Chapter 4 Flashcards
A group of theories that describe how people explain the causes of behaviour.
Attribution theory.
The tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind.
Availability heurisitic.
The finding that people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented in the form of numerical base rates.
Base rate fallacy.
The beleif that individuals get what they deserve in life, an orientation that leads people to disparage victims.
Belief in a just world.
The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited.
Belief perserverance.
Traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions.
Central traits.
The tendency to seek, interpret, and create information that verifies existing beliefs.
Confirmation bias.
The tendency to imagine alternative events our outcomes that might have occurred but did not.
Counterfactual thinking.
The principle of attribution theory that holds that people attribute behavior to factors that are present when a behavior occurs and are absent when it does not.
Covaration principle.
The tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes, and behaviors.
False consensus effect.
The tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situations on other people’s behavior.
Fundemental atribution error.
The process of integrating information about a person to form a coherent impression.
Impression formation.
The theory that impressions are based on (1) perceiver dispositions and (2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits.
Information integration theory.
The process by which people attribute human like mental states to various animate and inanimate object, including other people.
Mind perception.
Behavior that reveals a persons feelings without words through facial expressions, body language, and vocal cues.
Nonverbal behavior.
Attribtuion to internal characteristics of an actor, such as ability, personality, mood, or effort.
Personal attribution.
The tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later.
Primacy effect.
The tendency for recently used or perceived words or ideas to come to mind easily and influence the interpretation of new information.
Priming.
The process by which one’s expectations about a person eventually leads that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Attribution to factors external to an actor, such as the task, other people, or luck.
Situational attribution.
A general term for the processes by which people come to understand one another.
Social perception.
Define social perception.
A general term for the processes by which people to understand one another.
Describe how the perception of other people can be influenced by their physical appearance.
WE form first impression from faces and other aspects of a persons appearance.
Additional research has show that people evaluate quickly, and unconsciously whether a face indicated that person is dominant or submissive and trustworthy or untrustworthy.
In social perception studies, researchers have found that adults who have baby faced features - tend to be seen as warm, kind, naive, weak, honest, and submissive. In contrast, adults who have more mature features - are seen as stronger, more dominant, and more competent.
Human beings are programmed by evolution to respond gently to babyish features so that real babies are treated with tender, loving care.
Define scripts. What are the functions of scripts in social perception?
Scripts: Preset notions about certain types of situations.
Scripts help us anticipate what might happen in a given situation, allowing us to prepare for and interpret the actions of others. They provide a roadmap for how we should behave in specific social contexts, ensuring our actions align with social norms and expectations.
Identify the six “primary” emotions expressed by the face that people can recognize, regardless of culture.
Happiness, sedness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust.
Describe how people use non-verbal cues such as eye contact to judge others.
They enable us to make quick and sometimes accurate judgments of others based on thin slices of expressive behavior. Sometimes these thin slices of behavior are quite accurate.
Which channels of communication are most likely to reveal that someone is lying? Are these channels the same as the channels that perceivers use to detect deception?
The channels of communication that reveal someone is lying include the spoken word, the face, the body, and the voice.
The problem is that none of the cues that people look for (such as shifty eyes) are very telling.
Distinguish between personal and situational attributions.
Personal attribution: Attribution to internal characteristics of an actor, such as ability, personality, mood, or effort.
Situational attribution: Attribution to factors external to an actor, such as a task, other people or luck.
Briefly describe Jones and Davis’s correspondent inference theory.
According to Edward Jonnes and Keith Daivs, each of us tries to understand other people by observing and analyzing their behavior. Their correspondent inference theory predicts that people try to infer from an action whether the act corresponds to enduring personal trait of the actor.
Briefly describe Kelley’s covariation theory.
Kelley theorized that people are much like scientists. They may not observe others in a controlled laboratory, but they too search for clues, make comparisons, and think in terms of experiments.
People make attributions using the covariation priciniple: In order for something to be the cause of a behavior, it must be present when the behavior occurs and absent when it does not. Three kinds of covariation information are useful: Consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
Consensus information to see how different persons react to the same stimulus.
Dintinctivness information to see how the same person reacts to different stimuli.
Consistency information to see what happens to the behavior at another time when the person and the stimuli both remain the same.
What are cognitive heuristics (in general)?
Information processing rules of thumb that enable us to think in ways that are quick and easy, but that often lead to error.
Define the availability heuristic and give a personal example.
Availability heuristic: The tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily instances of it come to mind.
For example, I underestimate the likelihood that I will win the lottery.
