Chapter 3

Question 1

Discounting principle

Answer 1

The judgemental rule that states that as the number of possible causes for an event increases, our confidence that any particular cause is the true one should decrease

Question 2

Social cognition

Answer 2

The process of thinking about and making sense of oneself and others

Question 3

Attribution theories

Answer 3

Theories designed to explain how people determine the causes of behavior

Question 4

Availability heuristic

Answer 4

A mental shortcut people use to estimate the likelihood of an event by the ease with which instances of that event come to mind

Question 5

Self-serving bias

Answer 5

The tendency to take personal credit for our successes and to blame external factors for our failures

Question 6

Correspondent inference theory

Answer 6

The theory that proposes that people determine whether a behavior corresponds to an actor’s internal disposition by asking whether 1) the behavior was intended, 2) the behavior’s consequences were foreseeable, 3) the behavior was freely chosen, and 4) the behavior occurred despite countervailing forces

Question 7

False consensus effect

Answer 7

The tendency to over estimate the extent to which others agree with us

Question 8

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Answer 8

A mental shortcut through which people begin with a rough estimation as a starting point and then adjust this estimate to take into account unique characteristics of the present situation

Question 9

Correspondence bias

Answer 9

(Fundamental attribution error) The tendency for observers to overestimate the causal influence of personality factors on behavior and to underestimate the causal role of situational influences

Question 10

Covariation model

Answer 10

The theory that proposes thatpeople determine the cause of an actor’s behavior by assessing whether other people act in similar ways (consensus), the actor behaves similarly in similar situations (distinctiveness), and the actor behaves similarly across time in the same situation (consistency)

Question 11

Cognitive heuristics

Answer 11

A mental shortcut used to make a judgement

Question 12

Dispositional inferences

Answer 12

The judgement that a person’s behavior has been caused by an aspect of that person’s personality

Question 13

Upward social comparison

Answer 13

The process of comparing ourselves with those who are better off

Question 14

Downward social comparison

Answer 14

The process of comparing ourselves with those who are less well off

Question 15

Self-fulfilling prophecies

Answer 15

When an initially inaccurate expectation leads to actions that cause the expectation to come true

Question 16

Augmenting principle

Answer 16

The judgemental rule that States that if an event occurs despite the presence of strong opposing forces, we should give more weight to those possible causes that lead toward the event

Question 17

Representative heuristic

Answer 17

A mental shortcut people use to classify something as belonging to a certain category to the extent that it is similar to a typical case from that category