause.
– Behavior is low in social desirability (or unusual).

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Attribution
– Kelley’s (1972) theory of causal attributions
• People attribute the cause of others’ behavior to internal or
external factors.
– Internal—caused by person’s traits (disposition)
– External—caused by situation
• To explain other’s behavior the following are used:
– Consensus—extent others behave in same way toward the stimulus
– Consistency—extent person always behaves this way toward the
stimulus
– Distinctiveness—extent person responds in the same way toward
different stimuli

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Attribution
– Kelley’s (1972) theory of causal attributions
• People attribute the causes of others’ behavior to internal factors
when:
– Consensus and distinctiveness are low, but consistency is high.

• People attribute the causes of others’ behavior to external factors

when:
– Consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness are all high.

• People attribute the causes of others’ behavior to a combination of

internal and external factors when:
– Consensus is low, but consistency and distinctiveness are high.

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Attribution

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Attribution
• Other dimensions of causal attributions (besides internal-
external) are stable-unstable and controllable-
uncontrollable, which all influence judgments concerning
personal responsibility.

– When multiple potential causes for behavior are

present, the following may occur:
• Discounting Principle—tendency to attach less
importance to one potential cause of some behavior
when other potential causes are also present
• Augmenting Principle—tendency to attach greater
importance to a potential cause of behavior if the
behavior occurs despite the presence of other, inhibitory
causes
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Attribution

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Attribution
• Some Basic Sources of Error
– Correspondence Bias (Fundamental attribution
error)—tendency to explain others’ actions as
stemming from dispositions even in the presence
of clear situational causes; tendency to
overestimate the impact of dispositional factors
• This error is more common or stronger in individualist
cultures (Western Europe, the United States, and
Canada).
• This error is committed against groups, as well as
individuals.
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Attribution

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Attribution
• Some Basic Sources of Error
– Actor-Observer Effect—tendency to attribute own
behavior mainly to situational causes, but the
behavior of others mainly to internal
(dispositional) causes
– Self-Serving Bias—tendency to attribute positive
outcomes to internal causes, but negative
outcomes to external causes
• Cognitive and motivational factors may explain this bias.
• This bias is stronger in individualist cultures.

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Attribution
• Applications of Attribution Theory
– Attribution and Depression
• Depressed persons often show a self-defeating pattern of attributions,
which is the opposite of the self-serving bias.
– Attribute negative outcomes to stable, internal causes
– Attribute positive outcomes to temporary, external causes

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Attribution

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Attribution
• Applications of Attribution Theory
– Attribution in Workplaces
• Attributions affect how people perceive sexual
harassment.
– Men are more likely than women are to attribute blame to the
victim.
– Changing men’s attributions regarding sexual harassment may
help to prevent it.

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Attribution
• What are your thoughts?
– What are differences between Jones and Davis’
correspondent inference theory and Kelley’s causal
attribution theory?
– What are reasons why the fundamental attribution
error, the actor-observer effect, and the self-serving
bias occur?
– What are explanations for the cultural differences in
the tendency to commit some of the attribution errors?

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Impression Formation
• Asch’s (1946) Research on Impression Formation
– Impression Formation involves more than combining
individual traits.
• Implicit Personality Theories—beliefs about
what traits or characteristics tend to go together
– These theories are similar to a schema.
– Implicit theories can influence the impressions of
others more than people’s actual traits.
• An example is the implicit personality theory people hold
regarding the relationship between birth order and
personality traits.
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Impression Formation

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Impression Formation
• A Cognitive Perspective
– How do people combine diverse information about
others into a unified impression of them?
• People form impressions by averaging available information.
– What kind of information do people focus on when
meeting others for the first time?
• People focus first on information about others’ traits, values,
and principles.

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Impression Formation
• Other Aspects of Impression Formation
– First impressions involve two major components:
• Concrete examples of behaviors consistent with a given
trait (exemplars of the trait)
• Mental summaries abstracted from repeated
observations of others (abstractions)
– Motives influence the kind of impressions people
form of others.

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 Impression Management
• Impression Management (Self-Presentation)—efforts to
produce favorable first impressions on others
– Research indicates that it does have positive effects.
– Tactics of impression management
• Self-enhancement—boost one’s appeal to others
– Boost physical appearance, boast about abilities
• Other-enhancement—induce positive moods in others
– Use flattery, express liking, agree with their views
» If overused, tactics can boomerang (slime effect can occur).

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Impression Management
– The role of high cognitive load
• In most situations, it can interfere with people’s
efforts to give others a favorable impression of them.

– First impressions on the run: Speed dating

• People are given seven minutes to impress potential
dates.
– Research indicates that generally people appear to form
initial judgments about others in about one or two minutes.

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Impression Formation and Management
• What are your thoughts?
– Can first impressions of others be changed?
• What are strategies people can employ to change an unfavorable
first impression that someone formed of them?

– What are the advantages and disadvantages of speed dating?

• If you were looking for a romantic partner, would you consider
trying it?
– Why or why not?

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