Define the false-consensus effect and the base-rate fallacy. Explain how the availability heuristic can give rise to the false-consensus effect and the base-rate fallacy
False consensus effect: The tendency for people to overestimate the extent to which others share their opinions, attributes, and behaviors.
Base rate fallacy: The findings that people are relatively insensitive to consensus information presented int he form of numerical base rates.
With the availability heuristic in the false consensus effect - we tend to associate with others who are like us in important ways, so we are more likely to notice and recall instances of similar rather than dissimilar behavior.
With the base rate fallacy - as long as the personal anecdote is seen as relevant, and the source is credible, and particularly to the extent that it involves someone we know, it seems that one vivid image is worth one thousand words.
Define counter-factual thinking. When is counter-factual thinking likely to occur?
Counterfactual thinking: The tendency to imagine alternative events our outcomes that might have occurred but did not.
Counterfactual thinking tends to revolve around three regrets - education (I should have stayed in school), career (If only I had applied for that job) and romance (If only I had asked her out) - all domains that present us with opportunities that we may or may not realize.
Define the fundamental attribution error. Summarize the two-step-process model that explains the occurrence of the fundamental attribution error. What factors make the fundamental attribution error less likely to occur?
Fundemental attribution error: The tendency to focus on the role of personal auses and underestimate the impact of situations on other people’s behavior.
The problem stems in part from how we make attribtuions. Attribution theorists used to assume that people survey all the evidence and then decide on whether to make a personal a situational attribution. Social perception is a two step process (1) we identify the behavior and make a quick, personal attribtution, then we correct or adjust that inference to account for situational influences.
It is likely to occur when individuals are from collectivist cultures, practice perspective take, and are aware of the error and its implications.
What is the “belief in a just world”? What function does this belief serve?
Belief in a just world: The belief that individuals get what they deserve in life, an orientation that leads people to disparage victims.
It can help victims cope and serve as a buffer against stress.
Describe the summation model and the averaging model of impression formation. Illustrate each model with an example.
Impression formation: The process of integrating information about a person to form a coherent impression.
Suppose you’re told that an applicant if friendly and intelligent, two highly favorable qualities. Would you be more or less impressed if you then learned that this application was also prudent and even-tempered, two moderately favourable qualities? If you are more impressed, then you are intuitively following a summation model of impression formation: the more positive traits there are, the better. If you are less impressed, then you are using an averaging model: The higher the average value of all the various traits, the better.
Describe information integration theory. How do characteristics of the perceiver influence impression formation? How do characteristics of the target influence impression formation?
Information integration theory: The theory that impressions are based on (1) perceiver dispositions and (2) a weighted average of a target person’s traits.
A perceivers mood state can influence the impressions formed of others. This leads researchers to believe that impression formation is in the eye of the beholder. The characteristics we tend to see in other people also change from time to time, depending on recent experiences.
Regarding target characteristics, individuals can reliably be distinguished from one another along the five factor personality characteristics. The valence of a trait - whether it’s considered good or bd - also influence its impact on our final impressions.
Describe implicit personality theory and explain how the assumption of an implicit personality can affect a person’s impression of other people.
Implicit personality theory - a network of assumptions about the relationships among various types of people, traits, and behaviors. Knowing that someone has on trait leads us to infer that he or she has other traits as well.
Solomon Asch first discovered that the presence of one trait, often implies the presence of other traits. Asch concluded that “warm” and “cold” are central traits, meaning that they imply the presence of certain other traits and exert a powerful influence on final impressions.
What are central traits? How do central traits affect a person’s impression of other people?
Central traits: Traits that exert a powerful influence on overall impressions.
According to Solomon Asch that a presenter was “warm” or “cold” their impressions of the presenter were the same after the lecture, despite being given the same lecture.
This is based on the primacy effect. The tendency for information presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later on.
What is the primacy effect with respect to impression formation? Provide two main explanations for the primary effect.
Primacy effect: The tendency for informaiton presented early in a sequence to have more impact on impressions than information presented later.
First, once perceived think they have formed an accurate impression of someone, they tend to pay less attention to subsequent information.
Second, there is the “change of meaning hypothesis”. Once people have formed an impression, they start to interpret inconsistent information in light of that impression.
Describe how people’s beliefs can create the reality they expect (for example, belief perseverance and self-fulfilling prophecy).
Research shows that once people form an opinion, that opinion becomes strengthened just by thinking about the topic. Therein lies a solution to the problem. By asking people to consider why an alternative theory might be true, we can reduce or eliminate the belief perseverance effects to which they are vulnerable.
Belief perseverance: The tendency to maintain beliefs even after they have been discredited.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: The process by which one’s expectations about a person eventually lead that person to behave in ways that confirm those expectations.
