Interplay Chapter 4 Vocabulary

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Androgenous

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Combining female and masculine traits. One of the four psychological sex types. Tend to see their relationships as opportunities to behave in a variety of different ways depending on the nature of the relationship, the context in which a particular relationsip takes place, others factors that affect what might constitute appropriate behavior, unlike masculine males and feminine females, who have a smaller repertoire of behaviors

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Attribution

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The attachment of meaning to behavior

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Empathy

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The ability to re-create another's perspective, to experience the world from his or her point of view (in effect, temporarily becoming that person)
-different from sympathy in which feelings and experiences belong to another

-The ability to emphasize is present from birth

-Degree of innate empathy varies according to genetic factors, but environmental experiences have the greatest impact on developing the ability to understand others

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First-order realities

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Physically observable qualities of a thing or situation. Surface level of reality or what actually happened.

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Gender

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Shorthand term for psychological sex type

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Halo effect

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The tendency to form an overall positive impression of a person on the basis of one positive characteristic (most typicaly, the characteristic is physical attractiveness).
-Ex: in job interviews

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Interpretation

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Making sense out of perceptions

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Narrative

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The stories we use to describe our personal worlds

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Negotiation

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The process by which communicators influence each other's perceptions through communication

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Organization

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Arranging information in a meaningful way

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Perception checking

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Checking and sharing interpretations by 1) describing the behavior you noticed, 2) providing two possible interpretations of the behavior, and 3) requesting clarification about how to interpret the behavior

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Psychological sex type

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Sets of behavior

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Punctuation

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The determination of causes and effects in a series of interactions

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Second-order realities

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What is happening below the surface involves attaching meaning to first-order things or situations. Second-order realities don't reside in objects or events, but rather in our minds

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Selection

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The decision of which data to attend to and which to ignore

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Self-serving bias

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The tendency to evaluate others critically while judging ourselves in the most generous terms possible

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Standpoint theory

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A theory that describes how a person's position in a society shapes his or her view of society in general, and of specific individuals. Most often applied to the difference between the perspectives of privileged social groups and people who have less power, and to the perspectives of women and men.

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Stereotyping

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Exaggerated beliefs associated with a primitive categorizing system (like those that have to do with race, sex and age)

-May be founded on a kernel of truth but goes beyond the facts at hand and make claims that usually have no valid basis

-Can plague interracial communities

-Once we create and hold stereotypes, we seek our isolated behaviors that support our inaccurate beliefs

-One solution is to decategorize others, treating people as individuals rather than assuming that they possess the same characteristics as every other member of the group to which you assign them.

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Factors in Selection

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Factors that cause us to attend to some messages and ignore others:

1). Intensity (i.e. louder, larger, brighter, or an extreme)

2) Repetition

3) A contrast or change in stimulation

4) Motives (ex: people on the lookout for a romantic adventure will be more attentive to attractive potential partners)

4) Emotional state (Ex: People in a happy mood notice other happy people while people in a sad mood notice other sad people)

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Factors in Organization

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Either using perceptual schema (categorizing others into general categories) or punctuation (the way that specific communication transactions are organized in terms of cause and effect)

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Perceptual schema

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Cognitive frameworks that allow us to give order to the information that we have selected

Four types:

1) Physical constructs (classify people according to their appearance)

2) Role constructs (use social position such as student, attorney, wife)

3) Interaction constructs (focus on social behavior, like friendly, helpful, aloof or sarcastic)

4) Psychological constructs (internal states of mind and dispositions like confident, insecure, happy and neurotic)

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Factors in Interpretation (can occur in varying chronological sequences)

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1) Degree of involvement with the person (more likely to view people with whom we have or seek a relationship favorably than those whom we observe from a detached perspective)

2) Relational satisfaction (satisfaction with the relationship)

3) Personal experience (likely to interpret things or situtations according to the meaning that they have held in the past)

4) Assumptions about human behavior

5) Expectations (if we anticipate that people will behave in certain ways, we are more likely to find signs of that expectation in their behavior)

5) Knowledge of others (ex: have a different interpretation of someone's behavior if you know that they have had a rough week)

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Negotiation

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-The part of sense making that occurs among people, rather than within them

-Interpersonal communication is the exchange of narratives (negotiation often comes when our narratives clash with those of others)

-A negotiated understanding of an event or thing defines that event or thing

-Created by seeking reinforcement from others for perceptions

-Shared narratives, whether or not they are accurate, provide the best chance for smooth communication

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Physiological influences on perception

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1) Senses (the differences in how each of us receives sensory data through seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling stimuli can affect interpersonal relationships)

2) Age (Older people view the world differenly than younger ones because of a greater scope and number of experiences and developmental differences also shape perception. ex: younger children are less developed than older ones)

3) Health (illness can have a strong impact on how you relate to others)

4) Excessive fatigue (the world can seem different when you are very tired than it does when you are well-rested)

5) Hunger (ex: being hungry...and getting grumpy, or being full...and getting tired, affects how we interact with others)

6). Biological cycles (changes in hormonal levels at different times of day affect how we relate to one another. ex: night work increases our sensitivity to criticism from others)

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Psychological influences on perception

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1) Mood (our emotional state strongly influences how we view people and events, and therefore how we communicate. ex: people interpreted the same pictures differently when they were in different moods)

2) Self-concept: The way we think about ourselves strongly influences how we interpret others' behavior

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Social influences on perception

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1) Our personal point of view (standpoint theory...WITHIN A SOCIETY, NOT BETWEEN DIFFERENT SOCIETIES).

