Comm 101 Ch 3

expectancy violation theory

A theory claiming that when our expectations are violated, we become more cognitively alert as we struggle to understand and cope with unexpected behaviors

constructivism

A theory that holds that we organize and interpret experience by applying cognitive structures called schemata.

inference

An interpretation that goes beyond the facts known but is believed to logically follow from them.

schemata

Cognitive structures we use to organize and interpret experiences. The four types of schemata are prototypes, personal constructs, stereotypes, and scripts.

Prototypes

an ideal, or best example, of a category; knowledge structures that define the clearest or ideal examples of some category

mind reading

assuming we understand what another person thinks or feels.

Personal constructs

A bipolar mental yardstick that allows us to measure people and situations along bipolar dimensions of judgment, such as "honest—dishonest."

cognitive schemata (categories)

Mental structures people use to organize and interpret experience. Four schemata have been identified: prototypes, personal constructs, stereotypes, and scripts.

cognitive complexity

The number of mental constructs an individual uses, how abstract they are, and how elaborately they interact to create perceptions.

the self serving bias

The tendency to attribute our positive actions and successes to stable, global, internal influences that we control and to attribute negative actions and failures to unstable, specific, external influences beyond our control The self-serving bias can distort our perceptions, leading us to take excessive credit for what we do well and to deny responsibility for our failings. It can also lead us to judge others less kindly than ourselves

judgement

a belief or opinion that is based on observations, feelings, assumptions, or other phenomena that are not facts.

Social community

a group of people who are part of an overall society and are also distinct from the overall society in that they hold values, understandings, and practices that are not shared by people outside the group.

stereotypes

a predictive generalization about a person or situation

script

a sequence of activities that spells out how we and others are expected to act in a specific situation. scripts organize perceptions into line of actions

positive visualization

a technique used to enhance success in a variety of situations by teaching people to visualize themselves positively.

Culture

consists of beliefs, values, understandings, practices, and ways of interpreting experience that are shared by a group of people

Empathy

is the ability to feel with another person—to feel what he or she feels in a situation.

Person- centeredness

is the ability to perceive another as a unique indi- vidual. The ability to perceive another as a unique and distinct individual apart from social roles and generalizations.

Perception

is the active process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and activities. The first thing to notice in this definition is that perception is an active process.

attribution

the act of explaining why something happens or why a person acts a particular way

Monitoring

the process of calling behaviors or other phenomena to our attention so that we can observe and regulate them.

Interpretation

the process of creating explanations for what we observe and experience.