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Concept
Social cue
Summary
Social cues are verbal or non-verbal signals expressed through the face, body, voice, motion (and more) and guide conversations as well as other social interactions by influencing our impressions of and responses to others. These percepts are important communicative tools as they convey important social and contextual information and therefore facilitate social understanding.
A few examples of social cues include:
eye gaze
facial expression
vocal tone
body language
Social cues are part of social cognition and serve several purposes in navigating the social world. Due to their social nature, humans rely heavily on the ability to understand other peoples' mental states and make predictions about their behaviour. Especially in the view of evolution, this ability is critical in helping to determine potential threats and advantageous opportunities; and in helping to form and maintain relationships in order to fulfill safety and basic physiological needs. These cues allow us to predict other people's meanings and intentions in order to be able to respond in an efficient and adaptive manner, as well as to anticipate how others might respond to one's own choices. For instance, people were found to behave more prosocially in economic games when being watched which indicates potential reputational risk (see also watching eye effect).
The ability to perceive social signals and integrate them into judgements about others' intentional mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires, emotions, knowledge) is often referred to as theory of mind or mentalization, and is evident from about 18 months of age.
Processing and decoding social cues is an important part of everyday human interaction (e.g. turn-taking in conversation), and therefore a critical skill for communication and social understanding. Taking into account other people's internal states such as thoughts or emotions is a critical part of forming and maintaining relationships.
Official source
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