2) Attitudes and sex and gender roles that determine personal experiences and social expectations (ex: one's psychological sex type or gender, not just one's biological sex)

3) Occupational roles (the kind of work we do governs our view of the world. ex: prison simulation in which students randomly assigned to be guards verbally and physically abused the students randomly assigned to be prisoners)

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Cultural influences on perception

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1) The valuing of talk (ex: Western cultures tend to view talk as desirable and use it for social purposes as well as to perform tasks whereas Asian cultures value silence and discourage the expression of thoughts and feelings)

-Perceptual differences don't just occur between residents of different countries, they also occur within different regional and ethnic co-cultures in a single national culture

-Gap between cultures often extends beyond dissimilar norms to a wide range of different experiences and feelings that bear little resemblance to one another

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Common perceptual tendencies

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-Sometimes lead to misperceptions

1) We make snap judgments

2) We cling to first impressions

3) We judge ourselves more favorably than we do others

4) We are influenced by our expectations

5) We are influenced by the obvious

6) We assume others are like us

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Snap judgments

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-Is sometimes a survival skill, but more often, gets us into trouble

-The best snap judgments come from people whose decisions are based on expertise and experience

-Even nonexperts can sometimes be good at making split-second decisions

-Particularly problematic when they are based on stereotyping

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We cling to first impressions

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-Can be useful ways of deciding how best to respond to people in the future if they are accurate

-Can be dangerous if they are inaccurate

-Halo effect (ex: in job interviews) vs. devil effect

-"you never get a second chance to make a first impression

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We judge ourselves more charitably than we do others

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-Called "self-serving bias"

-When others suffer, we often blame the problem on their personal qualities

-When we're the victims, we find explanations outside ourselves

-Especially common in troubled relationships

-When people are aware of both the positive and negative characteristics of another person, they tend to be more influenced by the undesirable traits

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We are influenced by our expectations

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-Perceive things in a certain way because we expect them to be that way

-Perceive something as more negative than it is because it fails to meet excessively high expectations

-Important to know when making decisions about others

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We are influenced by the obvious

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-We select stimuli from our environment that are most noticeable or attention-grabbing, but the most obvious factor is not necessarily the only cause or even the most significant cause of an event

-Important to take time to gather all the facts before arriving at a conclusion

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We assume others are like us

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-Common assumption that others possess the same attitudes and motives that we do, but this is not always true

-Assuming similarities can lead to problems

-Can find out the other person's real position by checking with others, asking directly, or making an educated guess after thinking the matter out, but all of these are better than assuming that others would react the way you do

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Perception-checking

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-A tool to help us understand others accurately instead of assuming that our first interpretation is correct

-Goal is mutual understanding

-Cooperative approach to communication

-Signals an attitude of respect and concern for the other person (doesn't assume that you are qualified to judge the other person without help)

-Doesn't need all 3 parts to be effective

-Has the best chance of working in low-context cultures (the U.S. and West. Europe in which straight-talking is valued)

-High-context cultures that value social harmony (Lat. Am. and Asia) are more likely to regard it as potentially embarassing

-Can sometimes be a face-saving way to raise an issue without directly threatening or attacking the other person

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Dimensions of Empathy

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1) Perspective-taking: the ability to take on the viewpoint of another person (cognitive understanding, suspending judgment to set aside own opinions and take on those of the other person)

2) Emotional contagion: We experience the same feelings that others have (affective dimension)

3) Genuine concern for the welfare of the other person

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Value of empathy

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Benefits for the recipient:

1) Increased self-esteem (it is flattering to find that someone is interested enough in your position to hear you out without passing judgment)

2) Comfort (actually being understood, no longer feel alone

3) Learns to trust

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Compassion fatigue

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Burnout from the display of too much empathy

-Symptoms: depersonalization of the person being helped, emotional exhaustion, reduced feelings of personal accomplishment, and less emotional commitment to the needy person

-In addition to being concerned for others, its necessary to take care of your own needs as well

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Empathy and ethics

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-Rooted in the "golden rule" of treating others how we would like to be treated

-Clear relationship between the ability to empathize and the ethical principles that enable society to function in a manner that we consider civilized

Ex: Bystanders who feel empathy for victims are more likely to intervene than ones who are indifferent

-Criminals who commit the most offensive crimes (rape, child abuse) lack empathy, or the sense of how their offenses affect the victims

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Requirements for empathy

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1) Open-mindedness: the ability and disposition to set aside your own beliefs, attitudes, and values to consider those of the other person
-Most important characteristic
-Most difficult because people confuse understanding another's position with accepting it

2) Imagination: must be able to picture another person's background and thoughts (hardest to empathize with people who are radically different from us, in age, sex, socioecon. status, intelligence, etc.)
-Practicing empathy seems to make people more understanding

3) Commitment: a sincere desire to understand the other person
-listening to unfamiliar, confusing information takes time and isn't always fun

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Characteristics of stereotypes

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1) Categorizing others on the basis of easily recognized, but not necessarily significant characteristics (ex: skin color)

2) Ascribing a set of characteristics to most or all members of a group

3) Applying the generalization to a particular person