Topic 4 : Social Perception and Cognition.

WHAT IS SOCIAL PERCEPTION?

Social perception is
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_.

It helps us to collect and remember information about others, and to make

inferences and judgments based on that information.

Being competent in social perception includes three domains of

competence:
(1) knowing that other people have thoughts, beliefs, emotions,
intentions, desires, and the like,
(2) being able to read other peoples inner states based on their
words, behavior, facial expression and the like, and
(3) adjusting ones actions based on those readings.

Social perception is the process of forming impressions of

individuals. The resulting impressions that we form are based on
information available in the environment.

For example, we are more like to perceive a beautiful person as

being good (i.e. possessing desirable personality traits such as
kindness, sociability, intelligence) than less attractive people. This
particular bias is often called the halo effect.

WHAT ARE SOME COMMON SOCIAL PERCEPTION BIASES?

In-group bias or In-group favoritism:

we tend to favor members of our in-group over those we perceive as outgroup members.

Under certain circumstances, however, we are likely to show bias against

in-group members, who behaves negatively; in particular, if he/she
transgresses against a group norm. Theorists believe this is linked to our
sense of social identity.
There are two basic views on morality.

1. The first view, a _____________________________, is associated with beliefs

that emphasize the autonomy of the individual and his or her individual
rights.
2. The second view, a _________________________, is based on the belief that
obligation to others is the basis of morality.

The process of social perception often makes people simplify the

incoming information and categorize it by groups.

Stereotypes can lead people to think that all members of a given

group have a particular trait.

Impaired social perception can have serious social consequences. For

example, an adolescent boy might misread a girls sympathetic smile as a
romantic invitation, and proceed to respond in a sexually offensive manner

HOW TO UNDERSTAND OTHER PEOPLE

A. Nonverbal Behavior

Nonverbal communication is defined as the way in which people

communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without wordsincluding
through facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and
movement, touch, and gaze.

B. Facial Expressions of Emotion

Charles Darwin believed that human emotional expressions are universal

that all humans encode (express or emit nonverbal behavior) and decode
(interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior of others) expressions in
the same way.

Why Is Decoding Sometimes Inaccurate?

Facial expressions may sometimes be hard to interpret accurately because

people may display affect blends, facial expressions where one part of the face
registers one emotion and another part registers a different emotion.

Eye contact and gaze are also powerful nonverbal cues.

Personal space is a nonverbal behavior with wide cultural variation.

SOCIAL COGNITION

Social cognition attempts "to understand and explain how the thoughts,
feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual,
imagined, or implied presence of others" (Allport, 1985, p. 3).

It studies the individual within a social or cultural context and focuses on

how people perceive and interpret information they generate themselves
(intrapersonal) and from others (interpersonal) (Sternberg, 1994).