Psychology 2070A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Nonverbal Communication, Shy People, Dispositional Attribution

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2070A/B
• Professor: Taylor Kohut

Document Summary

Social perception: the study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them. Nonverbal communication: refers to how people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words. Example, facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch, and eye gaze. Our ability to read nonverbal cues is not limited to members of our species. Ex. people are good at identifying cat"s emotions. We automatically mimic other people"s facial expressions (mimicry) this reflects empathy. Humans have mirror neurons: these cells respond when we perform an action and when we see someone else perform the same action. Ex. when we see someone crying, these mirror neurons fire automatically just as if we were crying ourselves. Feeling disgusted and observing some else"s facial expression of disgust activates the same region of the brain. Humans everywhere encode emotions in the same way. Decode: to interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express.