lecture 6 slides Flashcards
social perception
constructing an understanding of the social world from the data we get through our senses… the processes by which we form impressions of other people’s traits and personalities
attribution
we observe others’ behaviour and then infer backward to causes… that explain why people act as they do
- reflective
- what’s their motive
rosenham experiment
- ‘on being sane in insane places’ 1973
- pseudo-patients entering psychiatric hospitals with “schizophrenic” symptoms
- acted normal once admitted
- they were admitted between 7 and 52 days
- all of them were diagnosed with schiz when they said I hear voices
quote from rosenham’s findings
-despite their public “show” of sanity, the pseudo patients were never detected. all admitted except in one case of schiz in “remission” . the evidence is strong that once labelled schiz the pseudopatient was stuck with that label.
what does the rosenham experiment say about social perception and attribution?
- staff used their surroundings and cognitive structures to understand these people as insane
- the staff didn’t expect to meet researchers- they expected to meet mentally ill people
what is a schema?
- a cognitive frame work that helps us to organize and interpret info
- our schemas don’t have to be the same but may share common characteristics
- help us to organize and remember facts, to make inferences, and assess new info
categorization
-tendency to understand phenomena as categoruee- as part of groups- rather than unique entities
prototype
- the most typical instance of a category
- often made up of a set of common attributes
- ex. drummer
different types of schemas
- person schemas
- self schemas
- group schemas (stereotypes)
- role schemas
- event schemas (scripts)
person schema
- individualistic
- cognitive structures that describe a personality
self schema
-characteristics we associate with ourselves and the meanings we associate with them
group schemas
- stereotypes (tend to have negative connotations)
- referrung to a specific group
- tends to be more rigid and widely held (less individualistic)
- ex. gender and race stereotypes
role schemas
- frameworks for certain roles
- attributes and behaviours associated with teacher, doctor etc
event schemas
- “scripts”
- guidelines for navigating an event successfully
why do we use schemas
- help us to organize and understand our complex world
- help us to focus on what is important
- help us to recall more salient/relevant facts
- help us to process info faster
- help to guide our inferences
- reduce ambiguity
disadvantages of schemas
- more accepting of info that fits into current schema (ex. rosenham experiment)
- fill in missing info that fit into pre existing schemas (can lead to innaccurate interpretations)
- reluctant to change schemas
implicit personality theory
- the inference of co occurrnce of personality traite based on another personality trait (ex. being labelled gifted makes u also labelled smart, socially awkward)
- halo effect (tendency to infer that a person has many positive attributed based on a few good ones they have)
- physical attractiveness (beyonce is hot so we assume she is also smart, funny, kind)
implications of implicit personality theory
- can lead to poor judgement
- assumptions about what someone with AIDS looks like can lead to stigma
- can impact ideas about safe sed (someone looks clean so they cannot have HIV)
impression formation
- process of creating a coherent pic of someone based on many sources of info
- trait centrality
- self fulfilling prophecy
- heuristics
trait centrality
- certain traits ranking high in our perception of a person
- impacts overall impression (also impacts how we percieve the other traits associated with the individual)
self fulfilling prophecy
- when we act towards someone based on our impression of them and they reflect that impression back to us
- they react in ways that confirm our original impression
heuristics
- a mental short cut that helps us choose that appropriate schema
- availabilty (recently called upon schemas are more available)
- representativeness (take a few characterisitcsband see if it represents a category) (ex. we assume white male conservatives listen to country)
attribution theory
- the process we use to infer the causes of someone’s behaviour
- in doing so we are able to act effectively in the situation and make inferences about their future actions or behaviours
attribution theory types
- dispositional attribution (internal characteristics)
- situational attribution (environmental factors)
- ex. out of work due to laziness (dispositional)
- ex. economy (situational)
subtractive rule
-subtracting percieved situational forces/ attributions from the implied dispositonal attribution before inferring the strength of the dispostional attribution
two step rule
- inferences regarding personal dispositions
- try to figure out the intentions of the person
- try to figure out what prior dispostion would lead to this action
covariation model of attribution
- refers to multiple observations of a person in multiple situations
- compare across situations and make casual inferences based on this info
- what we do is we attribute behaviour of the factor that is both present when the behaviour occurs and absent when the behaviour fails to occur- the cause that covaries with the behaviours
three types of covariance info
- consistency (one act/ one person and their relationship to a situation)
- ex. teacher always giving you a bad grade
- consensus (many actors to one situation)
- ex. all teachers give you a bad grade
- distinctiveness (one actor and many situations)
- ex. teacher gives everyone bad grades (not distinct)
bias and error in attribution
-we are victims to our biases (leads to misinterpretations, can be awkward or problematic)
fundamental attribution error
- “the tendency to overestimate the importance of personal (dispositonal) factors and underestimate the situational influences
- ignoring the subtractive rule
focus of attention bias
-focusing on certain aspects of the person or situation, we may ignore other influencing factors
actor observer difference
-observer attributed behaviour of actor to internak attributed, whereas, actor attributes their behaviour to the external situation
