Chapter 3: Social Perception Flashcards
4 ways to make sense elf the world:
- we rely on our abilities to recall past events (memory)
- we make casual attributions
- we engage in counterfactual thinking
- we form impressions of others on the basis of limited info
Short term memory
Information and input that is currently activated
Long term memory
-info from past experience that may or may not be currently available
4 phases for long term memory
1) encode (actively paying attention to)
2) rehearse (repetition)
3) consolidate (process of it being stored in the brain)
4) retrieve (pull out info when needed)
Social media and memory
The use of social media shows poorer memory of events. Why?
-distraction (not paying attention, not encoding)
-cognitive offloading (we don’t think it’s imp. To pay attention bc we have vids to look back on later)
-POV (rather than living as the first person, we live as the third)
How do we remember?
-memory is a reconstructive process
-easier to remember schema consistent info
General rosy recollection bias
People have a tendency to remember thinks more positively than they actually remember them (rose coloured glasses)
Mood congruent memory
People are more likely to rmbr positive info when in a positive mood and negative info when in a negative mood
-people with depression always negative
-if ur in a bad mood you’ll rmbr bad things about the vent
Misinformation effect
The process by which cues are given after an event can plant false info into memory
-ex: ur friend tells you how John danced at the party but you don’t rmbr, now 2 months later ur talking about how you saw John danced at the party and it was so funny
Social media false memories
Posting on social media can lead to false memories, bc if you post at event you didn’t have fun at, but everyone’s liking and commenting, now ur gonna think you liked it more than you did
Availability heuristic
A mental shortcut people use to estimate the likelihood of an event
Casual attribution; locus and stability
Stable/internal = ability (I can’t do it)
Stable/ external= task difficulty (schools hard,they make it hard)
Unstable internal= motivation (most adaptive, effort)
Unstable/ external= luck (just bad luck)
Entity (fixed) mindset
Attributions cannot be controlled or changed
(“I’m not good at math that’s just the way it is”)
-more negative attributions about themselves
-preform worse
-avoid opportunity to change
Incremental (growth) mindset
Attributions are malleable (I can work on my math, I can get a tutor)
-feel challenging situations are opportunities to improve
Casual schema come from 2 primary sources
-personal experiences
-general culture knowledge
Correspondent interference
When people observe an action, people tend to attribute to the attitude, desire, or trait that corresponds to the action
We tend to make correspondent interferences when we believe a persons actions directly match their traits
Ex; if someone is rude to a server, we assume they’re just always rude
Fundamental attribution error
(Overestimate personality traits, underestimat situational factors when explaining other ppls behaviour
Ex; if someone cuts you off in traffic you call them an idiot instead of thinking maybe they’re rushing to emergency)
Actor-observer effect
The tendency to make internal attributions for the behaviour of others and external attributions for our own behaviour
Ex: liars come up with a reason as to why they lied, Better for their self esteem
-people explain their behaviour differently from how they explain others behaviour (ex: I was late bc of traffic, but she was late bc she’s irresponsible)
3 sources of info for casual attributions:
- consistency (across time)
(is their behaviour consistent?) - Distinctiveness (across situations)
(Does this person react this way across diff situations?) - Consensus (across people)
(Do other people also react/ behave this way in that switch)
Counterfactuals
Alternatives that run counter to what actually happened
(ex: I passed my exam but it was real close, I almost didn’t pass, so ur imagining you didn’t pass)
Upward counterfactual
An imagined alternative where the outcome is better than what actually happened (“if only”)
Downward counterfactual
An imagined alternative where the outcome is worse than what actually happened
(“it could have been worse”)
Impression basics
Human brains are attuned to quickly perceive physical attributes (ex; age, sex)
Impression from bottom up
-gathering individual observations of a person in order to form an overall impression
-negativity bias (find one neg thing now we notice it more than the positive)
- thin slices (when we first meet someone we can gather info pretty quickly and form impressions)
Mirror neutrons (theory of mind)
-certain neutrons that are activated both when one performs an action oneself and when one observes another person perform that actions
- ex: if my friend is telling me a story and she’s crying, I might cry or feel sad too
- allows us to feel empathy
top down processing
When our pre-existing knowledge, expectations, or stereotypes influence how we perceive someone
Impressions from top down: transference
They remind you of someone else so you assume everything from that person will transfer to the person that remains you of them
Impressions from top down: false consensus
We assume people are more like us than they are. We also think we’re more like our friends than we are
Impressions from top down: implicit personality theories
Thinking that certain traits go tgt. So bc bob is “warm” we assume he has all these more positive traits than Jason who’s “cold”
Halo effect
When our overall impressions of someone influences how we judge their other traits
Ex: if someone’s attractive, we might a,so assume they’re smart, or kind, even without proof
Stereotyping
A type of top down processing that happens when we use general beliefs or assumptions about a group to judge individuals rather than focusing in unique traits
Representativeness heuristic
Mental shortcut where we judge the likelihood of something based on how similar it is to a stereotype
