PSY 223 1nd EditionExam # 2 Study Guide Lectures: 7 - 12Perceiving Persons (Chapter 4 and lectures 7-9)1. People often make snap judgments of others based on superficial, salient characteristics. Explain how judgments are based on:a. Physical attractiveness (explain the “what is beautiful is good” stereotype). Are there any limits to the physical attractiveness stereotype? For example, are physically attractive people judged negatively on any traits?Two major dimensions people judge from faces: dominance and trustworthinessHalo effect of physical attractiveness: how attractive someone is effects people’s perceptions of others. Good looking people have “halo” and everything about them is seen as good. Attractive people are judged to have better features.But there is a limit—negative judgments like arrogant and vain. Also assumed they wouldn’t be good parents and were seen as more likely to have an affairb. Length of time to examine faces (how do judgments vary as a function of length of time to judge photos?)It doesn’t matter how long people have to judge photos people tend to make same assumptionsbut this doesn’t mean the judgment has any truthc. Baby face features vs. mature features“Baby-faced” adults are judged differently than mature-faced adultsd. Mind PerceptionThe process by which people attribute humanlike mental states to various animate and inanimate objects, including other people. More “mind” attached to attributed to a character, the more the liked it, valued it, wanted to make it happen, or rescue it from destruction.Also, what are scripts about situations? Describe the Pryor and Merluzzi study of first date scripts.Scripts influence perceptions—we see what we expect to see and we use scripts to help us explain human behavior. For first dates, people follow a certain “script”—certain actions or steps we follow that people can predict2. What are the six primary emotions? Is there evidence for the universality of emotional expression? Discuss how the ability to recognize certain emotions may have survival value. 6 primary emotions: happiness, fear, sadness, anger, surprise disgust. These are recognizes internationally. Ability to recognize certain emotions may have survival value because can avoidsomeone who looks angry or disgusted.3. Why is decoding of others’ emotions not always accurate? Who is better at decoding?Decoding other’s emotions (we don’t think they are expressing the emotion that they actually are) is not always accurate because people display affect blends (showing 2 different emotions in the same facial expression), context may be needed to interpret emotions, and rules about expression vary across cultures.Women and extroverts are better at decoding4. Explain the meaning of eye gaze as a function of the type of relationship the two have. What is “gaze disengagement”? What is the “eye contact effect”?Eye gazing is a powerful form of nonverbal communication. It can communicate interest (amount of love 2 people have for each other correlates with amount of eye gaze) but can also reflect dominance. Gaze disengagement: conversing with someone who kept looking away, as if uninterested, then form negative perceptions.Eye contact effect: show people who look us straight in the eye quickly draw and hold our attention, increase our arousal, and activate key “social” areas of the brain and that this sensitivity is present at birth. 5. How accurate are college students and others in detecting whether others are telling the truth or not? On what cues should social perceives focus in order to detect if someone is trying to deceive others? Conversely, on what cues do social perceivers typically focus, and why are these cues less revealing?We have difficulty detecting deception (if someone is telling the truth or not.) We hold truth bias, belief that people should be telling the truth and wouldn’t be lying to us.We mismatch the cues that signal deception and the ones that we used to detect deception—we focus on words people are saying and facial expressions, but we should be focusing on voice and body movement. Why? Because the face is controllable and words can’t be trusted.Social psychologists realized lying takes effort so in order to catch people in lie, make them do something that would distract them from lying efforts.6. What does it mean to make a causal attribution, and why are causal attributions important?Attribution is when you try to determine the cause of something. We want to understand othersand predict their future behaviors. Why we ask “why” for something unusual—it allows us to justify our own behavior or someone else’s behavior.7. Imagine that you get a very high A on Exam 2. As you try to explain why you did so well, you are likely to make either internal attributions or external attributions, or possibly both. Define each type of attribution, and give one example of each that you could make in this situation. If you receive an A and make a self-serving attribution, which type of attribution would you be making? If you receive an F and make a self-serving attribution, what type of attribution would you make? Internal (personal) Attribution: making attribution about the person (someone did something because they are weird—you got an A because you are so smart)External (situational) Attribution: blame it on the environment/situation (someone yelled in class because bee stung them—you got an A on the test because the professor gave great lectures)**we make internal attributions more than external attributions**Self-serving Attribution: favorable and one-sided attribution for own behavior because of strong need for self-esteemIf A=internal attributionIf F=external attribution8. Three theorists or pairs of theorists contributed significantly to attribution theory. What isthe perspective of each theory or approach to attribution?a) Fritz Heider’s perspective that people are like amateur scientistsWe are all amateur scientists who try to understand others. We are either an internal or external attribution to situation.b) Jones and Davis’ correspondent inference theory (what are the three factors likely to lead the inference of a personal attribution?)Looks at when we make internal attributions. We make internal attributions when it appears that the person freely choose their behavior (no internal or external award for doing behavior), the behavior is