CAS PS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Subtyping, Stereotype Threat, Ingroups And Outgroups

• School: Boston University
• Department: Psychological & Brain Sciences
• Course: CAS PS 101
• Professor: Natalie Emmons

Document Summary

Social psychology is concerned with how people influence other people"s thoughts, feelings, and actions. We constantly make social judgments and automatically classify people into social categories. Sometimes these judgments can be inaccurate and not take into account individual differences. Social psychologists have shown that our long-term evaluations of people are heavily influenced by our first impressions. It"s hard to reverse a first impression. Nonverbal actions and expressions affect our first impressions. How you initially feel about others will be determined mostly by their nonverbal behavior. Ex: facial expressions, gestures, mannerisms, and movements. We can pick up information about how people dress, how old they are, whether or not they are jolly or serious. Thin slices of behavior: seconds-long observations offer powerful cues for impression formation. Participants viewed soundless 30-second film clips of college teachers lecturing and then were asked to rate the lecturers" teaching ability. Ratings corresponded very highly with the ratings given by the instructors" students.