Chapter 3 - social perception and attribution Flashcards
social perception
how we perceive and interpret info about the characteristics of others
What has influence of social perception
- central or pheripal trait
- primacy effect – i.e. the order in which adjectives (bijvoegelijk naamwoord) are presented
- personal contact
- verbal vs. sensory data. how someone moves can also tell us info about how old they are
central trait
a trait that is fundamental in how someone’s personality is overall viewed by other social perceivers.
peripheral trait
a trait which presence does not significantly change the way social perceivers interpret a persons personality.
Implicit personality theory
People do not add info about a personality, we rather give meaning to the info we get about someones personality and how it hangs together. We think of ideas about how different traits tend to be
organized within a person.
Configural model
Holistic approach to impression formation, suggesting that social perceivers actively construct deeper meanings out of the bits of information that they receive about other people
Cognitive algebra
A proposed proces in which social perceivers average or sum trait info when they for a impression of a person.
self fulfilling prophecy
a person’s expectations about a situation or another person cause them to act in ways that make those expectations come true.
causal attribution
the process in which people try to come up with a conclusion about the cause of the behavior of another person.
attribution theory
- theory on causal attribution
- set of ideas about how causes of action are concluded from situation in which we observe or hear about a persons actions.
self attribution
explaining the causes of your own behavior to yourself.
The idea about the attribution theory are dispositional influences, which are
people try to identify personal dispositions (the characteristics of a person) that account (verklaren, explain) other peoples behavior
Advantages of drawing dispositional
inferences?
- allows us to make sense of disorganized info about others
- allows us to make predicitons of future behavior
correspondent inference theory (theory on how we form impressions of others)
People form an impression of others based by viewing the way a person decides to behave out of all the behavioral options as a reflection of their intention.
Analysis of non-common effects
We conclude an intention behind behavior of someone by comparison the consequences of all the behavioral options and trough identifying the different outcomes, which can be desirable or undesirable.
What was the reason behind behaving that way that was more preferable than alternative ways to behave.
Correspondence bias = fundamental attribution error
people tend to overestimate personal causes of behavior and underestimate situational causes of behavior.
Covartion theory (theory on how we form impression of others)
Observers determine causes of behaviour by collecting data about comparison cases (soortgelijke situ’s)
figure out the cause of an effect, by looking at which factors (actor, object or situ) are consistenly present when effect occurs. (covaries).
That factor is the cause.
Does the person, object or situ cause certain behavior.
for this theory, people collect ccd info to then make inferences
evidence for covariation theory: consensus information
evidence relating to how different people behave towards the same object.
You sample across actors, if many people find the same, there is high consensus.
evidence for covariation theory: consistency information
evidence relating how consisten people behave towards the same object.
You sample across situation, if people behave the same across different situ, consistency is high
evidence for covariation theory: distinctiveness information
evidence relating how people respond to different objects under similar situation.
You sample across object, if people only behave a certain way towards one object, the distinctiveness is high.
If you behave one way towards all different objects, distinctiveness is low.
to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness)
. If the distinctiveness is high, the behavior is caused by
an object
to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness). If the consensus is high, the behavior is caused by
the person, personal attribution
to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness). If the consistency is high, the behavior is caused by
situational attribution
Need to make inferences when:
- information is incomplete
- there is no time to collect all the necessary information
! People take shortcuts when information or resources are limited
Causal schemas
people have existing ideas about the causes of effects (behavior), which we use to make conclusion (inferences) when information is limited.
Augmenting principle
We think someone is extra impressive when they succeed (causal factors are strong) even though the situation made it harder for them (inhibitory influence).
If someone runs a marathon with an injured leg (inhibitory influence), we think they’re extra tough because they succeeded despite a big challenge.
Discounting principle
We think someone is less impressive when something else could explain why they succeeded.
For example, someone got a good grade on a test but they had a tutor so the cause of the good grade is getting help instead of their own intelligence. The help discounts the idea a person did it on their own.
Limitation of covariation theory
Abnormal condition focus
* People look for causes among the differences between actual and anticipated event sequences
* Observers understand general principles of causality + have access to cognitive scripts telling them how particular kinds of event normally unfold
COVARIATION THEORY CANNOT MAKE CAUSAL INFERENCES
BC THERE IS MORE THAT INFLUENCES BEHAVIOR, OTHER THAN OBJECT, PERSON, SITUATION
we have predisposition to know the power behind a cause instead of observing it to make inferences,
probabilistic contrast
idea that people judge the likelihood of an event happening based on how often they see it happen compared to other events.
The correspondence bias:
people tend to overestimate personal causes of behavior and underestimate situational causes of behavior.
Why does this arise?
* Situational forces can be difficult to detect
* Expectations about behaviour may distort interpretations
* Other demands on cognitive resources may interfere
False consensus bias:
Assumption that other people generally share one’s own
personal attitudes and opinions
correspondance bias is dependent on
- Context
Automatic dispositional inferences only occur if the goal is to understand the person, not the situation - Cultural
Collective (, vs individualist (they would shame the person instead of situ)
learned helplessness
depression results from learning that nothing you do make difference to outcomes you experience (helpless)
why self enhacing and protecting biases
- Motivational explanation
Boosts self-esteem - Cognitive explanation
Heuristics leading to faulty conclusions - Sampling explanation
More information available about self
