Social Perception

Question 1

Schemata

Answer 1

mental framework based on personal and social experiences

help us process and organize information

Question 2

People pay more attention to evidence that _______ their schemata

Answer 2

confirms

Question 3

Prototypes are more ______ than schemata, and consist of…

Answer 3

abstract

consist of knowledge about the most ideal example of a particular category

Question 4

Scripts are also known as ________ _______, and provide knowledge about…

Answer 4

event schemas

provide knowledge about the appropriate sequence of behaviors in social situations

Question 5

Central traits

Answer 5

Traits that carry more weight than others

I.e., warm and cold are central traits

positive view of people described as intelligent, skillful, warm, determined, practical, cautious

negative view of people described as intelligent, skillful, cold, determined, practical, cautious

warm and cold are central traits because they hold more weight than other traits

Question 6

Types of Attributions include…

Answer 6

Dispositional (internal) vs. Situational (external)

Stable (consistent, i.e., intelligence, personality) vs. Unstable (temporary, i.e., fatigue)

Specific (limited number of events) vs. Global (occur in many situations)

Question 7

Fundamental Attribution Error

Answer 7

When we overestimate the role of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factors

Question 8

Actor-Observer Effect

Answer 8

The tendency to make different attributions about our own behaviors compared to the behaviors of others

Question 9

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 9

We’re more likely to blame external factors for our failures and internal factors for our successes

except for depressed people (learned helplessness) - attribute failures to internal, stable, and global factors

Question 10

Heuristics

Answer 10

Mental shortcuts
Rules of thump

Question 11

Representative Heuristics involve…

Answer 11

basing your judgment on whether or not someone/something belongs to a particular category on how similar they are to the category

Question 12

Availability Heuristics involve…

Answer 12

judging the likelihood of an event based on how easy it is to retrieve info about the event from your long-term memory

Question 13

Simulation Heuristics involve…

Answer 13

using mental simulations (imagination) of an event to determine the likelihood of the event happening

if you can easily imagine it, you’re more likely to predict it will happen

Question 14

Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics involve…

Answer 14

Using an initial value (anchor) as the basis for making a judgment

if a seller says he usually sells an item at $10, your offer would be closer to $10 than if he told you he usually sells it at $5

Question 15

Base Rate Fallacy

Answer 15

Tendency to rely on case-specific information instead of base-rate data

Question 16

Confirmation Bias

Answer 16

Tendency to pay attention to information that confirms one’s beliefs

and

ignore/invalidate information that does not.

Question 17

Illusory Correlation

Answer 17

Belief that two things are related when they’re actually not

explanation: it’s a result of a schema that links two variables

Question 18

False Consensus Effect

Answer 18

Occurs when we overestimate the degree to which beliefs/opinions/behaviors of others is similar to our own

Question 19

Gambler’s Fallacy

Answer 19

Tendency to believe that the likelihood of a chance event is effected by the occurrence of previous events- even though there’s no relationship between the two