You are encouraged to set yourself to be without distraction from your learning for the period of each lecture. For a self-paced lesson, a minimum of 15 minutes is recommended for each period. This is to enable you to adequately digest the instructions and content, to avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, and to achieve meaningful learning.
We covered Erikson's Psychosocial Development in Chapter 2, and here we are again to look at the adolescent's psychosocial development. According to Erikson’s, most adolescents find themselves in the stage of ‘Identity vs. Role Confusion’. It is believed that during this stage, adolescents search for a sense of self and personal identity, through an intense exploration of personal values, beliefs, and goals.
Basic Conflict: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Important Events: Social Relationships
Outcome: Adolescent need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. Success leads to an ability to stay true to yourself, while failure leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self.
What should happen at the end of this stage is a re-integrated sense of self, of what one wants to do or be, and of one’s appropriate role in society. During this period, they explore possibilities and begin to form their own identity based upon the outcome of their explorations in social perception and social cognition. Failure to establish a sense of identity within society can lead to role confusion. Role confusion involves the individual being unsure about themselves or their place in society.
Social Perception (or person perception) is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people. Consider how often you make this kind of judgment every day. When you meet with a new classmate you immediately begin to develop an initial impression of this person. When you visit the grocery store after work, you might draw conclusions about the cashier who checks you out, even though you know very little about them.
This allows us to make snap judgments and decisions, but it can also lead to biased or stereotyped perceptions of other people. Let's take a closer look at how person perception works and the impact it has on our day-to-day interactions with other people.
Physical appearance has a strong effect on how people are perceived by others. Two aspects of physical appearance are particularly important: attractiveness and baby-faced features.
Research shows that people judge attractive-looking people as having positive personality traits, such as sociability, friendliness, poise, warmth, and good adjustment. There is, however, little actual correlation between personality traits and physical attractiveness. People also tend to think that attractive-looking people are more competent. Because of this bias, attractive people tend to get better jobs and higher salaries
People’s attractiveness does not have much influence on judgments about their honesty. Instead, people tend to be judged as honest if they have baby-faced features, such as large eyes and rounded chins. Baby-faced people are often judged as being passive, helpless, and naïve. However, no correlation exists between being baby-faced and actually having these personality traits.
Here is a short video on physical appearances and social perception:
3.2.1 Social Perception A 1252.mp4Because of social roles, people tend to know what behavior is expected of them in specific, familiar settings. A script is a person’s knowledge about the sequence of events expected in a specific setting. How do you act on the first day of school, when you walk into an elevator, or are at a restaurant? For example, at a restaurant in Singapore, if we want the server’s attention, we try to make eye contact. In Brazil, you would make the sound “psst” to get the server’s attention. You can see the cultural differences in scripts. To a Singaporean, saying “psst” to a server might seem rude, yet to a Brazilian, trying to make eye contact might not seem an effective strategy. Scripts are important sources of information to guide behavior in given situations.
Here is a short video on social scripts and social perception:
Social Perception B 2436.mp4 Nonverbal communication is defined as the way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words—including through facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, touch, and gaze. Nonverbal behavior is used to express emotion, convey attitudes, communicate personality traits, and facilitate or modify verbal communication. The basic channels through which nonverbal communication occurs:
Facial expressions - These help know the current feelings or emotions of the other person.
Eye contact - These helps to know positive or negative mood of the other person.
Body language (gestures, posture, movements) - These help understand positive or hostile emotions of the other persons.
Touch - These help understand positive emotions as well as anxiety and anger.
Here is a short video on non-verbal cues and social perception:
Social Perception 3a Lecture.mp4In this lesson Dr. Tali Sharot shows us when we perceive something, whether good or bad, it can change the outcome of behaviour. So what is it about our perception that change our actions? Dr Tali Sharot reveals three ingredients to doing what's good for yourself.
What are some ways we can help our patients perceive tangible and immediate rewards when they choose to practice good health behaviours? Is the use of fear or threats helpful? What does this imply when we use the Health Belief Model?
This video was originally hosted in Youtube within this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0O2vi8DX4
Kassin, S., Fein, S. & Markus, H. R. (2017). Social Psychology 10th Edition. Cengage Learning.
Crash Course. (2014, March 17). Perceiving is Believing: Crash Course Psychology #7. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n46umYA_4dM
Sharot, T. (2014, October 28). How to motivate yourself to change your behaviour. Retrieved March 23, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0O2vi8DX4
We will now move on to take closer look at social cognition in the next segment. Now that you've learnt that how we perceive a situation can influence our response to the situation, let us look at how the way we think can influence our behaviour.
