Exam 2 (chapters 5, 6, and 9) Flashcards
Define actor-observer effect
The tendency people have to make dispositional inferences for others’ behaviors but situational attributions for their own
Define belief in a just world
The idea that people have to believe that the world is fair, and that they adjust their other beliefs to maintain that stance by concluding that bad things happen to bad people and that good things happen to good people
Define belief perseverance
Holding on to one’s beliefs, even in the face of contradictory evidence
Define correspondence bias
The tendency of people to make dispositional attributions for others’ behaviors
Define correspondent inference theory
The theory that people base their inferences regarding the source of others’ behaviors on whether or not the behavior was freely chosen, if the consequences are distinctive, and if the behavior was socially desirable
Define covariation theory
The theory that people base their inferences regarding the source of others’ behaviors on whether or not there is a consensus regarding the way one ought to respond, the distinctiveness of the response, and the consistency of the person’s response across situations
Define fundamental attribution error
A more commonly known name for the correspondence bias. The scientific community now leans toward using “correspondence bias” so as not to suggest that these inferences are inherently in “error”
Define dispositional attribution
Inferring that a person’s traits, something internal, caused their behavior
Define the halo effect
When one positive thing is known or believed about a target person, we tend to infer that the individual is positive overall and thus has other positive features
Define the need for cognition
The need that some individuals have to think, solve problems, and understand their world accurately
Define nonverbal cues
Behaviors, gestures, and expressions that convey thought or emotion without words
Define the primacy effect
The phenomenon whereby the first pieces of information to which we are exposed have the most impact on our judgements
Define the recency effect
The phenomenon whereby the last pieces of information to which we are exposed have heightened impact on our judgements, relative to information received in the middle
Define self-verification
The motivation of an individual for others to know them accurately, including their negative features
Define situational attribution
Inferring that the situation in which a person is in, something external to the person, caused their behavior
Define spontaneous trait interference
The process of automatically inferring traits from another person’s behavior
Define the three-stage model of attribution
A model in which an observer automatically characterizes a behavior, automatically makes a dispositional inference, and then uses conscious effort to correct for situational constraints if the observer has the cognitive capacity to do so
Define the what is beautiful is good effect
The phenomenon wherein beautiful things are imbued with positivity and activate positive things in the mind
Which of these emotions is not one of the core six, recognizable by the same facial expressions across cultures?
a) fear
b) anger
c) sympathy
d) disgust
Sympathy
Why are we bad at detecting deception?
a) we assume people are honest
b) we don’t attend to cues that would reveal deception
c) we aren’t lied to very often so we don’t have much experience with it
d) we endorse stereotypes about what nonverbal behaviors mean
We assume people are honest
When are we more likely to make a dispositional attribution?
a) if we are from a collectivistic culture
b) when we are judging our own behavior
c) when we have a high need for cognition
d) when we are judging others’ behavior
When we are judging others’ behavior
Which of these influences impressions the least?
a) primacy
b) concentration
c) recency
d) centrality of that trait to personality
Concentration
Belief in a just world doesn’t arise from:
a) a desire to believe that things happen for a reason
b) a belief that we are good, so good things should happen to us
c) efforts to ameliorate anxiety about our futures
d) depressive episodes
Depressive episodes
How long does it take to form an impression of someone?
a) as soon as we learn one fact about that person
b) 0.1 second after exposure
c) as soon as we learn one central feature of that person
d) one second after exposure
0.1 second after exposure
Why did changing a person’s description from including “warm” to including “cold” have such a profound effect on impressions of that person in Asch’s 1946 study?
a) because it was presented last
b) because it was central to personality
c) because people were asked to form impressions based on all the words
d) because people focus on visceral words
Because it was central to personality
Exposure to a beautiful face can do all of these except:
a) activate other positive things in memory
b) make you more helpful toward that person
c) make you more helpful in general
d) make women portray themselves as less intelligent
Make you more helpful in general
You meet an employee in your company who is described as “diligent”. You later remember them as being hardworking. This is an example of:
a) the halo effect
b) confirmation bias
c) correspondence bias
d) the primacy effect
The halo effect
In the study by Snyder and Swann (1978), if a participant believed that a target person was an introvert, what kind of questions would the participant ask the target?
a) questions about introverted activities
b) questions about extroverted activities
c) questions about their hobbies
d) none; since the person was not socially oriented, there was no point
Questions about introverted activities
Why were the 2016 election polls so wrong?
Many upper middle class white people didn’t want to admit they liked Trump
The NYT said that Hillary Clinton had a ___% chance of winning the 2016 election as late as election day
The NYT said that Hillary Clinton had a 85% chance of winning the 2016 election as late as election day
The NYT overestimated the turn out of educated _______ voters
non-white
Why is it hard to predict if someone will actually vote the way they say they will?
People say things just to look good, and predicting behavior is hard
What was the La Pierre study?
There were negative attitudes against Asian Americans after WWII, so he took an Asian American couple to 134 hotels to see if they’d rent them a room. Most hotels had the official policy of not renting to Asian people, but in reality most did let the couple rent a room
Give an example of measuring attitudes of others
Jury selection
Which of the following is more predictive of behavior?
a) emotion
b) cognition
c) vibes
a) emotion
_____ is far more predictive of behavior than cognition
Emotion
Attitude = _____ + ______
Attitude = emotion + cognition
List some predictors of behavior
Emotion, knowledge, rehearsal, and attitudes
Define cognitive dissonance
When you do something that goes against your beliefs and you feel very bad for it. Oftentimes since you can’t change what you did, you’ll change your attitude/ beliefs to match your behavior.
Describe the the “blue eyed kids” example given in the cognitive dissonance video shown in class
Your parents tell you that kids with blue eyes are bad and to stay away from them. You eventually run into some and they’re normal people. You can either 1) change your behavior and treat them like normal people or 2) change your attitude and go back to believing they’re somehow bad