Chapter 3 - social perception and attribution

Question 1

social perception

Answer 1

how we perceive and interpret info about the characteristics of others

Question 2

What has influence of social perception

Answer 2

1. central or pheripal trait
2. 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

Question 3

central trait

Answer 3

a trait that is fundamental in how someone’s personality is overall viewed by other social perceivers.

Question 4

peripheral trait

Answer 4

a trait which presence does not significantly change the way social perceivers interpret a persons personality.

Question 5

Implicit personality theory

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Configural model

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Cognitive algebra

Answer 7

A proposed proces in which social perceivers average or sum trait info when they for a impression of a person.

Question 8

self fulfilling prophecy

Answer 8

a person’s expectations about a situation or another person cause them to act in ways that make those expectations come true.

Question 9

causal attribution

Answer 9

the process in which people try to come up with a conclusion about the cause of the behavior of another person.

Question 10

attribution theory

Answer 10

• 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.

Question 11

self attribution

Answer 11

explaining the causes of your own behavior to yourself.

Question 12

The idea about the attribution theory are dispositional influences, which are

Answer 12

people try to identify personal dispositions (the characteristics of a person) that account (verklaren, explain) other peoples behavior

Question 13

Advantages of drawing dispositional
inferences?

Answer 13

• allows us to make sense of disorganized info about others
• allows us to make predicitons of future behavior

Question 14

correspondent inference theory (theory on how we form impressions of others)

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Analysis of non-common effects

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Correspondence bias = fundamental attribution error

Answer 16

people tend to overestimate personal causes of behavior and underestimate situational causes of behavior.

Question 17

Covartion theory (theory on how we form impression of others)

Answer 17

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

Question 18

evidence for covariation theory: consensus information

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

evidence for covariation theory: consistency information

Answer 19

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

Question 20

evidence for covariation theory: distinctiveness information

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness)
. If the distinctiveness is high, the behavior is caused by

Answer 21

an object

Question 22

to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness). If the consensus is high, the behavior is caused by

Answer 22

the person, personal attribution

Question 23

to make an conclusion about behavior, you collect all info (CCD, consensus, consistency, distinctiveness). If the consistency is high, the behavior is caused by

Answer 23

situational attribution

Question 24

Need to make inferences when:

Answer 24

• information is incomplete
• there is no time to collect all the necessary information

! People take shortcuts when information or resources are limited

Question 25

Causal schemas

Answer 25

people have existing ideas about the causes of effects (behavior), which we use to make conclusion (inferences) when information is limited.

Question 26

Augmenting principle

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Discounting principle

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

Limitation of covariation theory

Answer 28

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,

Question 29

probabilistic contrast

Answer 29

idea that people judge the likelihood of an event happening based on how often they see it happen compared to other events.

Question 30

The correspondence bias:

Answer 30

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

Question 31

False consensus bias:

Answer 31

Assumption that other people generally share one’s own
personal attitudes and opinions

Question 32

correspondance bias is dependent on

Answer 32

1. Context
   Automatic dispositional inferences only occur if the goal is to understand the person, not the situation
2. Cultural
   Collective (, vs individualist (they would shame the person instead of situ)

Question 33

learned helplessness

Answer 33

depression results from learning that nothing you do make difference to outcomes you experience (helpless)

Question 34

why self enhacing and protecting biases

Answer 34

• Motivational explanation
  Boosts self-esteem
• Cognitive explanation
  Heuristics leading to faulty conclusions
• Sampling explanation
  More information available about self