Person Perception and Attribution Flashcards
what is the ‘raw material’ that we base person perception on, and which theorist did this?
-physical appearances
-behaviour
-situational factors
-communications from other people
-communications from the person themselves
Icheiser 1949
what theorist came up with the typology of personality misperceptions?
Ichesier 1949
explain ‘the tendency to overestimate the unity of personality’
people tend to overestimate how similarly a person acts in different situations
explain ‘stereotyped classifications’
people may form a perception of someone’s personality based off of stereotypes
explain ‘limits of insight’
people only know their own experiences, not other peoples, therefore they are limited in their knowledge to be able to form a perception of others personalities
explain ‘mechanisms of rigidity’
people tend to assume that personality is stable overtime and underestimate the amount it changes across time
what is ‘primacy effects’ and name the theorist?
the order in which we learn about traits can affect our whole perception of a person
Asch 1946, experiment 6
gave participants two lists of traits, one with positive traits first and one with negative traits first.
participants were asked to give descriptions of the two different people.
the person with positive traits first was given a more positive description
what is ‘central traits’ and name the theorist?
there are some traits which have more of an impact than others when forming perceptions of people
Asch 1946, experiment 1
gave participants two lists of traits, all the same apart from one was ‘warm’ and one was ‘cold’
participants asked to give descriptions
‘warm’ described more positively than ‘cold’
what are the two ‘fundamental traits’ and name the theorsits?
warmth and competence - fiske, cuddy, glick 2007
what is the attribution theory?
it suggests that people make causal explanations for their own and others behaviours
what are the two types of attribution?
dispositional - internal
situational - external
what is the correspondent inference theory?
describes the conditions under which we make dispositional attributions of others’ behaviours
what are the three cues to make a correspondent inference?
- chosen
- social desirability
- social roles
describe a study supporting correspondence bias
Jones and Harris 1967 - p’s read essays on castro’s cuba and told the students wrote them in response to instructions: write a criticism, defence, or choose which one.
p’s asked to estimate their true attitude towards castro. even if students were told to write a criticism, p’s still rated that they have a negative view of castro
what is correspondence bias?
tendency to draw inferences about a person’s dispositions from behaviour that can be entirely explained by situational factors
