chapter 7 * Flashcards
actor-observer difference
the bias in attribution whereby actors tend to see their own behaviour as due to characteristics of the external situation, whereas observers tend to attribute actors’ behaviour to the actors’ internal, personal characteristics
attribution
the process by which people make infefences about the cause of behaviour or attitudes
belief perseverance
a tendency to continue to view an intial assumption as correct despite evidence to the contradictory
categorization
the tendency to percieve stimuli as members of groups or classes rather than as isolated entities; the act of encoding stimuli as members of classes
complexity-extremity effect
the bias where less complex schemas lead to more extreme judegments and evaluations
confirmation bias
the tendency to focus on info relevant to a belief and ignoring or downplaying info that is inconsistent with that belief
dispositional attribution
attributing a behaviour to the internal state(s) of the person who performed it rather than to factors in that person’s environment
focus-of-attention bias
the tendency to overestimate the casual impact of whomever or whatever we focus our attention on
fundamental attribution error
the tendency to underestimate the importance of situational influences and to overestimate personal, dispositional factors as causes of behaviours
gender schema
characteristics and behaviour that we expect from men versus women
halo effect
the tendency of our general or overall liking for a person to influence our assessment of more specific traits of that person. The halo effect can produce inaccuracy in our ratings of others’ traits and performances
heuristics
mental shortcuts that allow individuals to quickly select and apply schemas to new or ambiguous situations
implicit personality theory
a set of unstated assumptions about which personality traits are correlated with one another
impression formation
the process of organizing diverse info into a unified impression of a person
learned helplessness
occurs when individuals focus on past failures and conclude that they are incapable of achieving success.
locus of control
the percieved cause of events in one’s life.
primacy effect
the tendency, when forming an impression, to be most influenced by the earliest info recieved. The primacy effect accounts for the fact that first impressions are especially powerful
prototype
in person perception, an abstraction that represents the “typical” or quintessential instance of a class or group
recency effect
the tendecy, when forming an impression, to he most influenced by the latest info recieved
schema
a specific cognitive structure that organizes the processing of the complex info about other persons, groups, and situations. our schemas guide what we percieve in the environment, how we organize info in memory, and what inferences and judgements we make about people and things
self-fulfilling prophecy
when persons behave toward another person according to a label (impression) and cause the person to respond in ways that confirm the label
self serving bias
in attribution, the tendency for people to take personal credit for acts that yield positive outcomes and to defelct blame for bad outcomes by attributing them to external causes
situational attribution
attributing a behaviour to environmental forces facing the person who performed it rather than to that person’s internal state
social perception
the process through which we construct an understanding of the social world out of the data we obtain through our senses; more narrowly defined, the processed through which we use available info to form impressions of people
stereotype threat
the suspucion a member of a group holde that they will be judged based on a common stereotype of the group
stereotypes
fixed sets of characteristics that are attributed to all the members of a group; simplistic and rigid perceptions of members of one group that are widely shared by others
subtractive rule
when making attributions about the influence of personal dispositions on a behaviour, the observer subtracts the perceived impact of situational forces from the personal disposition implied by the behaviour itself.
subtyping
a process through which percievers create subcategories of stereotyper groups who serve as expectations to the rule without threatening the overarching stereotype. cognitive strategies like these help people explain away contradictory info and preserve stereotypes
trait centrality
a personality trait has a high level of trait centrality when info about a person’s standing on that trait has a large impact on the overall impression that others form of that person. the warm-cold trait, for instance, is highly central
person schemas
are cognitive structures that describe the personalities of others. person schemas can apply either to specific individuals or to types of individuals. person schemas organize our conceptions of others’ personalities and enable us to develop expectations about others’ behaviour
self schemas
structures that organize our conception of our own characeristics
group schemas
also called stereotypes, are schemas regarding the members of a particular social gorup or social category
role schemas
indicate which attributes and behaviours are typical of persons occupying a particular role in a group.
event schemas
also called scripts are schemas regarding important, recurring social events
how do schemas help us focus on what is important
1) they influence our capacity to recall info by making certain kinds of facts more salient and easier to remember
2) they help us process info faster
3) they guide our inferences and judgements about people and objects
4) they allow us to reduce ambiguity by providing a way to interpret ambiguous elements in the situation
schematic memory
- human memory is laregly reconstructive
- three types of info
- material consistent with schemas
- material contradictory to schemas
- material irrelevant to schemas
schematic inference
-schemas affect the inferences we make about the persons and other social entities
schematic judgement
-schemas can influence our judgements or feelings about persons and other entities
origins of stereotypes
some theorists suggest that stereotypes arise out of direct experience with some members of the stereotyper group
first impressions
-even before studying soc psych you surely notucer the effort individuals make to create a good impression when interviewing for a new job.. etc
anchoring and adjustment
when faced with making a judgement on something we know very little about, we grasp any cues we can find to help us make a decent guess. oftentimes we will use some particular standard as a starting point. such a starting point is called an anchor , and our modufication relative to the anchor is called adjustment.
commonality
because many acts have multiple effects, however, observers attributing specific intentions and dispositions find it informative to observe the actir in situations that involve choices betweeeb alternative actions
