Chapter 3-social perceptions and attribution

Question 1

Social perception

Answer 1

• How we perceive other people (characteristics) and how we explain their behavior.
• Collecting and interpreting information about another person’s individual characteristics

Question 2

Central trait

Answer 2

Characteristics we ca apply to a personality. Warm/cold, good/bad, active/passive, strong/weak.

Question 3

Peripheral trait

Answer 3

a trait that does not change the overall perception of a person. Polite/blunt,

Question 4

Primacy effect

Answer 4

Tendency for earlier information to be more influential in social perception and interpretation.

Question 5

Implicit personality theories

Answer 5

we know one thing-assume many other things about that person. E.g. Intelligent people=arrogant

Question 6

Configural model

Answer 6

Asch: Perceivers construct deeper meanings out of bits of information they receive about others.

Question 7

Cognitive algebra

Answer 7

A proposed process for averaging or summing trait information when forming impressions of other people.

Question 8

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 8

False expectation leads to own confirmation.

Question 9

Pygmalion effect

Answer 9

Rosenthal 1968. Student smart: better performance. Student dumb: Worse performance. Connected to self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 10

Attribution theory.

Answer 10

Not really a theory, more an idea. Attribution is making an inference about the cause of
behavior that we observe: “why does someone behave
this way?”

Question 11

Two types of attribution

Answer 11

Internal and external. Character/external reason why we behave like we do

Question 12

Covariation theory

Answer 12

Kelley 1967. We use 3 types of information to help us decide whether an event was caused by internal or external factors:
› Distinctiveness
• How does this actor behave in other situations?
› Consistency
• How does this actor usually behave in this situation?
› Consensus
• How do other actors behave?

Question 13

Non-common effects

Answer 13

belongs to correspondent theory. when both choices have a lot in common and there are thus fewer things which differentiate them?
Gosling vs clooney-young/old=non common effect

Question 14

Correspondence bias

Answer 14

We make many internal attributions for the
behavior of others
» We overestimate the importance of the person
» We underestimate the importance of the
situation

Question 15

Actor-observer effect

Answer 15

Tendency to attribute our own behaviors externally

and others’ behavior internally

Question 16

perceptual salience

Answer 16

We tend to over-estimate the causal role (salience) of information we have available to us. Taylor and Fiske (1975) arranged two people facing each other having a conversation, with other people sat in a circle around them. Afterward, they asked the people from the circle to attribute cause for several incidents. The people attributed more to the people whose faces they could see better.

Question 17

self-serving bias

Answer 17

We are more likely to attribute our successes internally and our failures externally

Question 18

False consensus bias

Answer 18

Assumption that people share the same personal attitudes and opinions.

Question 19

Etic approach

Answer 19

Universal characteristics of people determine our behavior.

Question 20

Emic approach

Answer 20

Characteristics of culture, situation, moment that determine our behavior.

Question 21

Attributional biases

Answer 21

Systematic errors made when people evaluate or try to find reasons for their own and other’s behavior
Correspondence bias: behavior is an reflection of an actors corresponding internal disposition (aggressive behavior reflect aggressive personality)

Question 22

Salience

Answer 22

A set of reasons that draws an observer’s attention toward a particular object

Question 23

Augmenting principle

Answer 23

The assumption that causal factors need to be stronger if an inhibitory influence on an observed effect is present. The converse of discounting principle.
Cyclist is going fast up a hill=conclude that she was able to pedal strongly enough to override the slopes power to slow her down.

Question 24

Averaging

Answer 24

Perceives compute the mean value of pieces of information about a person when other information is strongly positive, additional mildly positive information yields as a less positive impression.
Warm and boring=less positive impression
Warm and interesting=positive impression
Cold and boring=negative impression where warm and boring is better

Question 25

Casual attribution

Answer 25

The social process whereby social perceives arrive at conclusions about the causes of another persons behavior

Question 26

Casual power

Answer 26

An intrinsic property of an object or event that enables it to exert influence on some other object or event

Question 27

Causal schema

Answer 27

We fill in missing information by reference to our existing schemas.

Question 28

Central trait

Answer 28

Characteristics viewed by social perceivers as integral to the organization of personality (warm/cold)

Question 29

Cognitive algebra

Answer 29

A proposed process for averaging or summing trait information when forming an impression of someone.

Question 30

Configural model

Answer 30

Perceivers construct deeper meanings out of bits of information they receive about others.

Question 31

Consensus information

Answer 31

How different actors behave differently towards the same object.

• Hermoine: This class is boring
• Your friends: This class is fun
• You: Make a person attribution about Hermione as a boring person.

Question 32

Consistency information

Answer 32

Evidence relating to how an actor’s behavior towards an object differ across situations and times.

• Hermoine: This class is boring; she only say it in front of other people to seem cool(low consistency)
• Say it in different situations (high consistency)

Question 33

Correspondent inference theory

Answer 33

proposes that observers infer correspondent intentions and dispositions for observed intentional behavior under certain circumstances.
-Observers work out why actions are performed by comparing the effects of the selected action with those alternatives unselected actions. -Connected to analysis of non-common effects, why we choose what we chose

Question 34

covariation theory

Answer 34

Kelley’s question: What kind of
information do individuals use
to infer whether an outcome is
due to internal (person) or
external (situation, entity)
causes?
› We use 3 types of information to help us decide whether an
event was caused by internal or external factors:
› Distinctiveness
• How does this actor behave in other situations?
› Consistency
• How does this actor usually behave in this situation?
› Consensus
• How do other actors behave?

Question 35

Depressive realism

Answer 35

The idea that depressed people have a more realistic view of the world than non-depressed people.

Question 36

Discounting principle

Answer 36

Kelley. If we already believe that we have the answer to why something happens, we rule out alternatives.

Question 37

Distinctiveness information

Answer 37

Evidence relating to how an observer responds to different objects under similar circumstances.

Question 38

False consensus bias

Answer 38

The assumption that people generally share one’s own personal attitudes and opinions.

Question 39

Learned helplessness bias

Answer 39

The proposal that depression results from learning that outcomes are not contingent on one’s behavior. Give up because you learned by experience that you ‘‘can’t do it’’.

Question 40

Naive scientist model

Answer 40

A metaphor for how social information is processed, the assumption that people seek to understand the social world in a scientific manner, but sometimes get it wrong. Perhaps some of our everyday explanations are not designed to provide a neutral characterization of reality in the first place.

Question 41

probabilistic contrast

Answer 41

Cheng. A comparison when you do something frequently and then compare it to the absence of not doing it.

Question 42

Self-serving attributional biases

Answer 42

Sometimes people interpret social situations in the way it suits them.

Question 43

summation

Answer 43

perceivers add together information about a person to construct a meaning based on their ideas about how different personality characteristics hang together.

Question 44

What is the difference between correspondence inference theory and covariation theory?

Answer 44

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